Greipel makes it three straight for Lotto-Soudal

Two days ago Andre Greipel made up for lost ground on sprint rival Marcel Kittel by winning his sprint by as many lengths as the impressive Kittel had in his two combined. Which was no mean feat given how dominant Kittel had been. Today, on the 211km stage seven from Sulmona to Foligno, Greipel won again and in doing so matched Kittel for race wins at this Giro and moved into the red jersey as points leader ahead of his fellow countryman, 119 to 106.

Greipel's two sprint victories came without Kittel present however (the first had Kittel missing after being dropped on prior climbs, the second seen Kittel puncture with 5km to go), but his wins sandwiched the win of his team-mate Tim Wellens on stage 6 and thus made it three wins in-a-row for the likeable Lotto-Soudal team.

They may not lead the overall team competition (they're only 16th, 14min 58sec behind Astana), but they now have Greipel in the points and Wellens in the King of the Mountains jerseys. Clearly the target for Lotto is stage wins in this Giro, and they're getting it done. You get the impression there is more wins in Greipel and certainly Wellens and that still leaves names like Adam Hansen, Lars Bak, Jurgen Roelandts and Jelle Vanendert who can all win a Grand Tour stage.

No major changes overall though Ryder Hesjedal lost a handful of seconds yet again when he was caught in a late split that cost him 9sec. It also caught out Orica GreenEdge's GC hopeful, Esteban Chaves as well as Michele Scarponi.