Van Aert battles to win Giro stage nine, Del Toro takes leader's jersey
Belgian Wout Van Aert battled to victory on stage nine of the Giro d'Italia on Sunday, holding off Mexican Isaac del Toro who moved into the overall lead after the pair went for broke and stole a march on the rest of the field.
Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), riding his first Giro, used all his Strade Bianche experience to outsmart Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), with Italy's Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) coming in third.
Pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) was involved in a crash and also suffered a puncture to lose valuable time in the general classification, dropping to 10th overall, two minutes and 25 seconds behind Del Toro.
The stage, a 181 kilometre ride from Gubbio to Siena, saw the first major shake-up of this year's Giro in the race for the pink jersey, with the gravel sectors usually seen in the Strade Bianche one-day race suiting Van Aert best.
"This victory means a lot to me, I almost cannot explain it," Van Aert said.
"It had to be here I believe, because this place is where my road career started back in 2018."
Van Aert finished third in the 2018 Strade Bianche and again the following year before tasting victory in 2020, and the 30-year-old Giro debutant made his experience count on a day when others faltered.
The Belgian was part of a chasing group which hunted down an earlier breakaway, and alongside Del Toro was able to shake off the likes of Egan Bernal with 15km to go, and the pair then fought for the stage win themselves.
There was plenty of action behind, with Roglic going down in the peloton in a crash which also claimed one of the stage favourites Tom Pidcock, and both riders suffered punctures to put them well out of contention.
Del Toro came into the final kilometre with the pink jersey already secured, as race leader Diego Ulissi (XDS-Astana) had been dropped by the peloton early in the stage, and the Mexican looked to have the legs to take the stage win too.
Van Aert, however, had let the Mexican do most of the work in the closing stages and found another gear coming into the final 400 metres on the narrow streets of Siena to overtake Del Toro, and despite a wobble on the final bend, claim victory.
"I had to fight all the way to the top through the streets of Siena," Van Aert said.
"And because I know the final pretty well I needed to do the move in the last three corners. I almost missed the last one but the experience of Strade Bianche helped me win today."
Del Toro holds a comfortable one minute and 13 second lead over Spain's Juan Ayuso going into Monday's rest day, with Antonio Tiberi third overall, a further 17 seconds back.
Tuesday's stage 10 is a 28.6km individual time trial from Lucca to Pisa.
