Pieter Weening of Orica Greenedge won the ninth stage of the Giro D'Italia
With a new leader in Cadel Evans, stage nine which was 172kms long and from Lugo to a mountain top finish at Sestola, started without Francesco Chicchi of Neri Sottoli who have gone over a barrier during a crash and finished thirty minute down on the stage winner Diego Ulissi.
It took fifty six kilometres for the break to get established and fourteen riders in Julien Berard (AG2R La Mondiale), Enrico Barbin (Bardiani CSF), Marco Bandiera (Androni Giocatolli), Jackson Rodriguez (Androni Giocatolli), David Tanner (Belkin), Oscar Gatto (Cannondale), Leonardo Duque (Colombia), Matteo Bono (Lampre-Merida), Jonathan Monsalve (Neri Sottoli), Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto-Belisol), Salvatore Puccio (Team Sky), Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), Pieter Weening (Orica-GreenEdge) and Davide Malacarne (Europcar) got together and got away.
Twenty kilometres later and they had built up a lead of 5.30 and with eighty kilometres to go, it was a lead that was hovering around the 6.15 mark but had gone out to 7.57 with 63.6kms to go.
On the first cimb of the day at Sant Antonio, Jonathan Monsalve took the full points on offer and four kilometres came the first sprint of the day which Bandiera took.
Belkin's Steve Kruijswijk abandoned due to the effects of a crash on stage six as David Tanner went off on his own and took the penultimate climb of the day.
Pieter Weening caught up to Tanner with 17kms to go and then Davide Malacarne took over from Tanner as the duo set off for the ski station on Mt Crimonne.
They had a lead of 1.40 as Gorka Izzagirre crashed with under seven kilometres to go.
Onto the steepest section of the climb and there were big crowds out to see Weening and Malacarne come through.
Domenico Pozzovivo of AG2R attacked from the group containing Cadel Evans but Malacarne and Weening were away.
Pozzovivo was gaining all the time as the duo started to play cat and mouse games. Inside the last two hundred and fifty metres, Malacarne led it out but it was Peter Weening who won in 4.25.51 ahead of Malacarne and of Pozzovivo who came in forty seconds down, followed by Ulissi and Uran.
Cadel Evans keeps his lead going into Tuesday's stage ten with a 57 second lead over Rigoberto Uran. Pozzovivo moves up to fourth in the general classification.
Stage winner Pieter Weening said to Dan Lloyd: "The guys weren't working in a group and everyone started looking at each other. Malacarne came back and I could not drop and I made my decision to wait until the last kilometre and gamled in the last few hundred metres and I was first up the hill, sorry to Malacarne."
Cadel Evans said: "There was a big group and it came down to the last climb. There was plenty of gambling rather than the GC controlling. We have to be satisfied with things the way they are and I am very proud of my guys."