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Vollering, Van der Breggen, Niedermaier, Longo Borghini, Holmgren, Fisher-Black and De Vries led the race on the descent.
Dickson and Cavallar are apparently with the Reusser group over one minute back.
Apologies for the confused information.
Again, a change in the information we’re receiving.
We have two leaders, Cavallar and Dickson are off the front, with Vollering, Van der Breggen, Niedermaier, Longo Borghini, Holmgren, Fisher-Black, De Vries in the favourites’ group.
Reusser, De Schepper and Vallieres are behind them.
The descent is a long and technical one, will Cavallar be close enough to get back on once they hit the valley? If she’s caught by Reusser and the others they can form a strong chasing group, but will they work?
Valentina Cavallar is not a great descender and this is a tough descent, she is dropped from the leading group, though she’s not yet caught by De Schepper.
We are now geting reports that World Champion, Vallieres is not in that lead group, but with Reusser instead.
Vollering, Dickson, Van der Breggen, Cavallar, Niedermaier, Longo Borghini, Holmgren, Fisher-Black, De Vries and Vallieres lead the race.
Lore De Schepper (AG Insurance-Soudal) and Marlen Reusser (Movistar)are not together, but are chasing on the descent.
In that group it’s Valentina Cavallar, not Cecchini, also Magdeleine Vallieres (EF Education-Oalty) is also there.
The lead group consists of Vollering and Lauren Dickson (FDJ United-SUEZ), Van der Breggen and Valentina Cavallar (SD Worx-Protime), Longo Borghini, Isabella Holmgren and Niamh Fisher-Black (Lidl-Trek), Antonia Niedermaier (Canyon-Sram) and Fenke de Vries (Visma-Lease a Bike).
90km to go
Still 10 riders remain at the front, though we can expect that to increase on the descent.
It’s tight, twisty and steep on the way down, a good descender could make a difference here.
The top of the climb comes with 90.8km to go and, with 3km to go there’s a group of around 10 riders in the front group, including all the favourites.
The pace at the front has really opened the back door and there are riders all over the mountain.
Van der Breggen and Elisa Longo Borghini(UAE Team ADQ) go with Vollering’s move.
Attack form Vollering. That’s early and with more than 90km to go.
Demi Vollering’s FDJ United-SUEZ head to the front and set the pace. They’ll have one aim and that’s to pressure Anna van der Breggen and hopefully isolate her.
If they can drop Valentina Cavallar here Vollering will be in a great position to win the GC.
This isn’t one of those steep but steady climbs, the gradient fluctuates so it’s difficult to get a rhythm going. But after a relatively easy introduction it’s hard all the way.
100km to go
We’re close to the base of the climb and there is no breakaway, making this a fascinating stage. You can bet riders will be getting dropped as this ascent wears on, with the selection coming from the back.
SD Worx-Protime are making a statement, leading the race towards the base of the climb.
We’re approaching the day’s first climb, the first category ascent to Montoso and it’s a tough one. It’s 8.9km long with an average gradient 9.4%, though the tougher slopes come later on, making it a real challenge. Vollering, Niedermaier and Holmgren need to make a difference today, can they do it here, so far from the finish?
Anna van der Breggen admitted to having to change plans half way up the Colle delle Finestre yesterday.
She admitted it required a mental switch to “suffering more.”
110km to go
The bottom of the Montoso climb is in 10.5km, if any breakaway gets a gap before then I think it’ll be short-lived. One might go after the climb, though that depends on how the climb is ridden.
Organisers did their best in difficult circumstances after an avalanche on the Colle delle Finestre on Saturday.
“It was absolutely unforeseeable,” said RCS Sports Paolo Bellino.
We had a breakway, with Thalita de Jong (Human Powered Health), Josie Nelson (Picnic-PostNL) and the UNO-X Mobility pair of Mie Bjøndal Ottestad and Alessia Vigilia up the road, but they’re caught.
Meanwhile, Olympic and US champion, Kritsen Faulkner (EF Education-Oatly) abandon the race.
It’s only 20km to the start of the main climb of the day, so if a breakaway does get up the road we say see a repeat of yesterday, when they are caught on the lower slopes, not long after they got away.
120km to go
The race has eased significantly from earlier, but they’re still along at 41km/h. We saw this yesterday, the high pace due to the number of riders wanting to get up the road.
The coming kilometres are a draggy false flat, there are no steep gradients though.
Crash in the peloton
Riders from UAE Team ADQ, Isolmant-Premac-Vittoria, EF Education-Oatly, Vini Fantini-BePink and UNO-X Mobility are involved in the crash.
There’s been a crash in the peloton, though we have never detail as yet.
There were mixed feelings for Demi Volllering after she won a shortened stage 8 on Saturday.
“It really changed the plans we had,” the FDJ United-SUEZ rider said.
It’s flattened out now, so perhaps we’ll see a breakaway now.
These opening kilometres are slightly downhill and the current average speed is 60km/h!
140km to go
As it has been for the last few days, it’s fast at the front but no attacks have managed to stick just yet.
The final climb tops out 38.9km from the finish, but there’s an uphill intermediate front at Colletta di Rossana 24km out which could prove a brilliant launch pad for someone. Anything could happen today.
We’ve got another flat start to the stage today, before the day’s first category climb to Montoso starts after 45 km. Following the descent there’s the third category Colletta di Paesana, with the second category Colletta di Brondello to finish.
There’s one non-starter this morning, Charlotte Kool (Fenix-Premier Tech) has withdrawn.
The official start
Here we go. The flag has dropped and the final stage is on!
It looks like there was some tension before they set off.
Looks like we’ll see high temperatures of about 25º, though not a lot of sunshine. There’s not a lot of a chance of rain and, once again, not a lot of wind.
We’ve got 4.4km of neutral before the real fun starts and the riders are rolling.
It was all smiles for Alessia Vigilia (UNO-X Mobility) and her friends and family before the start.
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If the race stays together over the early climbs, former British champion, Pfeiffer Georgi (Picnic-PostNL) could be good for today’s stage.
But what about stage yesterday? The Colle Delle Finestre brought drama on and above the road.
We’ve got almost 2,100m of climbing today, as we flirt with the mountains.
Can Vollering deliver enough to overtake Van der Breggen?
We’re still in the north west of Italy for the final day of the race, on the very edge of the Alpes Maritimes, starting and finishing in Saluzzo. We roll for 145km at 13:15CET.
Good morning and welcome to stage 9 of the 2026 Giro d’Italia Women. Stay with us for all the updates from the deciding day of the race.