photo credits @ Giro d’Italia
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) continued to stamp his authority on this year’s Giro d’Italia, after the Slovenian rider claimed stage 8 today with the powerful attack along the mountain finish to Prati di Tivo to score his third stage win in this year’s Italian Grand Tour.
Pogačar leveraged his UAE team to prevent the day’s 14-man breakaway group from opening up any sort of insurmountable advantage before the final climb, later unleashing his scathing assault along the final climb to Oropa in dominant fashion.
Meanwhile, Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) finished second, followed by Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).
Race Highlights
Earlier, a massive group of over 20 riders that contained the likes of Simon Geschke, Romain Bardet, Michael Storer, Jhonatan Narvaez and Georg Steinhauser went clear, with Geschke taking maximum points along the first categorized climb.
Things later settled in the breakaway after the first two categorized climbs, with the group still holding onto an advantage of around two minutes with 50km to go. However, just 5km later, the group’s lead fell just over a minute.
Sensing the peloton was fast on their heels, Steinhauser attempted to reignite the breakaway effort with a short-lived attack, while Geschke once more collected the maximum points over the climbs.
As the final climb began, the breakaway was still clinging to a narrow advantage, with BORA-hansgrohe leading the chase with around 10km remaining.
Except for Valentin Paret-Peintre, the breakaway was eventually swallowed up. But, the French rider’s time out front was quickly brought to a halt, with Rafal Majka coming to the fore with just over 4km to go.
From there, Antonio Tiberi decided to attack, a move that was closely marked by Pogačar. Next came an acceleration from Thymen Arensman, but again, Pogačar was fast to react.
Storer was next to try his luck, but a laser-focused Pogačar was at the ready to thwart the Australian rider’s aggressions during the final few hundred meters to snatch the victory.
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