Giro d'Italia 2026 stage nine preview: The Corno alle Scale awaits

Date: Sunday, May 17
Distance: 184km
Start location: Cervia
Finish location: Corno alle Scale
Start time: 11:35 BST / 12:35 CEST / 06:35 EDT
Finish time (approx.): 16:13 BST / 17:13 CEST / 11:13 EDT

Forty-eight hours after the Giro d'Italia's first summit finish comes another. Stage nine's Corno alle Scale climb may be 345km north of the Blockhaus, which the peloton climbed on Friday, but it is the same mountain range, the Apennines, which runs along the spine of the Italian peninsula. The first 155km or so of the 184km is flat, before the category 3 test up Querciola, shortly followed by the Red Bull KM, and the final category 1 climb up Corno alle Scale. At a glance the 10.8km at 6.1% climb seems relatively benign, but there's a sting: the gradients are savage towards the end with ramps of up to 15%.

Giro d'Italia 2026 stage nine profile 

Contenders

Winning on Blockhaus gave Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) his first Giro stage to add to his Grand Tour collection. If the break doesn't have a sufficient gap on the bottom of the Corno alle Scale, the Dane will be the favourite again. This is despite him surprisingly only putting 0:13 into Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) on Friday. Can the Austrian put in a similar performance on stage nine and be a genuine GC threat to Vingegaard?

The maglia rosa Afonso Eulálio (Bahrain-Victorious) performed valiantly in pink on the Blockhaus and even put a dig in during the finale of stage eight. He will come under increasing pressure from the likes of Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Ben O'Connor (Jayco AlUla), Derek Gee-West (Lidl-Trek) and Thymen Arensman (Netcompany-Ineos) as they look to consolidate their top-five ambitions.

Mathys Rondel (Tudor Pro Cycling Team) has quietly ridden himself into a top-10 position. The 22-year-old French rider may primarily be riding in service of team leader Michael Storer, but a few more shows of strength and the other riders around him will have to take note. Similarly Jan Hirt (NSN Cycling Team) is impressing with his tenacity.

Vingegaard's teammates Sepp Kuss and Davide Piganzoli climbed well on Friday and could feature high up on Sunday's stage.

Look out for riders looking to get into the day's break like Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) who deliberately lost time on stage eight and is now expected to go stage hunting with more leeway to go into early moves.

Wout Poels (Unibet Rose Rockets) is looking to complete the Grand Tour stage set at this Giro and would be a dangerous threat from the break in a stage like this.

Other threats include Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla) who won the final mountain stage last year, Soudal Quick-Step's Gianmarco Garofoli and Filippo Zana, Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Alessandro Pinarello (NSN Cycling Team), and Egan Bernal (Netcompany-Ineos), who, like Ciccone, has lost enough time to be allowed to go into a breakaway.

Prediction

Having deliberately lost time on stage eight, Giulio Ciccone should have the freedom to go early on stage nine – and on a climb that suits his style, he looks the one to beat.