Vingegaard vanquishes gritty Gall, misses pink

Jonas Vingegaard underlined his status as the top Giro d’Italia favorite Sunday, landing his second stage win in three days atop the summit finish at Fermo.

The Visma-Lease a Bike rider tracked Felix Gall when the Decathlon CMA GGM rider attacked the GC group with about 2.5km remaining. His hectic pace distanced all of his rivals bar Vingegaard, but left him vulnerable when the Dane made his own surge 900 meters from the line.

Vingegaard gapped him immediately and romped in 12 seconds clear, landing the 50th victory of his career plus his 11th grand tour stage.

“Felix did a very strong attack when he attacked and luckily I was able to follow,” he said. “In the end I tried myself and was able to take the win. It is something I am extremely happy about.”

His teammate Davide Piganzoli outsprinted Thymen Arensman for third, 34 seconds back, mopping up the final time bonus.

“He is a super good guy,” Vingegaard said. “He is really, really strong. I am super, super happy for Davide. He is a special guy as well.”

Overnight race leader Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) is another promising young rider and showed great character. He was unable to react when Gall made his play, but mounted a determined fightback and only conceded 41 seconds.

That sees him 2:24 ahead of Vingegaard heading into Monday’s rest day, making it possible he will remain in pink after Tuesday’s time trial.

‘We didn’t want to pull for the stage today’

Stage 9 of the Giro was set to be another GC showdown but this just made the breakaway specialists all the more determined to seize their chance.

Lorenzo Milesi (Movistar), Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) and Edward Planckaert (Alpecin-PremierTech) were the first aggressors and while the latter dropped back, the other two riders were joined by Jonas Geens (Alpecin–Premier Tech), Martin Marcellusi (Bardiani–CSF Faizanè), Einer Rubio (Movistar Team), Sakarias Koller Løland (Uno-X Mobility), Tim Naberman (Picnic PostNL) and Mattia Bais (Polti VisitMalta).

Former race leader Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) had big plans and bridged with Ballerini’s teammate Diego Ulissi and Toon Aerts (Lotto Intermarché). Once across, Ulissi was selflessly supported by Ballerini, who dragged the group’s advantage to over two minutes.

However with Decathlon CMA CGM and then Visma chasing hard, Ciccone grew concerned and dropped all bar Rubio 11.7km from the finish. He then jettisoned the Colombian with 7.5km to go. However while his advantage over the GC group was 49 seconds 3km from the line, this lead was threatened when Gall fired off a big move with 2.5km remaining.

He and Vingegaard caught and dropped Ciccone, with the Dane going solo with a big attack 1.8km out.

“We didn’t want to pull for the stage today,” he said, confirming Visma hadn’t planned to ride. “We realized quite quickly that Decathlon wanted to go for the stage.

“It is always nice with a win. It’s something I am super happy with. My teammates did a super good job. Once the win was within victory we decided on the last climb to maybe try to go for it.”

He did try, he did succeed and now he heads into the rest day in a very strong position.

“We are where we wanted to be,” he confirmed. “I am in a good situation at the moment for GC. So far everything is looking good for us and we are happy where we are.”