(Cesena) The Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) won for just one second the 9e stage of the Tour of Italy, a 35 km individual time trial, and regained the leader’s pink jersey on Sunday in Cesena.
It is the second victory in this Giro for the world champion who had flown over the inaugural time trial a week ago.
Sunday, in the rain and in the cold, he was much less sovereign, ahead of the Britons of Ineos, Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart, by only one and two seconds respectively.
The 23-year-old Belgian, who gave up his pink jersey to Norwegian Tobias Leknessund on Tuesday, regains the lead in the general classification.
He now has a 47-second lead in the general standings over his great rival, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who greatly limited the breakage in this new time, yielding only 17 seconds to the Belgian. The Giro will pause on Monday, the race’s first rest day.