"They did swear at me a lot" - Toon Aerts creates big enemies at the Giro d'Italia after receiving puzzling team orders

Lotto-Intermarché entered the Giro d'Italia with several ill riders, with Arnaud de Lie and Milan Menten leaving the race within the first few days as they failed to recover from it. The team is down to only five riders and on stage 9 Toon Aerts gave it a go to try and chase a result. However, he was told not to ride in the day's breakaway, which earned him quite a few insults whilst not bringing the team any benefit.

"It was actually quite a nice day. It was my goal in this Giro to test what I could do uphill," Aerts, a Grand Tour debutant at age 32, said in a post-race interview. The cyclocross specialist is racing his first full season at World Tour level and throughout the spring he has put in a few good rides which earned him promising results. The hilly and explosive terrain is where he rides best; he finished on the Top40 of both Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in his debut earlier this spring.

He was selected to race the Giro d'Italia with some freedom, to get experience and to test himself in a new environment. He's been rather absent from the action, but this Sunday on stage 9, he saw an opportunity and jumped on the attack of Giulio Ciccone and Diego Ulissi, who bridged across to the day's breakaway.

However, he then received orders not to collaborate with them. "I was able to jump along with Ciccone when he attacked, but I couldn't take turns rotating after that, because we were racing 100 percent for Lennert van Eetvelt here today. I was able to drift along quietly in the group".

Even after Lennert van Eetvelt showed good form at the start of the Giro, team DS Kurt van de Wouwer assured the team would not put GC pressure on him: We remain with our position: the GC is not an ambition for us," he said directly. However the tactics on stage 9 contradict the previous statements, whilst the situation has not improved in any way for the team.

The Belgian began the day in 20th place and finished 13th in the stage, whilst Aerts was given orders not to work because of his leader, who was not anticipated to be amongst the favourites for the day, and on paper is also not going to stay in the GC fight as the team also made it clear they prioritized a stage win.

Aerts' chances of taking a stage win on a 1st category summit finish were also virtually null; specially as he followed none other than Giulio Ciccone, who has already been in the lead of the race this past week. Aerts ended up not working throughout the long period of time he was with his group companions, often disrupting the flow of the group, and creating enemies out of riders whom he had no reason to collide with beforehand.

"They did swear at me a lot. How do I deal with that? I don’t understand Italian, so I don’t hear what they’re saying," he tells. Lotto-Intermarché did not benefit from Aerts' presence in the breakaway whilst it would also make no difference in the race of Lennert van Eetvelt, who continues to chase a minor GC result which ultimately creates a direct obstacle to his own chances of winning a stage.

The Belgian team continues to move through the Giro with mixed ambitions, in pursuit of a better second half of the race.

"Let's hope they don't hold that against me. They need to understand that we are racing tactically here as well, and I am not a climber, so I would have had to drop back anyway. The plan was to stay along for as long as possible and then support Lennert." Aerts finished the stage in 52nd place, over 7 minutes back on Jonas Vingegaard.