The race to the walls of the Apennines has arrived and with it, the best of the legendary corsa rosa: after an initial first week where temperance was the protagonist, the high mountain shows the truths to the face and puts each climber aspiring to the pink in its place.

In the ninth stage of the Italian grand tour, between Isernia and the iconic Blockhaus mountain, that wide and unprotected peak of the Abruzzo where the Merckx shark laid the first stone of his legend, the Australian Jay Hindley, in a superhuman effort, surpassed the favorite Carapaz, Bardet and Mikel Landa to crown the Blockhaus and win one of the flagship stages of the Italian tour.

One of the most important days of the Giro began in Isernia, a small and old Roman town located in the Molise region, and after leaving the rocky village, Diego Rosa, rider of Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso's Eolo Kometa, attacked alone.

He was on his own land and wanted to do something historic; but after reaching the Passo Lanciano in the lead, on the climb to the Blockhaus he was overtaken by the group of favourites, where apart from Carapaz, Bardet, Yates or Landa, there was the pink jersey, a Juanpe López who suffered a slight fall and died to continue one more day as leader.

In the last kilometers of the stage, at the equator of the bandit mountain, the Blockhaus, Carapaz launched the attack, but enough Landa and Frenchman Bardet followed in his wake. Finally, the leading group expanded (Hindley and Almeida arrived) and in the final meters, the Bora oceanic put its name on a historic mountain. He arrived exhausted, threw his bike and cried with his family. The feat deserves it.