Van Aert battles to win Giro stage nine, Del Toro takes leader’s jersey

Belgian Wout Van Aert battled to victory on stage nine of the Giro d’Italia on Sunday, holding off Mexican Isaac del Toro who moved into the overall lead after the pair went for broke and stole a march on the rest of the field.

Van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), riding his first Giro, looked to have run out of steam coming into the final kilometre but recovered to overtake Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), with Italy’s Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) coming in third.

Pre-race favourite Primoz Roglic (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe) was involved in a crash and also suffered a puncture to lose valuable time in the general classification, dropping to 10th overall, two minutes and 25 seconds behind Del Toro.