The Giro – Stage 9 Analysis

The Giro d’Italia 2023 route reveal made the time trialists very happy and as a result, many have turned up. According to Pro Cycling Stats’ time trialist ranking system, 4 of the top 10 time trialists in the world have turned up including Ganna and Remco Evenepoel. Top GC time trialists like Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas and Olympic TT champ Primoz Roglic have also turned up – it’s fair to say winning a time trial at the 2023 Giro d’Italia is one of the hardest things to do in pro cycling this year. The line-up is so strong I’ve not even mentioned Kung or the fact that the current TT world champ, Tobias Foss, had to pull out as he contracted covid at the Tour de Romandie. 

The second of three time trials, and the longest of the three, takes place on Sunday the 14th of May and is the flattest of the TTs – one that was made for heavier riders like Kung and Ganna.

The stage 9 route, a twisty, flat, point to point time trial made for the bigger riders.

The course includes a number of twists and turns and will likely favour riders who are able to take these corners in their aero bars.

The forecast

No preview would be complete without a myWindsock forecast. Our previous analysis went up on Instagram and was even mentioned by Rob Hatch on Eurosport. 

The forecast at the time of writing predicts strong headwinds at the start of the day. Obviously, this is subject to change – if you’re wanting an up to date prediction of the conditions click here.

How fast will the contenders go?

Remco Evenepoel put in a thermonuclear time trial on stage one to win, full results can be seen here and we can use this, along with data released by Velon to work out how aero he was and how fast he might go for the TT on Sunday. The time to beat for GC contenders will be around the 40 minute mark.

The myWindsock (plus a bit of guessing from Tom) estimate for Remco’s time…

Our guess for what Remco might do today, anything under 40 minutes will be competitive on the stage today.

Due to the length and how flat the TT is, along with the fact that Remco didn’t look himself yesterday, on paper Kung should be favourite. Using numbers that we’ve seen in the past from him we can predict the following from FDJ rider… 

As with anything though, there are a number of factors at play including how well riders have carried form from one day to the next. One thing that could also dictate the results is how conditions are changing throughout the day. Keep up to date on our Instagram for ongoing analysis.