Buongiorno and welcome to live coverage of stage 9 of the Giro d'Italia - an Apennine mountain-top showdown on the Gran Sasso d'Italia in a long 225km stage from Pesco Sannita.

Fausto Masnada takes the 15pts going over the summit of the climb - but only because he is pushed over the line by his Androni team-mate Davide Ballerini. It's an odd sequence of events that precedes the summit as Masnada drops a chain, Berhane slows down and then Ballerini then pushes his team-mate ahead and through the banner. There must have been an arrangement made by the three riders and Masnada, the 24-year-old Giro debutant, was clearly the designated rider for the points - because Ballerini did his utmost best to ensure this, and Berhane was also in on it by slowing. I'm not 100% sure of the rules but it will be interesting to see if the commissaires do anything about that...

Gianni Savio's Androni team have now made eight our of eight breaks so far in this year's Giro - impressive consistency from the wildcards, who are back on the race after a two-year absence.

The break has split as they approach the summit with Androni-Giocattoli duo Ballerini and Masnada riding clear with Dimension Data's Berhane in pursuit of KOM points.

Big day for Mitchelton-Scott - can the Australian team pull off another one-two? They'd probably settle for a simple 'one' or, at the very least, a strong showing from both Yates and Chaves, with the pink jersey kept in their hands. Time will tell. We got onto their team bus this morning...

Italian sprinter Jakub Mareczko (Wilier Triestina) has withdrawn from the race. His long wait for a major win on European soil will continue - and his team will have to change their tactics and get into the breaks more often.

The Giro last tackled the Roccaraso climb in 2010 where it featured in a stage that finished at L'Aquila (the late Xavier Tondo crested the summit in position before Evgeni Petrov took the win). There have been five stage finishes on this climb, the latest back in 1987 and won by Moreno Argentin. Both Bernard Hinault and Fausto Coppi have won here, too.

The 14-man break are onto the first categorised climb of the day, the Cat.2 ascent of Roccaraso (6.9km at 6.5% with a maximum gradient of 12%). The gap is back up to 7'12".

A reminder of yesterday's key moments...

Finally, we can join the TV images for the business end of this stage - with the first of the three categorised climbs coming right up. The gap is down to 6'50". It's a sunny day but there are loads of fluffy clouds in the blue sky - and still lots of lying snow on the Gran Sasso.

The Giro has finished atop the Gran Saddo d'Italia four times in its history with victories for the Spaniard Vicente Lopez Carril (1971), Italy's Franco Chioccioli (1985), Denmark's John Carlsen (1989) and most recently - and most famously - the Italian Pirate Marco Pantani (1999).

We're finally about to get some live images from the race... about time too!

And now the gap is up to 7'20" to give Brambilla 40 seconds of virtual maglia rosa breathing space.

The gap has stabilised and is still just under the seven-minute mark for the 14 escapees, keeping Brambilla in the virtual pink jersey - just.

We have a few former Giro stage winners in this group - most recently Wellens, who won stage 4 last week and a stage back in 2016. Brambilla also won a stage in 2016 - and took the maglia rosa, something which is feasible today although he'll have his work cut out to do both. Visconti won two stages in the 2013 Giro but took a big hit in a crash a few days ago. Belkov won a stage in 2013 as well and was on the attack a couple of days ago in the stage to Praia a Mare.

Today's break is made up of eight Italians (Ballerini, Boaro, Visconti, Andreetta, Benedetti, Turrin, Masnada and Brambilla), a Belgian (Wellens), a Luxembourger (Didier), a Brit (Carthy), a Russian (Belkov), an Eritrean (Berhane) and a Frenchman (Cherel). So, it's looking good for the host nation to add to their haul of three stage wins out of eight so far in this race.

The gap is up to seven minutes now for the 14 leaders as they negotiate a zippy downhill following that little uphill kicker. I saw little - it may have been uncategorised, but it still represented a 200m ride over 6.5km so for you or I it was a real thigh-stinger.

We could see a shake-up in the maglia azzurra KOM standings today. Esteban Chaves currently leads on 35pts following his win on Etna a few days ago, with Simon Yates on 20pts and Thibaut Pinot on 19pts. But there are a maximum 65pts up for grabs today over the two Cat.2 climbs and the final Cat.1 ascent, putting today's winner in a good position of also picking up the blue jersey.

We're in for a treat later on the Gran Sasso d'Italia...

Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo) is the virtual pink jersey as the gap increases to 6'45" for the 14 escapees. They have ridden the first hour at an average speed of 45.2kmh so they mean business out there. They have the first of two small climbs ahead of the first categorised test of the day coming right up.

If you missed that bizarre Froome uphill crash yesterday, check it out here. It's clearly a case of when it rains it pours for Froome. He looked out of sorts as soon as the bad weather arrived yesterday, knocking into team-mate Sergio Henao at the start of the climb, losing a front wheel on that corner with 6km remaining, then shoulder-barging George Bennett while looking at his stem and pedalling a frantic spinning cadence. He's not the most elegant at the most of the time, but he really does look uncharacteristically troubled in this Giro. That said, he's still only 1'10" down, and if he can weather the storm and come good in the final week, perhaps the Giro-Tour double is still a possibility?