Rolling the dice and going for the breakaway on Giro d’Italia Stage 8

The stage with them most altimeters of the Giro d’Italia lay ahead of the peloton as they left Spoleto this afternoon, with 152 kilometres to the summit finish up Prati di Tivo on the menu. An aggressive start to the day was expected, where Team dsm-firmenich PostNL looked for their opportunities to go in the break as there was a sense pre-stage that it could be a good day for the move.

From the flag drop there was a strong pace on the climb from the gun, with Kevin Vermaerke and Chris Hamilton following several early moves that were brought back. Ultimately, the break of the day would fully form on the second climb of the day where Vermaerke and Hamilton were once again present but this time also with Romain Bardet. Going further up the climb, the group thinned down due to a strong pace because of a committed tempo in the peloton behind, with Bardet making it into the move that stuck.

However, his group was only ever allowed a maximum advantage of two minutes and 30 seconds and coming onto the penultimate climb before the long descent before they begun Prati di Tivo the gap hovered at just under one minute. By the time they started the last ascent, it had been halved to around 30 seconds and the strong tempo from behind continued. Bardet returned to the bunch and hung on for as long as possible, but had to let go of the group around six kilometres to go, riding at his own pace to the line after a big day out in the break.

After the stage Bardet expressed: “We wanted to try it on the second climb today. The guys were really good and up there with me in the first part of the break formation. I’m a bit disappointed we weren’t given more of a gap in the end, but it was worth it to try and give it a go. On the last climb the peloton caught us and I held on for a bit but that was all I had today. Tomorrow is another day though and we keep fighting.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Matt Winston concluded: “We wanted to try and move Romain up the standings and today we felt it was a good stage where maybe the break could make it, but we wanted to be in a bigger move and not just a small one. Romain was in a good group of 14 guys and it was a strong break but they kept a tight leash on it and brought it back at the finish. Romain was a little bit cooked from his efforts and lost some time. We’ll try to not be too despondent about it, regroup and go again in the coming days. There will be other opportunities in this race.”