Tom Dumoulin won the 9th stage of the Vuelta a Espana while the star of Mattia Cattaneo shone in the main breakaway of the stage, which began a few kilometers after the start.

13 riders succeeded in getting a maximum advantage of more than 5 minutes. The Italian young gun waited for the first climb to up the rythm and reducing the leading group to 4 riders (Fraile, Serry and Bagot joined him) who reached the summit with 2'30" on the bunch. On the downhill, the front group was joined by Jim, Tjallingi, Thomas and Bouet and could defend a 1-minute advantage on the chasing group until the approach of the final climb.

The gap was soon neutralized, just before a series of attacks began: Dumoulin won the stage.

Once again, a crash characterized the stage, involving four Lampre-Merida’s riders, namely Grmay, Koshevoy, Conti and Durasek, but none of them suffered serious consequences.

"I had a very good day and I succeeded in joining a good breakaway, unfortunately the bunch did not give us enough freedom. It would have been a very interesting chance to try to achieve a big goal,” Cattaneo explained. ”We would have needed another two minutes to keep the peloton at bay. In that case I could have obtained a good result, even if the breakaway riders were strong. I'll try again in the next stages, my form is getter better and better".