Robert Kiserlovski (Trek) has been one of the strongest riders in the first two big uphill finishes in the Giro d'Italia. The Croatian heads into the second rest day with a boosted confidence.

The first challenging weekend of the Giro d’Italia continued today with stage nine’s uphill finish on the category two-rated climb to Sestola. For the second straight day the Giro delivered another thrilling ending, which saw the breakaway duel it out for the stage win, while behind the GC contenders warily eyed each other.

Once again the breakaway manifested the bulk of the action for the 172-kilometer route from Lugo to Sestola.  However, unlike yesterday Trek Factory Racing was not part of a 14-man break that shaped after a feverish first hour of racing. Missing the boat, the team turned its focus to GC leader Robert Kiserlovski - who is showing marvelous form - and to recovering its energies.

“These past two days, my feeling has been good, and that gives me a lot of confidence for the GC," Kiserlovski said. "Today was a day to not do too much work – thankfully it was quite an easy day with only one difficult climb at the end. It’s better to save energy for next weeks, especially the last week, which is very hard.”

In the final uphill to Sestola the battle for the stage win materialized from the last two remnants of the breakaway. Pieter Weening of Orica GreenEdge took the honors in a gripping cat-n-mouse finish over Davide Malacarne (Europcar). Behind, Dominico Pozzovivo (AG2R), 10th place overall, attacked from the group containing the overall contenders. Although he never caught the duo up the road, he carved a few more seconds from Cadel Evans’ overall time and leaped into fourth place. As a result Kiserlovski dropped a rung, to 10th.

“When Pozzivivo attacked, I was not in good position. Then I tried an attack, but no one let me go. At that point it was better for me not to expend more energy because there are two more hard weeks to come. Things can change a lot in the final week.”

It was apparent that the peloton desired an easier stage as there was no determined effort to draw back the breakaway. For Trek Factory Racing, it was also a welcomed day to recharge the batteries - especially for Julian Arredondo after yesterday’s strenuous effort. He successfully defended his mountains jersey with the breakaway gobbling up the points, giving him a much-needed tranquil stage.

Although Robert Kiserlovski preferred a harder stage, he knew that with all the tough terrain ahead, this ended up being a perfect day to save some energy:

“It was a little bit of a strange day; I really don’t like days like today where it’s mostly flat with a hard climb at the end. Then a lot of people are fresh. For me I prefer to have lots of climbs to make it harder. But, okay, that will come.”