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Giro d'Italia: Stage 9 preview

Try stopping Marcel Kittel at the Tour de France. (Team Sky)
Roar Guru
14th May, 2016
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After a difficult stage into Arezzo yesterday, the general classification men will have their toughest test to date.

The lumpy time trial from Radala in Chinati to Grave in Chinati greeting the riders on Stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia. A total of 40 difficult kilometres are in between them and the second rest day of the tour.

Although we have two medium mountain stages thus far this Giro, tonight is the first major test where the riders go head to head in the race against the clock. The lumpy course should give the genuine climbers a chance to do well, but even so, a general classification rider with good time trialing ability may well take a few minutes on his key rivals.

The first 15 kilometres of the stage are on rolling roads before they head through the first time check at Castellina in Chinati, where the riders set themselves up for the first of three main descents on the stage.

The first of the three descents is fairly straightforward and will take the riders all the way to 17 kilometres to go, and having passed the second intermediate timing check at Madonna di Pietracupa.

This descent comes straight into a two-kilometre climb at only a four per cent average, however the first kilometres has ramps of over 15 per cent. With the riders on time trial bikes for today’s stage, ramps like this will be even more difficult than usual.

As they peak this little climb, the riders will then descend along technical roads for five kilometres before they hit the final ten kilometres, which includes the final climb of the Panzano da bivio Piazza.

The climb is 4.6 kilometres at an average gradient of four per cent, with the first two kilometres being the steepest at around six per cent. Again, not a terribly difficult climb, but as l stated before, climbing with atime trialbike is very different to the road bike.

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It is then just over five kilometres to go, with the first few kilometres being technical, but the final part is a fairly straight run into the finishing point.

Former pink jersey Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) is the hot favourite for this stage, after showing his outright speed in the opening day time trial in his homeland, while also showing his form on the climbs on Stage 6 where he caught his general classification rivals by surprise by attacking and taking more time.

However, after a poor performance yesterday where he dropped big time to his rivals, he will be looking for a mega performance today.

While the lumpy nature of the course will help the other favourites close the time gap over the 40 kilometres, he should easily still win this if he is in top form. Expect him to take a minute at least on the majority of his rivals.

So who out of the main general classification can challenge Dumoulin?

Vincenzo Nibali has solid time trialing ability, and will obviously be at one with the climbs. The main strength for the ‘Shark of Mesina’ is his descending ability, with a few technical descents, including the run off the final climb into the finish.

Another rider that could feature is Cannondale’s Rigoberto Uran. In 2014 he won a very similar lumpy time trial at the Giro ahead of Cadel Evans and Rafal Majka, while then backing up that performance with second on the long time trial at the Vuelta in the same year. If he can limit his losses to only 30 seconds to Dumoulin, he will be a happy camper.

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Other riders to look out for are Fabian Cancellera (Trek-Segafredo), Jakub Fuglsang (Astana) Bob Jungels (Etixx-Quickstep), Illnur Zakarin (Katusha), Stefan Kung (BMC), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), Esteban Chaves and Damien Howson (Orica-GreenEDGE ), Steven Kruisjwijk and Rafael Majka (Tinkoff).

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