Giro d’Italia Stage 9 LIVE – Lopez starts in pink as fearsome Blockhaus awaits

12:02 – Mechanical for Buchmann

150km to go: The peloton crests the summit at Roccarosa five minutes behind the nine leaders. Germay’s Emanuel Buchmann needs to stop to sort out an issue with his bike and he gets a little help from his Bora-Hansgrohe mechanic. Buchmann is one of Bora’s four GC men who, so far, are all within striking distance of the race lead. They are: Lennard Kamna (2nd at +0:38, Wilco Kelderman (7th at +1:55), Jai Hindley (15th at +2:16) and Buchmann (23rd at +2:23). A really strong showing for the German team.

11:58 – Rosa zips clear to secure KOM points

153km to go: It’s clear what Diego Rosa is after today – a slightly darker blue jersey than the Eolo-Kometa one he already has on his back. The Italian is taking no chances as he strikes out from distance to add another 18pts. So that takes his haul for the day to 40pts on top of the 3pts he already had in the KOM standings. So Rosa is now level with Lennard Kamna on 43pts so he just has Koen Bouwman ahead on 68pts.

11:40 – Leaders onto the third climb

160km to go: The Cat.2 climb of Roccaraso is 7.3km long at an average gradient of 6.1%. The best placed rider in the general classification from the leaders is the Austrian Gall, who is 6:48 down on pink jersey Juanpe Lopez in the standings. No threat for now, which is why Trek-Segafredo don’t seem overly concerned.

11:37 – Nine riders on the front of the race

162km to go: The two groups have come together so we now have nine ahead of the peloton with a gap of 4:30 as they approach the third climb of the day. Things have settled – and eased – enough to allow Caleb Ewan to rejoin the peloton, so the pace can’t be too zippy.

The nine leaders are: Felix Gall and Nans Peters (Ag2R-Citroen), Joe Dombrowski (Astana-Qazaqstan), Filippo Zana (Bardiani-CSF), Natnael Tesfatsion and Eduardo Sepulveda (Drone Hopper-Androni Giacattoli), Jonathan Caicedo (EF Education-EasyPost), Diego Rosa (Eolo-Kometa) and James Knox (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl). Nine riders from eight different countries – it’s a veritably cosmopolitan move.

11:26 – Trio ahead after Rosa bags KOM points

171km to go: Diego Rosa went over the top of the second climb to pocket the maximum 18pts. That puts him up to fifth place in the KOM standings with a total of 25 points, 22 of which he has picked up on today’s two climbs. Dutchman Koen Bouwman still leads the climbers’ classification with 68pts.

Tesfatsion and Dombrowski have caught Rosa on the descent and it will only be a matter of time before the six chasers – Gall, Peters, Zana, Sepulveda, Caicedo and Knox – catch them. The peloton is 3:10 in arrears.

11:20 – Knox joins chasers; Bilbao receives treatment

174km to go: James Knox kicks clear of the pack and joins the Caicedo chase group, which is 1:05 down on Rosa, who has 25 seconds over Dombrowski and Tesfatsion. The peloton has really knocked it off – perhaps as a result of that crash earlier. Bilbao receives some treatment from the doctor off the back – his got a gash to his left hip, a cut to his elbow and his jersey is fairly torn up. The pack is 2:45 down and so they have let these moves go for now.

11:12 – Crash in the pack; Bilbao down

177km to go: There’s an incident in the peloton as the speed goes up on a flattish section that punctuates this second climb. Pello Bilbao is the biggest name who goes down in a heap, just after a brow following a corner. Around six or seven riders hit the deck there, with Jorge Arcas also down – the Spaniard who contested the four-way sprint at yesterday’s finish. Nothing serious but hardly ideal for those involved.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Caicedo (EF Education-EastPost) is trying to bridge over to Dombrowski and Tesfatsion, who have dropped Gall. They trail lone leader Rosa by 25 seconds with the main field a further minute in arrears. Caicedo is actually now in a chasing quintet alongside Gall, Filippo Zana (Bardiani-CSF), Nans Peters (Ag2R-Citroen) and Eduardo Sepulveda (Drone Hopper). Things are far from settled.

11:05 – Rosa clearly likes solo breaks

180km to go: The terrain today is admittedly better suited to the 31-year-old’s strengths than that long, flat coastal schlep the other day. The Italian has 10 seconds on a chasing trio of Felix Gall (Ag2R-Citroen), Joe Dombrowski (Astana) and Natnael Tesfatsion (Drone Hopper). The main pack is at 30 seconds but loads of riders have gone out the back, including Biniam Girmay and Wout Poels, both of whom involved in yesterday’s break in Naples.

10:58 – Already onto the second climb

182km to go: The three leaders are onto the Cat.2 Rionero Sannitico but their gap is only 20 seconds on the Bouwman-Kudus-Van der Poel chase group, which includes around 15 riders, but which has almost been tagged back by the pack. Perhaps aware of this situation behind, Diego Rosa strikes out solo and rides clear of Holmes and Tasfatsion. The Italian was in that long break on Thursday’s stage to Scalea where he never stood a chance of denying the sprinters a bunch finish.

