Vingegaard wins on Corno alle Scale in Giro d'Italia stage 9
Felix Gall hangs tough to take second and Afonso Eulálio refuses to give up pink
We had several questions on our mind after stage 8 in this fab edition of the Giro d’Italia. We got more definite answers today on the climb of Corno alle Scale.
How defiant and how long would Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain Victorious) keep his pink jersey? He ceded half of his six minutes and change on the Blockhaus climb but stuck with Vinegegaard yesterday.
That was question one. Question two was the Red Bull BORA-hansgrohe hierarchy. Jai Hindley and his teammate, the rising star Giulio Pellizzari, were fourth and fifth on GC a stage or two ago. Then yesterday Hindley decided to put in a hard acceleration in the last 400 meters to gain a whopping two seconds on his teammate.
But it was two seconds that shouted “I’m here, I’ve won this race before so don’t count me out.” Well, after Corno alle Scale, we are definitely not counting the Aussie out. We’re all in, in fact.
On the second summit finish of the race so far, Jonas Vingegaard put in his expected acceleration with one kilometer to the finish. The result was also expected although not as dramatic in terms of time gaps.
The big result of that attack was that Pellizzari shot out the back and lost contact. Bingo: question answered. Hindley now has about 45 seconds on his teammate and is officially Plan A, not B on the GC alphabet. He’s moved up to 4th overall while Pellizzari drops to 9th.
Vingegaard eventually dropped Felix Gall (Decathlon-CMA-CGM), his only real challenger so far on these summit climbs. Gall is a diesel and keeps chugging along but could not match the jump out of the saddle of his rival. The Austrian climber now sits in 3rd on GC, three minutes from pink.
The surprise — and the answer to the other question was no, Afonso Eulálio is still in no mood to lose his pink jersey without a fight. At one point on the road Vingegaard had pulled back 35 seconds but the Portuguese rider held strong and refused to concede any more time. Going into the second day, he still holds a 2:24 edge. He’s living the vida loco.