Giro d’Italia Stage 9 as it happened - A maiden grand tour victory for Olav Kooij, as Pogacar leads-out team-mate Molano to 3rd

I assume he was talking about the finish because a lot is not happening at the moment.

Jimmy Janssen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) seems to be controlling things all on his own. And not having to work very hard to do so.

Yep, we've already reached the point in the racing where so little is happening that we're assessing the spectators. Oh look, a Cofidis rider has unclipped. My kingdom for a horse (or a dog) to liven things up. Might be resorting to the tactics of m'learned colleague Felix Lowe with a game of #GiroSwimmingPools at this rate.

From their body language, this is evidently a situation that Maestri and Pietrobon didn't wish to find themselves in. Rob and Sean consider whether their DS might allow them to knock their efforts on the head. "No" is the fairly confident conclusion, but the team car is on its way past the peloton to tell them in person.

If you're wondering why and from when these names might be familiar, they were both in the break together at Milan-Sanremo a couple of months ago.

An EF rider and one from Soudal-Quickstep seem to consult before suddenly popping out of the front row of riders. Rob Hatch and Sean Kelly suggest they're just messing around rather than making a concerted effort to go on the attack. And no sooner have they emerged from the bunch than they're back in it again. Tarozzi has returned to the fold but the pace is not so high, nor the gap yet a gulf, that someone who wanted to spend the day in the break couldn't do so.

202KM TO GO - ALPECIN COMING TO THE FRONT

Lining out across the road and although they're not riding hard, they seem to be setting a sufficiently strong tempo as to deter further attacks. The Polti riders are almost a minute up the road.

It's all a bit tentative, and while Manuele Tarozzi (VF Group-Bardiani-Faizane) has made a dash for it, Andrea Pietrobon and Mirco Maestri are looking around wondering what's going on. At the moment it's looking like a lazy day out in the bunch.

The director looks ahead and decides not to drop his flag at a roundabout. They're through, they're going, and two Polti-Kometa riders are off like rockets. Maybe they've got pizza reservations in Naples?

A delay to the start as the Intermarché - Wanty rider gets a replacement rear wheel.

Heading out of Avezzano towards kilometre zero. Eurosport's Ben informs me that Avezzano is the home of The Sopranos, but will they all be singing from the same hymn sheet at the end of the first week?

How has Alessandro Di Marchi never won a stage of his home grand tour? I don't mind saying I'd be delighted to see him take one today.

I'm usually of the view that the phrase "there's only one word for that" implies a very limited vocabulary, but in the case of Pogacar's Giro so far, it's hard to do better than "domination" or variations thereof. Are you not entertained?

A punchy finish but not sufficiently punchy for Pogacar? It's a really hard finish, but realistically today has fast finish written all over it. And as Orla has just said on the breakaway, "the sprint teams surely have to make sure they don't let this one slip through their fingers." How many times have we said that before? How many times just in this race have we seen them do just that? The bookies are leaning towards the fastmen but not quite as heavily as they have done. (More on the odds later)

Ciao a tutti and welcome to live coverage of Stage 9 of the Giro d’Italia 2024.

Today the Giro will finally reach the south - camorra country, for those into that sort of thing. But will the Godfather of la corsa rosa be granting favours (on his daughter’s wedding day) or will he be keeping it in the family.

It should be one for the sprinters but this is Tadej Pogacar’s race - the rest are just riding in it.