Dumoulin remains unproven in a mountainous final week. He's clearly the favourite now, but he still has a tough week of five consecutive mountain stages to face and, history shows, that the type of rider he is can struggle with that.
He was a few minutes ahead of Pantani entering the final week. Lost all of that in one stage in the Dolomites, then collapsed the next day and lost 30 minutes.
Dumoulin remains unproven in a mountainous final week. He's clearly the favourite now, but he still has a tough week of five consecutive mountain stages to face and, history shows, that the type of rider he is can struggle with that.
Just look at Alex Zulle in 1998 as an example.