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, used all his Strade Bianche experience to outsmart 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.

The stage, a 181 kilometre ride from Gubbio to Siena, saw the first major shake-up of this year's Giro in the race for the pink jersey, with the gravel sectors usually seen in the Strade Bianche one-day race suiting Van Aert best.

"This victory means a lot to me, I almost cannot explain it," Van Aert said.

"It had to be here I believe, because this place is where my road career started back in 2018."

Van Aert finished third in the 2018 Strade Bianche and again the following year before tasting victory in 2020, and the 30-year-old Giro debutant made his experience count on a day when others faltered.

The Belgian was part of a chasing group which hunted down an earlier breakaway, and alongside Del Toro was able to shake off the likes of Egan Bernal with 15km to go, and the pair then fought for the stage win themselves.

There was plenty of action behind, with Roglic going down in the peloton in a crash which also claimed one of the stage favourites Tom Pidcock, and both riders suffered punctures to put them well out of contention.

Del Toro came into the final kilometre with the pink