Talking of which, the man who won that day, Arnaud Demare, the ciclamino jersey, has already been shelled out the back. It’s going to be a long day for the Frenchman and the other riders in the gruppetto…

10:54 – Holmes pockets KOM points

186km to go: It’s a trio out ahead now with Matthew Holmes (Lotto Soudal) taking the 9pts over the summit of the climb ahead of Diego Rosa (Eolo-Kometa) who takes 4pts and Natnael Tesfatsion (Drone Hopper-Androni Giacattoli) who settles for 2pts. There’s a total of 125pts in the maglia azzurra competition up for grabs today.

10:51 – Blue jersey Bouwman on the move

188km to go: We’re straight onto the Cat.3 Valico del Macerone climb (3.1km at 5.8%) and we have five clear: Jaakko Hanninen, Luca Covili, Natnael Tesfatsion, Diego Rosa and Matt Holmes. Friday’s winner Koen Bouwman, the blue jersey, has bridged over to a chase group that includes – wait for it – Mathieu van der Poel, Davide Villela and Merhawi Kudus. Behind, Ben Swift has got himself into another group riding ahead of the peloton, which is all strung out. A very active start.

10:45 – Stage 9 under way

191km to go: With the peloton passing under the entry sign into the town of Isernia, the flag drops and this tough ninth stage gets going. Five riders ping off the front from the outset with a host of others trying to bridge over on this very short flat section before the first climb.

Last day in pink for Lopez?

The Spaniard is 38 seconds clear of Lennard Kamna on GC with Estonia’s Rein Taaramae lurking in third and Guillaume Martin, after yesterday’s exploits, up to fourth at 1:06 and ahead of Simon Yates, who is the best placed of the GC favourites at 1:42. It’s going to be tough for Juanpe Lopez to retain his lead today. He could be waving goodbye to the pink jersey today…

Lotto Soudal mirror Jumbo-Visma to bounce back

Never mind it being a decade since Thomas De Gendt’s first Grand Tour stage win, it was just one day since we saw a rider celebrate fourth place with as much gusto as Harm Vanhoucke. Belgian veteran De Gendt’s victory from a four-man move in Naples – mirroring Jumbo-Visma’s coup a day earlier – saw Lotto Soudal get the stage win that has eluded them so far through sprinter Caleb Ewan.

It was a case of very recent history repeating itself on the sunny Campania coast yesterday with Lotto Soudal pulling off a near identical coup as Jumbo-Visma just 24 hours earlier. Seldom do you see riders finishing fourth from a four-man move cross the line with such beaming smiles on their faces – but this has now happened twice on successive days on the Giro.

Just as , Harm Vanhoucke did the honours for Thomas De Gendt in Naples – even if the latter had initially been working for the former in a thrilling game of cat and mouse in the streets of the pizza capital of Italy.

Riders ready for hardest day so far in Abruzzo

Well, it’s certainly the hardest start to a Grand Tour stage we have seen in quite some time, with the road ramping up from the outset with a short Cat.3 climb followed by back-to-back Cat.2 ascents and separated with only very short descents. Those climbs all hit double digit gradients and they precede a long descent and some lumps and bumps ahead of the main course of the Passo Lanciano (10.3km at 7.6%) and the summit showdown on Blockhaus (13.6km at 8.4%).

GCN anchor Dan Lloyd – who hated these kinds of days during his time as a pro – tweeted this last night about what’s in store for the first hour or so today, citing the opinion of BikeExchange-Jayco DS Matt White:

It makes last week’s first summit finish on Mount Etna look like a walk in the park in comparison – and although there’s not as much total climbing as there was in that pulsating seventh stage on Friday, the climbs are far tougher and the gaps between the GC favourites will be much larger. No disrespect to Juanpe Lopez but it would be a miracle if the Spaniard is still in pink for tomorrow’s rest day…

Here’s the profile in full, described just now by Sean Kelly as “savage”:

What happened yesterday?

Ten years after his historic win on the Stelvio, Thomas De Gendt soared to a second Giro d’Italia stage win with an emphatic victory on the streets of Naples thanks to a little help from his Belgian compatriot and teammate Harm Vanhoucke.

The Lotto Soudal duo were part of a four-man move that extricated itself from a stellar breakaway that featured a third Lotto Soudal rider in Sylvain Moniquet as well as the likes of Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix), Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) and Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates).

On an absorbing 153km circuit race that had the feel of a mini world championships, the day’s breakaway built up a maximum lead of over four minutes during four lumpy loops around Bacoli, the picturesque peninsula to the west of Naples.

How can I watch?

Each and every stage will be broadcast in its entirety on Eurosport, and GCN+, bookended by The Breakaway, presented by Orla Chennaoui and Dan Lloyd. Rob Hatch and Hannah Walker will be in the commentary box with regular contributions from pundits Robbie McEwen, Sean Kelly and Adam Blythe, with Bradley Wiggins doing his thing on the back of a motorbike.

Stage 9 profile and route map

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