Remco Evenepoel punched the air as he wheeled through the finish area in Cesena, but it was almost as though he was trying to convince himself this had been more of a victory than a defeat. As expected, the Belgian claimed the stage 9 time trial of the Giro d'Italia and reclaimed the maglia rosa, but his winning margin was tighter than anyone had anticipated beforehand.
The 35km test was supposed to be the day Evenepoel placed a sizeable down payment on the final overall victory, but the predicted channelling of Miguel Indurain in Luxembourg never materialised. Instead, Evenepoel had to produce a late, late surge to deny Geraint Thomas (Ineos) stage victory by a single second, while Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos) and Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) also limited their losses to two and 17 seconds, respectively.
