Jonas Vingegaard not sorry for dropping Felix Gall to snatch Stage 9 win at Giro d'Italia - 'Not how it works'

The Dane admitted that Visma-Lease a Bike were not planning to go for the stage, which saw him clinch victory inside the last 900m at Corno alle Scale.

Decathlon-CMA CGM, however, were gunning for the win, with their rider Gall overtaking solo leader Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) during the punishing final kilometres.

Vingegaard's triumph, his second stage win at his maiden Giro, means he has cut Afonso Eulalio's (Bahrain Victorious) lead on general classification to 2'24" ahead of Monday's rest day and Tuesday's individual time trial.

And the 29-year-old felt no guilt whatsoever after Decathlon's riders had battled hard to keep the breakaway within reach.

"Nah, actually not," Vingegaard told TNT Sports when asked if he felt bad taking the win from Gall.

"I just like to win, and it's not that you pull all day and then you're the guy that has to win. That's not how it works in cycling.

"You don't get any gifts in cycling and I've tried that also many times. Of course, it's nicer to win when your team-mate has been pulling the whole day."

Decathlon sporting director Luke Roberts explained after the finale that despite not winning the stage, their plan "paid off" with several GC contenders losing time to Gall in third.

"We wanted the GC group to race for the stage win today to make sure the last climb was raced hard. The guys did a lot of work in the beginning trying to control it," explained Roberts.

"I think a lot of riders, a lot of teams were thinking this would be a breakaway stage. We were probably the only ones with a different idea and it took a hell of a lot of work from Rasmus [Sojberg] and Tord [Gudmestad], especially Rasmus, to maintain that gap to what was eventually 11 guys pulling against two.

"Yeah, the plan came off. I knew Felix would be good on the last climb. We had to chip away at the other GC contenders and some of them faltered a bit today, lost them some seconds. So in the end it paid off.

"Whether we were going to take the stage win or not, it's obviously going to be hard to beat Vingegaard. But Felix was close again and it just edges us a bit further ahead of the other contenders."

Gall is now 2'59" behind GC leader Eulalio and the Austrian stretched his lead over Jai Hindley (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) in fourth, with the Australian 4'32" off the pace.

Decathlon's strategy stood in stark contrast to Visma's, with Vingegaard admitting that the decision to push for the stage win came late in the day.

"Yeah that's true, we didn't want to pull for the stage today, and we realised quite quickly that Decathlon wanted to go for the stage," said Vingegaard.

"It's always nice with a win, something I'm super happy with. Even my team-mates did a super-good job and once the win was within victory, we decided on the last climb to maybe try to go for it."

Up next, following the second rest day of the tour, the riders will race a 42km time trial from Viareggio to Massa, with Vingegaard donning the unwanted blue jersey on "not the nicest road in the world".

"Well, the most I know from it is from doing Tirreno-Adriatico. It's the same road, the same bumpy road. I don't know if they repaved the road. I hope, but I don't count on it," said Vingegaard.

"But yeah, it's not the nicest road in the world."

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