Pogacar leaves it late to take Stage 8 victory and continue dominance

If Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) appeared to be in a generous mood on the climb of Prati di Tivo then the race leader could not resist showing his general classification rivals his heels to secure the third win of his debut Giro d’Italia in style and further cement his stranglehold on the pink jersey.

Pogacar rode the lumpy Stage 8 from Spoleto in economic fashion – allowing his UAE team-mates to control the tempo in the main field before relying on Rafal Majka and Felix Grossschartner to reel in the remaining escapees on the race’s first major summit finish.

Martinez consolidated his second place in the standings with a solid second place ahead of Australia’s Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and the sprightly Italian Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious). Welsh veteran Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) completed the top five but crossed the line two seconds back to sink further away from Pogacar in the general classification when bonus seconds were factored in.

Last year’s runner-up Thomas now trails Pogacar by 2’58” in third place in GC with Martinez at 2’40” and fourth-place O’Connor at 3’39”. Belgium’s Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished with the main favourites to re-enter the top five and wrest the white jersey back off the shoulders of Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) after the Australian shipped a load of time on the gruelling final 14.6km ascent.

Tiberi put in a series of attacks in the closing kilometres to rise two places to sixth, one place ahead of compatriot Lorenzo Fortunato (Astana-Qazaqstan). Meanwhile, Colombia’s Einer Rubio (Movistar), Dutchman Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) and Czech veteran Jan Hirt (Soudal Quick-Step) all rose into the top 10 after solid displays in the wake of the increasingly untouchable man in pink.

“I was not expecting it at all today,” Pogacar said before praising his team-mates for their work in paving the way for his latest triumph. “As a team we rode super well from the beginning and we came with a good time gap to the last climb. Mikkel [Bjerg] and [Vegard Stake] Laengen did a super-good job until the final climb. Rafa [Majka] did an amazing lead out and it’s amazing to win again here at Prati di Tivo.”

Pogacar now has eight wins from 17 race days this season – including a hat-trick in his maiden Giro and victory in Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Rather than push his rivals’ faces in the mud on Saturday in the Abruzzo region of central Italy, Pogacar sat back and let his team do the talking as a large breakaway of 14 riders eventually formed after a hectic opening hour of racing in the Apennines.

It was a stellar group that included four riders in Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Simon Geschke (Cofidis), Nairo Quintana (Movistar) and Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) with 13 Tour de France stage wins and six Giro stage wins between them.

But with the gap never growing much more than two and a half minutes, it looked increasingly likely that one of the GC favourites would take the spoils on the third of three categorised climbs. Germany’s Geschke at least took maximum points over the summit of the first two climbs to move up to third place behind Pogacar and Martinez in the blue jersey king of the mountains classification.

Very active early on, French veteran Alaphilippe was first to drop back on the final climb to Prati di Tivo as Alessandro Verre (Arkea B&B Hotels), Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Valentin Paret-Peintre (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Bardet rode clear of the remaining escapees, who included the Spanish Stage 6 winner Pelayo Sanchez (Movistar) and Ineos duo Jhonatan Narvaez and Magnus Sheffield.

One by one they all faltered, leaving only Paret-Peintre out with the arduous task of keeping the UAE-led group of GC favourites at bay. The slender French whippet ploughed a lonely furrow before the inevitable caught up with him around four kilometres from the summit.

The impressive Storer was the only rider from the break who was able to maintain contact with the big guns once they opened fire for the spoils. But despite a spirited display from Tiberi and Martinez’s last roll of the dice, no one was able to stem Pogacar’s total domination of a race he threatens to have wrapped up before Monday’s first rest day.

The Giro continues on Sunday with an intriguing 214km Stage 9 into Naples where the sprinters may have another chance to shine after two days of Slovenian subjugation.