IF LAST Tuesday’s stage four, a race up Mount Etna, the first of this year’s Giro d’Italia’s mountain stages, proved to be something of a phoney war, with none of the favourites willing to put their nose in the wind so early in the race, Sunday’s stage nine in the Apennines, the tour’s second mountain stage ending at the Blockhaus peak, told us a lot more about the form of the top contenders in the general category and the way the race’s final two weeks is likely to pan out.

The Giro, one of the “big three” tours in men’s cycling alongside the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana, is always a race to savour, being first in the sequence and so the least predictable; some riders are jockeying for places in their team for the more prestigious Tour de France, some are looking to exploit early-season form, others thrive in the special conditions that the Giro offers.

One such is Australian Jai Hindley, second overall in 2020’s Covid-delayed race, who took Sunday’s stage in a close finish, pipping France’s Romain Bardet and the race favourite, Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, on the line after a brutal day of climbing that sorted the sheep from the goats.