An early move by Lorenzo Milesi, Davide Ballerini and Edward Planckaert opened the road, fluctuating around half a minute as attacks flew behind. After 30km Planckaert peeled off and a fresh group — Jonas Geens, Martin Marceluzzi, Einer Rubio, Tim Naberman, Mattia Bais and Sakarias Koller Løland — pushed the gap beyond two minutes. With 75km to go Giulio Ciccone launched the chase alongside Diego Ulissi and Toon Aerts, bridging across 15km later.
The eleven leaders hit the climb to Querciola 2'24" clear of the peloton, the front whittling down to Ciccone, Ulissi, Milesi, Rubio and Aerts as they passed through the village still around two minutes up. Ciccone attacked with just under 12km left, Rubio latching on, and when the Italian kicked again inside 7.5km to go he was alone.
Just before the savage final 3km section, Giulio Pellizzari was dropped from the GC group. Once onto the steep ramps Felix Gall attacked and Vingegaard followed him like a shadow; the pair quickly mopped up Rubio and caught Ciccone inside the final 1.8km. The two strongest men of the Giro dropped the attacker, and after Gall set the pace, Vingegaard launched the decisive move just after the flamme rouge to take his second win in three days.
Afonso Eulálio rode a measured race in the maglia rosa, finishing fifth on the day at +0:41 to defend his lead. Vingegaard chipped a little more time out of the Portuguese rider but the buffer remained well over two minutes heading into the stage-10 time trial.