Giro d'Italia: Wout van Aert triumphs on strade bianche to win stage 9

Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) clapped his doubters about the ears with an emphatic victory on stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia, out-sprinting Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates XRG) into the Piazza del Campo in Siena.

The duo were part of a group that bridged to the breakaway on the second sector of gravel on the 181km stage, and, after leaving attacker Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) behind, gained enough time to put Del Toro into the maglia rosa.

Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) won the sprint from the chasing group, 58 seconds behind Van Aert, with Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Simon Yates (Visma-Lease a Bike), Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates XRG), Bernal and Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates XRG) rounding out the top 10 on the stage.

The stage was a minor disaster for Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who was caught up in a crash on the second sector and finished 2:22 behind the stage winner.

Today's victory was Van Aert's first since injuring his knee in the Vuelta a España last year, and the result makes up for months of criticism from the Belgian media after his winless spring.

"This victory means a lot to me. I almost cannot explain it," Van Aert said. "It had to be here, I believe, because this place is where my road career started back in 2018. To win this stage after a long period without delivering, finally again, it feels so good."

Van Aert apologised for not working with Del Toro throughout the final kilometres.

"I have to say [Del Toro] did such an amazing ride. I felt a bit shit to not pull too much with him, because obviously he's also a competitor for my teammate, Simon Yates, and had to leave the work to him. But still, it was so close to beat him. I had to fight all the way to the top, to the streets of Siena. I know the final pretty well, I needed to do the move in the last three corners."

Speaking after the race, Primož Roglič took a somewhat more philosophical view of the day's events. "We will see at the end what it means - today we lose this minute - sometimes you lose, sometimes you win," he said.

"It's still a long way - first I need to check the wounds, try to recover and see how to approach it for the next ones," Roglič added.

How it Unfolded

The Giro d'Italia peloton was reduced to 172 riders with the abandon of Koen Bouwman (Jayco-AlUla) as they set off from Gubbio for the highly anticipated 'strade bianche' stage of the race.

With dark clouds looming on the horizon, the breakaway clipped off with little resistance from the rest of the bunch. Five riders: Kaden Groves and Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck), their former teammate Dries De Bondt (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale) and Milan Fretin (Cofidis) were the first to go clear.

Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarche-Wanty) attacked to get across and was quickly joined by Luke Lamperti (Soudal-Quickstep). Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) tried to join the pair, but decided otherwise. It took Lamperti and Van der Hoorn a while to get across what was the breakaway's maximum gap of three minutes. Eventually, the quartet decided to slow up and let them join, which they did with 160km still to race.

From there on, the escapees were kept on a short leash. The peloton kept pushing at a rapid pace and held the six men up front to 1:30 for the bulk of the run-up to the gravel sectors.

De Bondt led the breakaway through the first intermediate sprint in Mercatale after 46.6km of racing, while Hermans claimed the maximum prize atop the first classified climb, La Cima, at kilometre 52.6.

Fretin overcooked a turn on the descent, but was up quickly and getting a spare bike further down the road. The incident slowed the breakaway, but once they got reorganised, their advantage went back out to 1:30. De Bondt led the escape through the second sprint in Sinalunga with 89.4km remaining.

Pieve a Salti (8.0 km) - Pedersen shatters the peloton

The sun came out over the breakaway as they hit the first gravel sector with 68km to go. In the peloton behind, Van Aert led a full-on lead-out for the entrance to the sector, with Richard Carapaz slotting in near the front as they made the right turn into the gravel.

The surge in pace reduced the breakaway's gap to 1:15, and it fell further throughout the eight-kilometre stretch of gravel once ciclamino jersey wearer Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) came to the front and drilled the pace.

In the breakaway, Fretin was struggling at the back with Groves and De Bondt as Van der Hoorn, Hermans, and Lamperti opened up a significant gap on the descent. But when the sector began to climb, Groves made it back to the leaders.

Groves and Hermans left Van der Hoorn and Lamperti behind on the climb, expanding a gap that had been as low as 38 seconds back out to 45.

Pedersen's no-brakes descent spooked the peloton, too, with gaps forming all up and down the long line of chasers. Midway through the sector, Pedersen swept past Fretin with a group of 30 or so riders, including Giulio Ciccone, Juan Ayuso, Primož Roglič, and Tom Pidcock, but no maglia rosa. Ulissi was more than a minute behind the Pedersen group by the time they reached the tarmac.

