Donning the Maglia Rosa, Simon Yates has won stage nine of the Giro d’Italia to extend his overall lead. Yates now leads the race by 32seconds to Chaves and 38 seconds to Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb).
“From the beginning of the stage today, we were always thinking that if we kept the break close enough then it might be possible for the stage. Once Astana showed some interest in the stage then I knew it was possible. You never know deep into the final”, said Yates.
“It was a very long stage, a hard race in the end, I’m really tired but I’m happy that I managed to win the stage. I said from the beginning that we came here to win.”
“Today Domenico Pozzovivo was very strong, Thibaut Pinot was very good and Tom Dumoulin is still there. We haven’t gained a lot of time on him,” Yates added.
“Maybe Froome is suffering from his crashes or maybe he doesn’t have the form, I don’t know. I was surprised to see Fabio Aru lose time, but the Giro is a long race and they could bounce back.”
“Dumoulin’s still incredibly strong and very hard to gain time on,” Yates said. “I don’t know the exact amount of time, but I’ll need minutes before the time trial.
“I only have 38 seconds on him. For me that’s not enough, we’ll need to be aggressive to gain more time.”
