Gianluca Brambilla (Etixx-Quick Step) capitalised on his strong position in GC to take the pink jersey along with stage victory on the eighth day at the Giro d’Italia, attacking from the breakaway to take his maiden Grand Tour stage victory.
It was a bad day for race leader Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) though, who was dropped by his GC rivals on the category two climb of Alpe di Poti and slipped out of the top-10 overall.
Italian Brambilla sat at 1-56 at the start of the day, but was able to find himself in the large 13-man breakaway group which managed to establish a five minute gap on the bunch behind.
And the chase in earnest never really got going in the main group, with Giant-Alpecin forced to do much of the work, and the break still carried over four minutes within the final 40km.
Read more at Cycling Weekly.