Stage 8

The road

At the start

Down the Calabrian coast to Tropea

A neo-pro took the summit finish while the favourites watched each other, and Weening keeps the maglia rosa by two seconds. Scarponi has moved to fifth at fourteen seconds, Nibali is seventh at 24, and Alberto Contador — who has shown nothing at all so far — sits ninth. Today is 218 kilometres along the coast to Tropea, flat except for a rise into the town, and the sprinters have it marked.

How it was won

1. 1216 km to go

   Two men, ten fifty

   Giordani and Selvaggi go after two kilometres and are given 10:50, which on a 217-kilometre day down the Calabrian coast looks generous and turns out to be nowhere near enough.

2. 28 km to go

   A handshake at 7.5 kilometres

   HTC and Lampre grind the gap down through the last forty kilometres. With 7.5 to go the two leaders shake hands, embrace and sit up, having spent all but 9.5 kilometres of the stage off the front.

3. 32 km to go

   Gatto jumps

   The little climb into Tropea is the last thing anybody expects to matter. Oscar Gatto shoots out of the pack with two kilometres left and only one rider reads it in time.

4. 4At the line

   Tropea

   The rider who reads it is Alberto Contador, who comes across most of the gap and finds he cannot close the last of it. Gatto wins the biggest race of his life by a length from the favourite for the Giro, and the sprinters' stage never happens at all.

The result