Mitchelton-SCOTT and Simon Yates still lead the Giro d’Italia following a stage eight summit finish on Mare-Montevergine di Mercogliano today.
After an easier day yesterday for the sprint, the workload increased today with Svein Tuft and Sam Bewley controlling the breakaway before Jack Haig and Roman Kreuziger protected the Australian team’s leaders on the final climb.
Finishing fifth and seventh on the stage respectively, Yates and Esteban Chaves still sit first and third overall with another, harder summit finish tomorrow.
Control, control, control:
After a struggle for 50km, seven riders rode away from the peloton to form the day’s breakaway. With everyone finally content, Mitchelton-SCOTT sent Tuft and Bewley to the front of the bunch and they controlled their advantage at five minutes whilst the pink jersey settled further back in the bunch.
As the race entered the final 50km and started to ramp up, Yates and his remaining teammates moved up and slotted in out of danger behind Tuft and Bewley.
Tempo up the climb
Having been active early in the day, Team Katusha once again went to the front to push the pace in the lead up to the final climb. They were joined by Groupama-FDJ and with 11km to go the gap was down to one-minute
The weather produced the first rain of this year’s Giro d’Italia for the final climb and with a number of hairpins on the way to the summit, Mitchelton-SCOTT moved back to the front out of trouble.
With two kilometres to go Movistar’s Richard Carapaz attacked for the victory. Behind, the favourites watched each other closely, unable to make a difference on the steady gradient.
Simon Yates – Race leader:
“We wanted to be in front for the climb. We knew, because of the rain in the final, the hairpins would be very slippery. We wanted to take them in the front. We rode an even tempo. It was a very hard start, so maybe the breakaway didn’t have good enough legs to stay away.”
“Maybe I would have liked to take some bonus seconds in the final, but I got a little boxed in and I couldn’t get out to sprint. It’s one of those things.”
“The climb wasn’t that difficult. It would have been very hard to make a big difference. Tomorrow is a much more difficult climb. We’ll have to see – if I have legs, I’ll try. If not, I won’t.”
Giro d’Italia – Stage 8 Results:
1. Richard Carapaz (Movistar Team) 5:11:35
2. Davide Formolo (Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:07
3. Thinaut Pinot (Groupama FDJ) +0:07
5. Simon Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT) +0:07
Giro d’Italia – General Classification after stage 8:
1. Simon Yates (Mitchelton-SCOTT) 31:43:12
2. Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) +0:16
3. Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-SCOTT) +0:26
