Giro d’Italia 2016: Stage 9 – Prime time for Primos

An uncharacteristically wet Tuscan day made for a perilous and risky time-trial stage over what was already a difficult parcours. With the scales heavily tipped in the favour of the early starters who rode relatively dry roads, the unlikely winner was JumboBee Primos Roglic, a former ski-jumper who claimed not to have ridden a time-trial over 10km before. His time, 10 seconds faster than that of Matthias Brandle (IAM Cycling), proved unbeatable as the big names surfed in.

Rider of the Race

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Brambilla’s pink skinsuit was like a beacon against the worryingly apocalyptic sky

Gianluca Brambilla’s risk-taking ride nets him the prestigious Rider of the Day title for the second day running. Brambilla’s Etixx teammate Bob Jungels threatened to snatch the maglia rosa from his shoulders with an extremely strong ride, but he paced himself well, and fought all the way, particularly on the descents, and earned himself more time in pink, thanks to a single solitary second. With the conditions the way they were today, you could have forgiven any rider for taking it steady today, but Brambilla went for it, and I admire that desire and tenacity.

Spare a thought for…

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Zakarin with the first of his skinsuit tears

Ilnur Zakarin had a truly awful afternoon which must have snuffed out any burgeoning GC dreams. Having already been forced to change bikes due to a mechanical problem, he then crashed heavily half-way into the stage, before a smashing into the ground on the tricky final bend. If he didn’t already get the chills when Hannibal Lecter mentions Chianti, he will now.

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Mick Jagger had a nightmare of a time trial, losing nearly 3 minutes

Another rider who had a bad afternoon was Rigoberto Uran, who became an also ran, rolling in way down the standings in 6^th place and dropping off the GC radar, leaving himself with a deficit of nearly 3 minutes to recover. Meanwhile poor Tom Dumoulin had a second consecutive bad day and cut a very sombre figure at the end of the race, having decided to ride conservatively in the slippery conditions and more time on a day which ordinarily would have seen him challenging strongly for the stage win.