Giro d'Italia: Bernal wins stage 9 on the Campo Felice gravel

Image 1 of 35

Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) won stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia with an explosive attack on the steep gravel track at Campo Felice.

The Colombian becomes the new pink jersey after Attila Valter (Groupama-FDJ) was dropped earlier on the climb.

Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) and Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech) were second and third respectively at seven seconds, while Remo Evenepoel (Deceuninck-QuickStep) came in a further three seconds later in fourth to retain his second-place position on GC.

Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished alongside Evenepoel, and a couple of seconds behind them came in another group featuring many of the GC contenders, including Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange), Hugh Carthy (EF Education-Nippo), Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious).

As the GC action only kicked off on the gravel roads towards the top of the final climb, the gaps between the GC riders were only minimal. But Bernal was clearly the strongest rider on those roads, and has confirmed himself as the race’s frontrunner.

For the Colombian, the victory comes after a long journey to return to his best in light of persistent back problems. 

“I can’t believe what’s happening,” said Bernal at the finish. “I just won my first stage in a Grand Tour. I think I did a lot of sacrifices to be in this position after the Tour last year [where back problems forced him to abandon]. I’m really happy.”

Ineos Grenadiers did a great job of setting up his attack, setting a fast enough pace to catch the final survivors of the day’s break, Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R-Citroën) and Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), just 500 metres from the line.

“I was thinking of doing really well today, but I wasn’t sure if I’d go for the stage. But my teammates had a lot of confidence in me. I wasn’t sure, but they told me, ‘you can do it’...I think this victory is more for them, because they really believed in me.”

The team will now be tasked with defending the pink jersey, with Evenepoel lurking ominously behind in second at 15 seconds, and Vlasov, Ciccone, Valter, Carthy, Caruso, Martin and Yates all still within a minute of his time after performing solidly today. 

How it unfolded

Like yesterday’s stage, Sunday began with multiple attacks as rider after rider tried and failed to form the day’s break.

After the race all came back together following an uncategorised rise, a large group formed on the category two Passo Godi, and got a small gap of about 20 seconds.

However, the peloton, led by UAE Team Emirates, were still chasing hard, setting up Diego Ulissi to attack and join the leaders. A spanner was thrown in the works when Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious) and Dani Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers), who were genuine GC threats at 39 seconds and 1:06, respectively, latched onto Ulissi’s wheel and joined the leading group.

Caruso’s Bahrain Victorious teammate Gino Mäder reached the top of the climb first ahead of Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo) and Geoffrey Bouchard (AG2R Citroën) to extend his lead in the mountains classification, and on the descent, along with teammate Matej Mohoric (who was also in the front group) set about setting a fierce pace. 

Given Mohoric’s notoriously quick descending skills, it was an exciting ploy from Bahrain Victorious to put the other GC teams under pressure. But they suffered a severe blow in a horrible moment on the downhill when Mohoric lost balance and somersaulted over his handlebars, snapping his fork. Although he was able to stand up again, the fact he’d landed on his head was cause for serious concern, and he exited the race via an ambulance on a stretcher. 

Bahrain Victorious pushed on nevertheless with Mäder, and pulled out a gap of 40 seconds over the peloton, now led by Team BikeExchange, who were the main GC team to miss the move. 

The peloton was committed to the chase, however, with UAE Team Emirates also joining BikeExchange, and the breakaway was caught. Luis León Sánchez (Astana-Premier Tech), Nicholas Edet (Cofidis), Bouchard and a few others from that group stubbornly accelerated to stay out for a little while longer, but eventually were also caught.

The race was therefore all together again towards the bottom of the descent, prompting a new set of about a dozen riders to try and form a break. The likes of UAE Team Emirates and Bahrain Victorious weren’t happy with that group, and worked to once again bring it back.

Simon Carr (EF Education-Nippo) was next to try on an uncategorised climb that immediately followed the descent, and was joined by six more riders: Sanchez, Edet, Bouchard, Mollema, Filippo Zana (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) and Matteo Fabbro (Bora-Hansgrohe).

Eight more riders joined them at the front: Tony Gallopin (AG2R Citroën), Ruben Guerreiro (EF Education-Nippo), George Bennett, Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma), Tanel Kangert (BikeExchange), Michael Storer (Team DSM), Einer Rubio (Movistar) and Ulissi. 

This time the peloton was happy with the make-up of the break, and sat up. There was still time for Giovanni Visconti (Bardiani-CSF-Faizane) and, after a long chase, Eduardo Sepulveda (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec), and once they did, the final 16-man break had formed. 

The race finally set into a steady pattern, with the breakaway extending their lead to over three minutes, and the peloton being led at a steady pace by Groupama-FDJ.

The only action for a while came at the top of the category three Forca Caruso, where Bouchard won the sprint for the King of the Mountains points ahead of Mollema and Visconti.

Throughout this time the gap hovered at around three minutes, but began to come down at the start of the category two climb to Ovindoli when Ineos Grenadiers upped the pace in the peloton.

Seemingly in response, the riders in the break started to attack each other, with Carr and Bouchard, going clear from the rest. That pair reached the top of the category two climb with a lead of a handful of seconds over the rest, while Bouchard gained maximum points to become the virtual leader in the King of the Mountains classification.

Once the gradient tilted upwards as they reached the final climb of the day, Bouchard attacked and dropped Carr, who drifted back to a chasing group consisting of Mollema, Bouwman and Storer.

Meanwhile the peloton led into the final climb at a searing pace as the GC teams all tried to keep their leaders at the front, but lone leader Bouchard retained a lead of about two minutes, with the chasing quartet about 20 seconds behind him.

On the climb, Valter began to struggle inside the final 5km, drifting to the back of the peloton that was thinning out as Ineos Grenadiers set a severe pace. Their pace also put Bouchard and the rest of the break’s chances in peril, and Bouchard’s gap dipped to below a minute 3km from the finish.

Bouwman attacked the other chasers, and caught Bouchard shortly after beginning the gravel section, 1km from the finish. But both were caught by a charging Bernal, who had countered an attack from Vlasov at 500 metres from the line, after Moscon had further thinned the peloton, dropping Valter.

The difference in pace between the charging Bernal and the struggling Bouchard and Bouwman was remarkable, and underlined just how fast Bernal was riding.

It was a superb attack, and seemingly proof that Bernal is at long last back to his very best.