Riders will pace themselves through 40.5km from Radda in Chianti to Greve in Chianti on a course described as wavy and winding. The road undulates and heads slightly uphill all the way to Castellina in Chianti (split time 1). Next, it undulates and heads mainly downhill to Madonna di Pietracupa (split time 2).
After the second time split, the road narrows for about four kilometres. Then come two climbs. The second is steeper and leads to Panzano in Chianti (split time 3) before the final descent to the finish.
The final kilometres run downhill all the way to two kilometres from the finish line, along wide and mainly straight roads, just bending slightly at points. 300 metres from the finish there is a final bend, almost U-shaped, leading into the old town centre and to the finish.
Course profile for Stage 9 Source: RCS Sport
The home straight is 180 metres long, on a six metre wide, flat asphalt road.
Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-QuickStep) will start the day in the pink leader’s skin suit, after his heroic breakaway ride in Stage 8.
"Being 58kg, I’m not exactly a time trial specialist but I did well at Barolo two years ago and tomorrow’s course is a facsimile of that one,” he said after his victory last night.
“I’ll ride flat out and if I lose the Maglia Rosa, it won’t be a drama. There’ll still be two more weeks of racing to come, and some very hard stages”
The other general classification riders will also be riding with the overall title in mind, including Tom Dumoulin Giant-Alpecin) who lost the maglia rosa last night but had ear-marked this time trial as one he has wanted to win since the outset.
Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) has been conserving energy since starting the Giro with a stomach bug. He was disappointed with his inability to give it his all in the Stage 1 time trial and will want to make amends with his pet event tonight.
