Better day for Thomas as Pogacar extends lead
GERAINT Thomas enjoyed a better day in the Giro d’Italia but he slipped a little further behind Tadej Pogacar, who took his third win of this Giro on stage eight up to Prati di Tivo to extend his lead in pink.
At the summit of the 15km climb up 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 third-placed 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 there 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 eventually got 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 instantly shut down by Pogacar.
The Slovenian then launched his own move with 200 metres left to go and once again underlined his status as the class 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 and we came with a good time gap to the last climb,” Pogacar said. “The team did a super job and Rafa (Majka) did an amazing lead-out, so it’s amazing to win again.”