Astana's Lopez 9th in Stage 9 of Giro d'Italia
Astana Pro Team took control over the race with around 45 km to go, starting chasing hard the breakaway and working for its leader Miguel Angel Lopez. A huge effort of the Kazakh team in front of the bunch produced a great selection in the group and practically neutralized the daily breakaway with 3 km to go.
With about 2,5 km to the top of the final climb it was Miguel Angel Lopez, who launched an attack, but he was caught by the rivals. Until the very last kilometer the main GC contenders stayed together in the same group and only inside the final 1000 meters a powerful uphill sprint decided the stage winner: the maglia rosa Simon Yates opened his sprint with 100 m to go to take the stage ahead of Thibaut Pinot and Esteban Chaves. Miguel Angel Lopez lost 12 seconds and finished 9th.
"What a great work was done by our team! I want to thank all my teammates for a huge support today! What a pity, I could not finalize this work with a stage victory. I really wanted to win and this was my main goal for this stage. I tried to attack in a moment and thought it could be a good one, but I missed some power and it did not work with a strong head wind on the climb. I felt quite good during the day but in the end just missed a little. Anyway, I am improving day by day. Let's hope at the second week I could go further ahead. We have a very strong team here at the Giro and still two full weeks of racing!" said Miguel Angel Lopez.
Stage 9 became a real challenge for the peloton in the end of the first week of racing: the peloton has passed 225 km with three climbs, including the final super climb of 26 km with a top at 2135 meters above the sea level. A group of 14 riders went away clear in the beginning of the stage, getting a solid advantage over 8 minutes. It was Astana Pro Team, who took the responsibility in the race with 45 km to go to cut the gap from 8 to 1 minute and almost neutralizing the breakaway inside the final 4 km.
For Astana's leader Miguel Angel Lopez it was another good performance in the high mountains. He is still on the way to his best form, but already after today's stage he was able to move up from 20th to 13th place in the general classification, +2.34 behind the GC leader Simon Yates.
Another Astana rider Pello Bilbao did a good race as well: he finished 14th today, saving a place in the Top-10 of the overall classification: after stage 9 Bilbao holds 9th position in the GC, +2.05 behind the leader.
Tomorrow the Giro d'Italia will hold the second rest day.