After finishing fifth in the Tour of Poland yesterday, Danilo Di Luca (Liquigas-Bianchi) is closer to winning the inaugural ProTour classification at the end of this season. With four races left in the series and a maximum of 180 points to be earned, Di Luca's lead over his still competing rivals is sizeable. The Italian has 209 points, 69 more than Jan Ullrich and 70 more than Lance Armstrong, neither of whom will race any more this season. And a glance at the names in the top 10 reveals a similar story: Vinokourov, Leipheimer, Julich, Hincapie, Petacchi, Rebellin, Boonen will mostly not be racing the final three ProTour races after the World Championships.
One possible scenario is that either Petacchi or Boonen wins the World's, then goes onto win Paris-Tours, while Di Luca scores zero points in either the World's, Zurich, Paris-Tours, and Lombardia - an unlikely prognostic.
