Stage 9

The road

At the start

Blockhaus, and the first real reckoning

Nine days in and the classification is still a fiction: Juan Pedro López leads by 38 seconds from Lennard Kämna, with Simon Yates at 1:42 and João Almeida at 1:58 among the men who actually came to win this. Today ends that. Five thousand metres of climbing out of Isernia, the Passo Lanciano, and then 13.6 kilometres of Blockhaus at 8.4 per cent — unvisited since Quintana won here in 2017.

How it was won

1. 144 km to go

   Over the Passo Lanciano

   The day's move is disintegrating on the penultimate climb, with Diego Rosa left alone at the front and the huge continuous ascent to Blockhaus still to come.

2. 214 km to go

   Ineos start the real climb

   Dombrowski caught and attacked Rosa but never held more than thirty-five seconds. As the race passes Roccamorice and swings onto 13.6km at 8.4%, Ineos ramp up the pressure and everything left of the break is swallowed.

3. 38 km to go

   The maglia rosa loses the wheel

   Ciccone has already gone. Now a touch of wheels breaks Juan Pedro López's rhythm and he comes off the back with eight kilometres to climb — but he will fight all the way to the summit to keep his jersey. Simon Yates, meanwhile, is drifting towards a catastrophic eleven minutes.

4. 45 km to go

   Carapaz makes his move

   With four and a half kilometres of Blockhaus left the Ecuadorian goes hard, and only Bardet and a resilient Mikel Landa can hold him. It is the first real GC blow of this Giro.

5. 52 km to go

   Landa tries, six come together

   Landa attacks again inside the last two kilometres and Carapaz answers instantly with Bardet in tow. But Almeida, Pozzovivo and — crucially — Jai Hindley all claw their way back, and six riders approach the line together.

6. 6At the line

   Hindley wins Blockhaus by a tyre

   Nobody can shake anybody, so the biggest mountain of the first half of the Giro is settled with a sprint. Jai Hindley comes off the wheels and takes it from Bardet and Carapaz by an astonishingly narrow margin, and behind them López somehow rides into pink for another week.

The result