Yates tickled pink to stay in overall lead in Giro
Simon Yates cemented his position as overall leader of the Giro d’italia by winning the ninth stage yesterday but it was a bad day for Chris Froome, who lost more than a minute in the general classification.
Yates was in a five-man group that escaped in the final kilometres of the summit finish and the Mitchelton-scott cyclist attacked right at the end to edge out Thibaut Pinot.
Froome had been ninth – 1 minute, ten seconds behind Yates. But the Team Sky cyclist struggled at the end of the 225-kilometre (140-mile) route from Pesco Sannita up to Gran Sasso d’italia and is now 2:27 behind his countryman.
“I realise how big it is to win my first stage with the Maglia Rosa,” Yates said. “That one is for the boys who rode at the front all day. It’s really nice. Since the beginning of the day we believed in the possibility of winning the stage as well as defending the Maglia Rosa.”
It looked like a cyclist from the 14-man breakaway would win with an advantage of around eight minutes heading into the penultimate climb, less than 50K from the finish. However, Astana drove a high pace at the head of the peloton to half their advantage by the final ascent of the Gran Sasso d’italia, with 26K remaining.
Attacks started from the break and Fausto Masnada got away before he too was reeled in 2.7K from the line, setting up the final attack and victory for Yates.
Yates’ teammate Esteban Chaves was third to leapfrog defending champion Tom Dumoulin in the overall standings and move into second, 32 seconds off the pace. Dumoulin is a further six seconds behind.