Giro Stage 9 - Isernia -Blockhaus (191km)

retalivity

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retalivity

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Horrifically hard stage today, surely will see Loprz lose the pink, but who will take it over - Yates, Carapaz?

Blockhaus is a beast and comes after 4 other categorised climbs

No idea who will win, will take a punt on Landa to get some glory before something unfortunate happens to him in the next 2 weeks.

I would nearly guarantee that Guillaume Martin will lose all the time he gained yesterday, he's done this before, getting in a breakaway the day before a mountain stage to claw back time, then give it all away.

Very different to 2017 when they had the big crash, which coincidently was also on the Sunday stage 9. They were on the east coast for much of that day before heading west and over to the mountain.

I think they have something crazy like 5000m+ of climbing today.

That could have been so much worse. Hope he's ok

retalivity

Ciccone, tom, taaramae all gone already

We'll see a few more fall away I think.

Landa , Bardet and Carapaz look good

neris

Old man Valverde still up there

Nibali and Pozovivo no spring chickens either

mewso

Hindley outlasting Kelderman. Giro 2020 all over again. Great ride by Arensman too.

mewso

Almeida and Hindley are two guys like Doumoulin in a way. They trust their pace. Always love riders who have that kind of confidence. Whether it works here or not....

neris

Yates is gone

mewso

Fair play JP Lopez. I think Hindley was lucky Almeida paced them back.

at1withmyself

Am delighted for Lopez, he really fought hard for that and never gave up. Will be interesting now to see what Trek decide as Cigone is now out.

Great to see that Martin is still up there.

Lots of teams with decisions to make now as they're out if the GC race, should make for some interesting break away tactics.

mewso

Very close between the top 7 now and I think Lopez, if his team decide to get behind him, won't let it go easily. May well have stayed with the leaders today only for that wheel touch.

Lopez admitting to throwing a bottle at Sam Oomen

Selig was a DNF today, haven't seen why yet.

Richard Hillman

Really interesting today and sets it up for what will be a top tour. Carapaz was expected to blow them away and a cut above the others. He just wasn't able to do it.

I am a big fan of Carapaz but he hasnt looked great this season in his limited appearances. Whereas Bardet has looked good.

This is also the first tour when Carapaz has been the number 1 guy in the field, where he is the certified man to beat. He's usually riding against a Jumbo-Visma or UAE train and he attacks them. For Ineos, he sits on the train and attacks when they run out of men. I actually think that the pace may have been too much from Ineos and Carapaz wasn't able to have an explosive attack.

Carapaz may have to alter his aggressiveness and try and win it through the usual Ineos war of attrition and slowly wear them down. As opposed to the usual Carapaz method of blowing it up.

We'd the highlights on there and herself mentioned Landa looking down a lot compared to Carapaz and Bardet. Something I didn't pick up on at all until she said it was him almost Froome like at times looking at the power meter.

Not something I've seen with Landa before that I noticed.

retalivity

When you said 'looking down' I thought you meant unhappy, and was thinking that Bardet looked more distraught with his 2nd place!

Lopez throwing the bottle at Oomen

https://www.eurosport.co.uk/cycling/giro-d-italia/2022/giro-d-italia-juan-pedro-lopez-threw-a-bottle-at-sam-oomen_vid1678453/video.shtml