Pogacar’s third Giro stage win

Tadej Pogacar took his third win of this Giro d’italia on stage eight up to Prati di Tivo, extending his lead in pink.

At the summit of the 15km climb to the ski resort, Pogacar sprinted clear of an elite group to pick up bonus seconds that push his lead up to two minutes 40 seconds after his outstanding win in Friday’s time trial.

Dani Martinez, second overall, was second on the stage, picking up six bonus seconds that see him now sit 18 seconds clear of thirdplaced Geraint Thomas, who was fifth on the stage, dropping two seconds on the road but looking stronger than he did 24 hours earlier.

“It was a lot better than yesterday, night and day confidence-wise,” Thomas said. “I thought I’d just sit in today and kind of move on.

“In the end I felt really comfortable, I was quite surprised people were getting dropped, which is always a good sign. In the sprint I got a bit bogged down but I didn’t have the legs to sprint with those guys.”

The stage into the Apennines had been marked as one for a breakaway and a powerful group that included Romain Bardet, Julian Alaphilippe and stage one winner Jhonatan Narvaez did get away, but Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates offered them little rope and quickly caught them on the last climb.

Only a dozen riders were left as they began the final couple of kilometres, with Antonio Tiberi, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Michael Storer all trying attacks which were shut down by Pogacar.

The Slovenian then launched his own move with 200 metres to go and once again underlined his status as the class act of this field with another stage win.

“I was not expecting it at all today but as a team we rode super well from the beginning,” Pogacar said.