Simon Yates suffers Giro d’Italia blow on stage nine and hints he could pull out with a knee injury

Simon Yates suffered more Giro d’Italia disappointment as his pink-jersey hopes were extinguished on the climb of the mighty Blockhaus.

Jai Hindley took the stage-nine win in a virtual photo finish with Romain Bardet and Richard Carapaz, as Juan Pedro Lopez just hung on to the pink jersey despite almost crashing on the final climb.

That all happened some 11 minutes before Yates — nursing a knee injury suffered on stage four — crossed the line, having been dropped with 11km to go of the punishing 191km stage from Isernia.

Simon Yates saw his pink-jersey hopes were extinguished on the climb of Blockhaus

Team Bora’s Jai Hindley (third from the left) took the stage-nine win in a virtual photo finish

The British rider hinted he could now pull out, saying: ‘I was hopeful of still being able to try to do something, but I’ve been in a lot of pain since Etna. I’ve been trying to manage it as best as possible. It wasn’t my only problem today, I suffered with the heat. I’ll see what happens. I’ll see how I pull up.’

It means the BikeExchange-Jayco rider has once again come into the Giro as one of the favourites, only for it to unravel. 

The 29-year-old, who enjoyed two weeks in the pink jersey in 2018 only to lose it in the third week as Chris Froome broke clear, has seen his hopes of a repeat disappear in each of the last three years.

Yates, who underlined his credentials with victory in the stage-two time trial, had previously tried to play down the impact of the knock suffered in a tumble in Sicily on Tuesday.

Yates sustained a knee injury during the fourth stage and had tried to play down the impact