Yahoo News Giro d'Italia 2019, stage eight – live updates
Overnight news: ICYMI
While Italy remains in our focus, over in the States the Tour of California has been taking place where UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar has taken the leader's yellow jersey with one stage to go.
130km to go
Right folks, as it stands there's a two-man breakaway comprising Damiano Cima (Nippo Vini Fantini Faizane) and Marco Frapporti (Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec) off up the road and the Italian pairing has an advantage of 5min 19sec on the peloton. The Pro-Continental riders wasted little time in getting to work today and attacked pretty much from the flag. Initially they had Nathan Brown from WorldTour team EF Education First for company, but the American rider soon decided against it and rejoined the bunch.
The 164 riders that started today's stage set off from Tortoreto Lido some time back now and passed KM0 at 10.24am. The opening hour was raced at 43.2kph; the second 43.1kph so a little slower than Friday's stage which went off at breakneck speed with the stage winner finishing with an average speed of over 45kph.
Welcome all
Ciao, buongiorno and welcome to our live rolling blog from stage eight of the 102nd edition of the Giro d'Italia, the 239km run from Tortoreto Lido to Pesaro which happens to be the longest stage of this year's race.
The stage itself one one of two parts, with its opening 140km being relatively flat as the route skirts along the Adriatic coast before the day will start to get really interesting. Three categorised climbs – Monte della Mattera (category three), Monteluro and Gabicce Monte (category four) – come in the final 100km which is undulating and is peppered with a dozen ascents in total, including a few punchy little digs.
Once over the final climb of the day, the Monte di Gabicce, the final 7km long descent ends 3km from the finish so, on paper, today could be another one for the sprinters. Providing, that is, they can get over that final climb. At first look, the stage is a little reminiscent of a race like Milan-Sanremo, and with former winner Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) here this year one has to wonder if the Frenchman will have targeted today's stage? He would be my pick for the stage today.
Where are we?
Here's a reminder of the route of this year's Giro d'Italia . . .
. . . and here are the details of each and every stage at this year's race:
As it stands . . .
Here's what the standings look like in the general, points, mountains, young rider and team classifications after seven days of racing.
The Cycling Podcast: re-cap of yesterday's stage
The Giro d’Italia began its northward journey on Friday with a stage to L’Aquila in the mountains of Abruzzo, 10 years after one of Italy’s worst ever earthquakes ravaged the region and the day’s finish-town in particular.
Having been abandoned by Lionel, Daniel Friebe rounds up the cream of the Giro’s international press pack to dissect the day’s action, which culminated in a stage victory for Pello Bilbao of Astana.
Meanwhile, the overnight leader, Valerio Conti, overcame a few nervous moments to preserve his lead on the overall standings.
There are interviews with local boy Dario Cataldo, one of the stars of the stage, Davide Formolo, and of course our near-daily update from the inimitable Gianni Savio, manager of the Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec team.
The Cycling Podcast is supported by Rapha and Science in Sport
