Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) won the stage 9 individual time trial of the Giro d’Italia. 2nd place went to Matthias Brandle (IAM Cycling) and 3rd position was taken by Vegard Stake Laengen (IAM Cycling). The leader’s jersey would stay with Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-Quickstep).
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka went into today’s stage with the primary objective being for Kanstantsin Siutsou to keep his general classification hopes alive. For the rest of our African Team, the time trial discipline is not particularly their forte and so the team aimed to get around the technical 40.5km course in Chianti without expending too much energy.
The early starters all enjoyed some good weather conditions and Jay Thomson (pictured above), our South African strongman, was even able to hit 90km/h on some of the descents after being one of the first riders off. Just as Thomson reached the finish though, the rain started to fall out on course and this would make things particularly difficult for the main contenders who started later in the day.
Siutsou was one of the riders who had to bear the brunt of the worst weather and reaching speeds of 90km/h was no longer an option for the GC contenders on the wet roads. Roglic was one of the fortunate riders to do most of his time trial on dry roads and so his mark of 51’45” would not be beaten. Siutsou, like many others, had a tough time on the wet roads and finished 4’35” down on Roglic. Igor Anton was our African Team’s best placed rider on the day, as he finished 4’07” down.
After today’s time trial, Siutsou retained his 17th position on the overall classification as we head into the 2nd rest day of this year’s Giro d’Italia.
Jay Thomson – Rider