Stage 9

The road

At the start

Brambilla in pink, 40km of Chianti

Gianluca Brambilla took the maglia rosa out of a breakaway in Arezzo, and defends it today over forty kilometres of Chianti hills — the longest time trial of the race and the first honest reckoning between the favourites. Zakarin is at twenty-three seconds, Kruijswijk at thirty-three, Valverde at thirty-six, Nibali at forty-five. Marcel Kittel does not start; three more sprinters missed the time limit yesterday.

How it was won

1. 129 km to go

   First check in the Chianti

   Eleven kilometres in and the gaps are already ugly: Majka is 50 seconds down, Urán over a minute, while Nibali, Landa and Valverde are all within ten seconds of one another.

2. 210 km to go

   The rain arrives, and Roglič leads

   A heavy shower sweeps the vineyards and ruins the afternoon for the men still to come. At the check on top of the last climb Primož Roglič has moved into the lead; Zakarin and Urán are three minutes adrift with ten kilometres left.

3. 3At the line

   Roglič, out of nowhere

   A former ski jumper in his first Grand Tour takes the Chianti time trial. Dumoulin salvages a move back into the top ten; Urán, Zakarin and Chaves all drop out of it.

The result