San Francisco Frontiers - Van Aert wins at last as Del Toro charges to Giro lead

For the 21-year-old Del Toro, racing in his first Giro, this was a landmark performance that puts the UAE rider on the cycling map after he and Van Aert dropped everyone else.

Italian Giulio Ciccone was third, 58 seconds down, while title pretenders Richard Carapaz, Simon Yates, Antonio Tiberi, Juan Ayuso, Egan Bernal and Adam Yates were all around a minute adrift.

On the challenging white gravel roads towards Siena's iconic 12th-century Piazza del Campo finish line Primoz Roglic, Tom Pidcock, Derek Gee and Michael Storer all lost considerable time in the overall standings.

Del Toro now leads teammate Ayuso by 1min 13sec atop the overall. Tiberi is 1:30 off the pace, with Carapaz at 1:40 and Ciccone rounding out the top five at 1:41.

For Van Aert it was a long awaited 50th win and the Belgian lay gasping on the floor of the medieval square that hosts a bareback horse race twice a year.

Van Aert and Del Toro broke free from Bernal with 30km to go after it had seemed the Colombian was finally fully over his terrible injuries from a training crash in 2022, but now the 2019 Tour de France and 2021 Giro champion appears to be back in the mix at least.

Del Toro refused to work with Van Aert and did most of the work over the final kilometres, possibly costing him the stage win on his big day.

On a clear day in the lush rolling fields of Tuscany, the stage was transformed by the five white gravel sectors measuring 29.5km.

Dressed entirely in pink to start the morning, veteran Italian journeyman Diego Ulissi lost his overnight lead in billowing clouds of thick white dust, but was cheered all the way in his home region.

Monday is a rest day while stage 10 on Tuesday is an almost flat 28.6km individual time trial.

R.Baker--SFF