Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-QuickStep) is making something of a speciality of technical, rain-soaked time trials through wine country. His display in the Giro d'Italia's Chianti time trial on stage 9 was perhaps not of quite the same vintage as his fifth place in the Barolo test two years ago, but it was enough for him to keep the maglia rosa by solitary second.
Pleasant Tuscan sunshine gave way to driving rain on Sunday afternoon, as the last man down the start ramp, Brambilla had to endure some of the worst of the day's conditions in order to retain his overall lead.
Through the first two time checks, Brambilla initially seemed destined to lose his lead to Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha), who began the day just 23 seconds down in second place. But when the Russian suffered not one, but two crashes in the final section of the course, Brambilla suddenly found himself in a battle with his own teammate, Bob Jungels.
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While most of the general classification began quickly on the rippling early hills and then took a more ginger approach in the finale, Brambilla hurled himself into the final descent into Greve in Chianti. By that point, the rain had abated but the descent was hardly much drier. One last, desperate effort on the cobbled rise to the line secured him another day in pink, by the slimmest of margins.
"I'm happy for myself, because this tells me that yesterday the maglia rosa didn't come by chance," said Brambilla, who placed 17th on the stage, 2:05 down on winner Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo). "It was a big effort today. I went out pretty gently at the start and then I went harder at end, but I wanted to stay safe.
"The time trial was very difficult and technical, and then the rain made it even harder and I'm really not a specialist in the rain. Before I started I saw that a lot of riders were falling out there, but thanks to our technical material, we did fine."
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