Remco Evenepoel snatches time trial Stage 9 win from Geraint Thomas as he reclaims Giro d'Italia lead

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) snatched a dramatic time trial Stage 9 win from Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) to regain the Giro d’Italia leader’s jersey ahead of the first rest day.

Thomas looked like he was heading for victory when he beat team-mate Tao Geoghegan Hart’s time by one second.

However, Evenepoel repeated the trick as he beat Thomas by the same margin to win the stage.

Evenepoel withdrew from the race hours later after testing positive for Covid-19, meaning Thomas is the new race leader, holding a two-second advantage over Jumbo-Visma's Primoz Roglic.

It all unfolded at the end of a rain-soaked, wind-swept day in Emilia-Romagna, in the north of Italy. Flat as a fritella, the 35km route from Savignano sul Rubicone to Cesena was a true time triallist's course. With no bodies to shelter behind, the race of truth would reveal all the riders had in their arsenals by day's end.

It began, however, with not the best riders in the race, instead those at the back of the order competing for the 'maglia nerra', or black jersey for last place. Corratec-SelleItalia's breakaway specialist Veljko Stojnic was the first rider down the ramp, at 1:15pm local time. The Serbian would not be first to stop the clock as both he and team-mate Stefano Gandin were overtaken by Daan Hoole of Trek-Segafredo.

The times tumbled for a while after that before specialist Michael Hepburn (Jayco-Alula), given the rare freedom to ride for himself, crossed the line with a more than respectable time of 42"37.

It was enough for the Australian to hang on to the hot seat for almost an hour, until Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), one Giro victory short of the Grand Tour set, went 14 seconds quicker.

With Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ) out on the course, Mollema knew he was unlikely to be there for long, and so it proved. Although Kung managed to go quickest, for a while it seemed as if he might be beaten by his own team-mate, Bruno Armirail, just a minute ahead of him on the course. French TT champion Armirail was quickest at the third and final time check, on 29km, but faded slightly before the finish, where Kung only grew stronger.

In the end Kung crossed the line 56 seconds behind his colleague, in a time good enough that he could imagine that first, long-awaited Grand Tour victory might finally be his.

It was not to be, as the big GC contenders were about to get their rides underway.

Geoghegan Hart delivered the first blow to Kung's heart, fastest at the first split by a single second. Three minutes later Thomas went quicker still, taking another three second bite out of the time.

Primoz Roglic set a surprisingly slow time for his first sector. Not disastrous, but not competitive either. Only when Evenepoel came through the time check some thirty seconds faster than him, and eleven quicker than anyone, did it begin to look like it could be a truly terrible day for Roglic.

But the Slovenian rallied, and Evenepoel faltered in the middle section of the course.

Three thousandths of a second separated Geoghegan Hart and Thomas at the third split, in favour of the senior rider. At the line there was one between them. Thomas headed for the hot seat, as a forlorn-looking Kung vacated it.

Only Evenepoel could stand between the 36 year-old and his first ever Giro d'Italia stage win, and he appeared to be struggling. As the young Belgian arrived on the final straight it was touch and go.

In the end he was just able to do enough to take a second Giro stage victory, with a time more than sufficient to restore him to the maglia rosa. A strong final day in pink from Andreas Leknessund saw him slip down only as far as 6th in the overall standings.

“I think I didn’t pace it very well," said Evenepoel afterwards. "I started way too fast and my second part was actually a really bad part. After the technical section in Cesena I found some better legs, because I could recover a bit. I think my first part was very good and it was the pacing plan that we tried to get, but in the second part with the headwind I wasn’t feeling too well. Not the best result but another stage win, which is very nice.

"I think it was not my best time trial that I ever did. I think we should just be happy that we took the stage win again and we have the pink jersey. It was a very tight one today.”

After a couple of stages in which he has revealed cracks in his armour, Evenepoel will be grateful for the rest day.

"I think tomorrow I really need to recover well," he said, "because the last two days weren’t my best days. We should try to recover well and just enjoy today’s victory.”

His rivals, in contrast, would have wanted to keep riding.

Following Evenepoel's withdrawal, Thomas will take over the leader’s jersey and will hold a two-second advantage over Roglic. Tao Geoghegan Hart is five seconds behind Thomas.

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