Primoz Roglic took his second win of this year’s Giro d’Italia with a dominant performance against the clock on stage 9 to San Marino.
The Team Jumbo-Visma rider won the race’s opening time-trial in Bologna and demonstrated his form with another excellent ride, completing the 34.8km course in 51 minutes and 52 seconds.
Lotto Soudal’s Victor Campenaerts had set the early pace but his time was 11 seconds short of Roglic, with Trek-Segafredo’s Bauke Mollema producing a good ride to finish third on the day ahead of two-time Giro champion Vincenzo Nibali of Bahrain-Merida.
On another miserable day as the rain lashed down, the riders time-trialled their way through northern Italy and into San Marino and speaking afterwards; the Slovenian admitted he was pleased with his performance in awkward conditions. “It was again a nice time trial for me.
I did my best so I’m happy with it,” Roglic said after the stage. “It was just different – [Campenaerts] had really dry conditions and I had rain so I couldn’t take any risks in the corner.
Then I went all-out in the end. “I went really slow in the corners in the beginning but otherwise then on the flat and on the climb [the weather] it didn’t matter so much. “We’ll see at the end [who is still in the mix].
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It’s still a long way to go, a lot of kilometres, a lot of mountains, so it’s always nice to have some seconds in your advantage and be focussing on the days to come.” UAE Team Emirates rider Valerio Conti held onto the pink jersey but is now just a minute and 50 seconds ahead of Roglic on the general classification.
The big loser on Sunday was Mitchelton-Scott’s Simon Yates, who conceded two minutes on the final climb, while Movistar’s Mikel Landa also struggled. Monday’s rest day will give them a chance to recharge their batteries before the race resumes on Tuesday with a flat stage between Ravenna and Modena.
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