Pedersen continued to drive the pace, opening the gap to the pink jersey to 1:40.

Serravalle (9.3 km) - Disaster for Roglič

The second gravel sector proved the adage that riders don't win the Giro on a stage like this, but they certainly can lose it.

The breakaway entered sector 2 with 41 seconds on the Pedersen-led peloton and heading flat-out into the hard right turn onto the gravel.

Michael Storer (Tudor) crashed with a teammate on that turn. The gravel claimed another victim early in the sector when a crash from Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates XRG) took down Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) and Chris Hamilton (Ineos) with 51km to go.

That incident disrupted the chase, but Egan Bernal and his teammates set off in pursuit of the leaders, who were a few seconds ahead.

Roglič, whose bike was tangled up in the crash, was left chasing without teammates at first, but a group from behind bridged across and began to close the gap.

At the front, the two remaining escapees, Groves and Hermans, were joined by Isaac del Toro (UAE), Van Aert, Thymen Arensman, Bernal, and Brandon Rivera (Ineos) to make a seven-man leading group with 3km of gravel still to cross.

Roglič's group had a minute to close when another disaster for the Slovenian struck before the end of the sector, when he had to stop for a bike change, leaving him chasing with hardly a breather between sectors.

San Martino in Grania (9.3 km) - Then there were four

Dust heavily obscuring the situation ahead, the third group couldn't see that they were just 20 seconds behind the first chase containing Juan Ayuso, and Roglič chasing with three others in a dust cloud further back.

The groups ahead began to fracture on the steep climb. Groves, Hermans, and then Arensman were dropped from the lead group, leaving Van Aert, Bernal, Del Toro and Rivera at the front of the race.

Roglič ended up in the second chasing group with Pidcock, Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech) and Storer, while the maglia rosa group was almost three minutes behind with Ulissi in danger of losing the jersey.

Bernal led the breakaway across the summit 44 seconds ahead of the Ayuso group, 1:17 over Roglič and 3:23 on the maglia rosa.

Once on the tarmac, Rivera kept the pace high with Bernal on his wheel, while Van Aert and Del Toro sat on. Chasing, Mathias Vacek (Lidl-Trek) and Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla) were in no-man's land between the leaders and the first chase.

Vacek left Harper behind and made it across to the leaders with 22.5km to go. Rivera's solo work kept the first chase at 54 seconds while Roglič's group began to close down the gap to the riders ahead.

At the beginning of the short fourth sector, Rivera dropped off, having done his job, while Del Toro led the quartet onto the gravel, and only Van Aert could match his pace.

Bernal lost touch briefly but clawed his way back with Vacek. They came off the sector with 1:13 on group 1, 1:55 on the second chase and 3:38 on the maglia rosa.

Gee, sensing the chance to make up ground, attacked with 17km to go and was joined by Roglič, but the surge in pace only served to reinvigorate the group behind.

Colle Pinzuto (2.3 km) - Then there were two

The Colle Pinzuto was the last chance for the GC riders to close the gap to Bernal. Del Toro pushed the pace at the start of the climb, pulling Van Aert away and leaving Bernal and Vacek behind.

With the Red Bull time bonus sprint ahead, Del Toro pushed on full gas. Roglič was losing more time to Ayuso, with the gap going out over one minute.

Del Toro led over the sprint point ahead of Van Aert to take the six-second bonus, while Bernal picked up the two-second bonus for third.

Heading toward the grand finale climb to the Piazza del Campo in Siena, the two leaders had 25 seconds on Bernal, 1:04 on Ayuso and 2:05 on Roglič with the maglia rosa virtually on the shoulders of Del Toro, who started the stage 26 seconds down on Ulissi.

Adam Yates led the chase as the Ayuso group caught Vacek and had a glimpse of Bernal in his sights. They brought the Colombian champion back with 6km to go.

Del Toro led the entire way in, with Van Aert glued to the young Mexican's wheel. He held on through the steepest part before taking the lead in the final few hundred metres.

Van Aert claimed victory as Del Toro seized the maglia rosa, the first Mexican to do so.

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