Without showing any signs of promising disposition coming into the Giro d’Italia this season, Ryder Hesjedal earned his position within a group of pre-race favorites only thanks to his victory in the 2012 edition of the Italian grand tour.  However, the 33-year old Canadian elevated to a role of Garmin-Sharp sole leader following their unfortunate accident during the opening team time trial, managed to stay with the best climbers and limit further time losses during the first mountain stages of the event.

The impression of Garmin-Sharp riders being the most unfortunate participants of this season’s Giro d’Italia edition was erased by an infamous mass-crash at the bottom of Montecassino climb, when most of pre-race favorites hit the deck on the slippery roundabout. Hesjedal was also involved in the incident, but this time managed to limit his losses as much as possible by joining the first chasing group led by Movistar, Ag2R La Mondiale and Omega Pharma-Quick Step.

"I feel good in general, obviously there was the crash for us [Garmin-Sharp] on the first day but since then I've managed to stay out of trouble, [an issue] which has been pretty key in this race for a lot of guys," Hesjedal told Cyclingnews shortly before stage nine.

"There’s been a few solid tests so far but I've felt good. Keeping that in mind, if I look at where my strengths are in these types of racing, I'm feeling good and should improve in the third week which is where it’s the most important."

“Yesterday [stage eight] was super hard and we got a good indication of what’ll happen today [stage nine] and see what happens. But I’m definitely confident and I want to look towards doing well in the time trial.”

"Personally I feel really good on the TT bike, probably the best I've ever felt, actually, and I did some good training coming into here. So that doesn't hurt when you've got an important TT coming up, and we’ll see what happens."

Riding somewhat in the shadow because of his very low position in the general classification, the 33-year old Canadian managed to stay with the best until the very decisive parts of both mountain stages last weekend, finishing tenth on Saturday and fourteenth yesterday. Still believing to have many opportunities to excel in the Italian grand tour this year, Hesjedal pointed out that a decent overall result still couldn’t be ruled out as we have already received enough evidence of how unpredictable the Italian grand can be.

"It doesn’t really affect how I’m racing. You ride the GC, you have to do things a certain way, but it doesn't mean I can’t look for opportunities I wouldn't have been looking for anyway."

"From day one, I started with that time loss, but there's still a lot of racing to go. I know how crucial seconds can be in this event" — he won in 2012 by just 16 seconds from Joaquim Rodriguez, after all — "but this is the Giro and things can change really fast here, too, on a daily basis."

Asked about objectives for the remaining of 2014 season, Hesjedal revealed that his racing programme for after the Giro d’Italian is yet to be determined, and riding the Tour de France is equally possible as doing the Giro-Vuelta double for the first time in his career.

"If I'm able to do a good Giro and I'm even better at Tour de France-time, we'll look at that and see. You have to look at the schedule, we've got all sorts of good riders, maybe I could look at the Vuelta and do a traditional two part season - I've never done that before and that was one idea. But let's get through this one first."

Talking to Cyclingnews again after the stage, Hesjedal said; "That climb was pretty hard, there was a spectator who brought a rider down right before the steep part and I got caught behind that. It stung a little bit to get back on again but I got through all right."