Stage 8

The road

At the start

Vino in pink, the first mountain

Montalcino rearranged everything. Vinokourov leads Cadel Evans by 1:12 and David Millar by 1:29, while Nibali and Basso, who lost the front group in the mud, sit at 1:33 and 1:51. Today gives the race its first summit finish: 189 kilometres from Chianciano Terme to the top of Monte Terminillo, a mountain whose winners run from Bartali to Garzelli. The cloud is already down on it.

How it was won

1. 1144 km to go

   Seventeen go clear

   A seventeen-man escape forms over the Valico di Monte Nibbio. None of them threatens the lead, Chris Anker Sorensen starting the day 92nd and thirty-four minutes down, so the bunch lets them have the mountain.

2. 216 km to go

   Onto the Terminillo

   The first real mountain of this Giro rises into cloud. What is left of the break hits the bottom together and comes apart within a few hundred metres.

3. 39 km to go

   Stortoni jumps at nine to go

   Simone Stortoni opens a gap on the upper slopes, and Sorensen, face contorted and shoulders swaying, spends more than a kilometre closing it.

4. 47 km to go

   Into the fog, alone

   Sorensen rides beside Stortoni for a kilometre, looks at him once, and goes. The Dane disappears upward into the mist rocking his bike from side to side, and nobody comes with him.

5. 5At the line

   Sorensen out of the cloud

   He emerges at the summit thirty seconds clear of Stortoni for the biggest win of his life. Behind, Vinokourov finishes eighth and keeps the maglia rosa; Evans is ninth on the same time, still 1:12 down.

The result