2018 Giro d'Italia Stage 9 Results & Recap
Stage 9 of the 2018 Giro d'Italia is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Mitchelton Scott dominates the Gran Sasso as Yates wins in Pink and Froome collapses\nBy Stas Uittenbogaard
In the second half of a mountainous weekend, Simon Yates takes the win on top of Gran Sasso d’Italia, the first climb of over 2000m above sea level. The longest stage of the Giro thus far took the riders over three mountain climbs to finish on top of a first category. For a long part of the stage, it looked as if a strong break was going to take the day’s win until Team Astana upped the pace in an attempt to launch team captain Lopez Moreno, a plan that backfired as the young Colombian had to let go of a five man strong favourites group close to the finish line. Simon Yates overpowered Thibaut Pinot (GFC) in the final sprint, with Yates’ teammate Esteban Chaves taking third. Major casualties of the day include Chris Froome (SKY) and Fabio Aru, who concede over a minute on Yates and tumble out of the top 10.
After the finish line, he said: “I realize how big it is to win my first stage with the Maglia Rosa. That one is for the boys who rode at the front all day. It's really nice. Since the beginning of the day we believed in the possibility of winning the stage as well as defending the Maglia Rosa.”\nIn stark contrast to the previous stages, a break formed almost at the get go as the riders left Pesco Sannita. The fourteen man strong group consisted of ten World Tour riders and four pro-continental riders. The best placed rider in the break was Gianluca Brambilla (Trek Segafredo) who was the virtual Maglia Rosa for a large part of the day as the gap grew beyond the Italian’s 6’40” deficit on the race leader.
The first climb of the day saw a contested fight for the KOM points: Androni’s duo Davide Ballerini and Fausto Masnada rode away from the rest of the break with Natnael Berhane (Dimension Data) in tow. As Masnada accelerated, the Italian’s chain dropped, prompting his competitor Berhane to lend a hand and gift Masnada the mountain points. The race jury was not charmed by this gesture as they penalised Masnada and granted the points to Berhane.
After this climb to Roccaraso, the riders entered a long and windy valley. Although echelons formed for a short while at 99 km from the finish, no team felt the urge to push through and two kilometre later the peloton was together again. In the Italian towns of Popoli and Bussi Sul Tirino, the break fought for the intermediate sprint points, with Ballerini edging out Maxim Belkov (Katusha) and Turin (Wilier Triestina) both times. Turin’s team leader Jakub Mareczko, who sprinted to a podium place on stage two of this Giro, abandoned early during this stage.
At 50 kilometres from the finish, Team Astana took over work at the front of the peloton, and upped the pace significantly. The advantage of the break dropped from eight minutes down to below four and a half minute on the summit of the penultimate climb. The KOM on this climb was taken by Masnada, in front of Mikaël Chérel (ALM) and Tim Wellens (LTS). The break at this point was pulled by domestiques from Androni-Sidermec, Trek Segafredo and Team Bahrain Merida, who all had duo’s in the group. Soon however, the break started bleeding riders from the back as only the six strongest remained: Brambilla, Masnada, Chérel, Hugh Carthy (EFD) and Manuele Boaro and Giovanni Visconti (TBM). The gap by then had dropped to three and a half minute.
In the bunch, Astana and Mitchelton Scott set the pace. Notable was Roman Kreuziger who returned to work at the front despite dropping away several times. On the gradual plateau at the start of the Gran Sasso, the peloton remained very large, but as the steeper sections at 7 km from the finish commenced, the group was quickly whittled down do the race favourites. Fausto Masnada was the last of the break to be caught by the Maglia Rosa group at 3 km to go after an impressive solo that started fifteen kilometres earlier. In the last two kilometres, both Chris Froome and Fabio Aru were dropped, with Team Sky sending back helpers to pace their leader back up. Eventually, the Brit and Italian finished 1’07” and 1’14” down respectively on the race winner. After a brief attack by Gulio Ciccone (BAR) was reigned in, Mario Lopez Moreno placed the anticipated attack that his team had been paving the way for, but he too was brought back before he could leave.
The strongest five of the day sprinted for the win eventually, with Simon Yates overpowering Thibaut Pinot. Esteban Chaves completed the podium with Domenico Pozzovivo (TBM) and white yersey wearer Richard Carapaz finishing four seconds behind. Mitchelton Scott now sits one and two on KOM classification as well as the general classification as previous second placed Tom Dumoulin (SUN) concedes 12 seconds plus bonifications as he finished just behind the Maglia Rosa group. \n
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