Giro d’Italia Stage 8: De Gendt Keeps Building His Legacy in Napoli

Lotto Soudal’s Thomas De Gendt sprinted to a Giro d’Italia stage victory in Napoli today after driving the day’s breakaway over the lumpy circuit race to take his latest grand tour prize. The breakaway specialist finished off a two-man effort with teammate Harm Vanhoucke, versus Davide Gabburo of Bardiani and Jorge Arcas of Movistar, and just ahead of a threatening chase group including fast finishers Mathieu van der Poel and Biniam Girmay. The win was his fifth stage of a grand tour and second of the Giro d’Italia, to go with wins in the Vuelta a España and two successes at the Tour de France. his previous Giro win was a dramatic stage win at the Passo dello Stelvio in 2012, propelling him to a third place finish overall, his only high general classification finish in his career.

Lennard Kämna of Bora made an effort to escape the peloton in search of the maglia rosa, but was tracked down successfully by Juan Pedro Lopez, the current occupant who will enjoy it until tomorrow, when the overall contenders are likely to take command of the GC.

Results:

1. DE GENDT Thomas, Lotto Soudal, 3:32:53
2. GABBURO Davide, Bardiani-CSF-Faizanè
3. ARCAS Jorge, Movistar Team
4. VANHOUCKE Harm, Lotto Soudal, at 0:04
5. GIRMAY Biniam, Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux, at 0:15
6. SCHMID Mauro, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team
7. VAN DER POEL Mathieu, Alpecin-Fenix
8. POELS Wout, Bahrain - Victorious, at 0:30
9. MARTIN Guillaume

Napoli - Napoli 153 km

Something as odd as a circuit race inn a GT. Predictions are this will be like a hard classic. Maybe for some but I think it may be a lot more casual for those not in the breakaway.

Expected finish: 17:00 - 17:25 CEST

King Diego of the Day : Davide Ballerini

* looks up most likely Quick Step rider *

Official site , Startlist