Giro d'Italia: Simon Yates in command ahead of final week

Britain's Simon Yates has been dominating the first two weeks of the 2018 Giro d'Italia and is now the big favourite to win the overall classification at the end of the race. The Mitchelton-Scott rider grabbed his third stage victory in this year's race on Sunday, when he attacked with 18 kilometers left, surprising his rivals and gaining significant amounts of time. Team Sky's Chris Froome lost over a minute to Yates on Sunday's stage, while last year's winner Tom Dumoulin of Team Sunweb lost 41 seconds. Adam Yates now has a lead of 2 minutes and 11 seconds on Tom Dumoulin and he could become the first British rider to win the Tour of Italy. Moreover, Yates has also equaled a record that was set in 2003 by Gilberto Simoni: three stages won while wearing the pink jersey. However, Dumoulin is the favourite for Tuesday's time-trial and he could even steal the pink jersey off Yates' back. "It's a good gap but Dumoulin could take two minutes out of me in a time trial," Yates admitted. "I've been fighting since Israel to have a good gap. I'm happy with that gap but it could disappear in 35km. We'll have to see." Italian climber Domenico Pozzovivo is third in the overall classification, 2 minutes and 28 seconds behind Yates, but he is also bound to lose time to Dumoulin on Tuesday. However, the climbers can regain some time before the end of the Giro because there will be three consecutive mountain stages with extremely tough climbs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. "It was super, super hard. The whole day was a big fight and at the end, I had nothing left anymore, but being third after a day like that, feeling like that, I think I can be very proud," Dumoulin said after Sunday's stage. "Simon Yates is just too strong for me at the moment." Simon Yates is 4/9 at Bet365 to win this year's Giro d'Italia, while Tom Dumoulin is 11/2 to win the race.