Stage 9

The road

At the start

Etna, and 4,000 metres of climbing

Weening still has pink and Contador has quietly moved up to fifth, thirteen seconds down, after chasing Oscar Gatto to the line in Tropea. Today the race crosses to Sicily for its first real mountain: 169 kilometres and four thousand metres of climbing, over the lower slopes of Etna, along the coast at Acireale, and then back up the volcano to the finish.

How it was won

1. 128 km to go

   The gap goes the wrong way

   Twenty-eight kilometres out, just as the chase looks to have measured it, the break's advantage jumps from 3:32 back up to 4:27. Etna is still in front of everybody and nobody is sure who is bluffing.

2. 213 km to go

   Four on the volcano

   Lastras, Visconti, Frank and Bakelants come clear of what is left of the escape with 2:30 and thirteen kilometres of black lava road to the top. Bakelants fancies emulating De Clercq and goes alone.

3. 310 km to go

   Rujano lights the fuse

   Ten kilometres out Jose Rujano launches from the favourites' group, tiny and out of the saddle, riding the way he rode here in 2005 when nobody had heard of him.

4. 47 km to go

   Contador answers on Etna

   6.7 kilometres from the summit Contador stands on it, and the effect is instant and brutal. Scarponi clings on for a few hundred metres and is gone; Nibali, Kreuziger and Garzelli are riding a different race by the time the Spaniard reaches Rujano's wheel. It is the attack from Arcalis two years ago, transplanted onto a volcano.

5. 51 km to go

   1,500 metres

   Rujano has hung on longer than anybody expected and it earns him nothing. Contador changes gear once more inside the last 1,500 metres and rides away from him into the ash.

6. 6At the line

   Mount Etna

   Contador crosses first and takes the maglia rosa, and the Giro looks decided on its ninth day. Two years later the Court of Arbitration for Sport strips his 2011 season and the stage passes to Rujano, the man who was on his wheel and could not hold it.

The result