Stage 8

The road

At the start

The wall at Guardia Sanframondi

Valter carries pink into the second weekend with the whole top eight inside 41 seconds — Evenepoel at eleven, Bernal at sixteen — and Caleb Ewan has two stage wins and the cyclamen jersey. Domenico Pozzovivo is the latest not to start. Today rolls into the Matese: the twenty-kilometre Bocca della Selva, then a long drop and a final climb with ramps at fifteen per cent.

How it was won

1. 151 km to go

   Over the Bocca della Selva

   With the peloton content to let them go, the nine leaders ride the long centrepiece climb steadily and cross together. Gaviria attacks on the descent and crashes moments later, cutting his arm and leg but chasing back on.

2. 28 km to go

   Campenaerts and Carboni clear

   Eight kilometres out, after a flurry of attacks on the shallow lower gradients, the pair finally get ten seconds. Carboni drops the Belgian three kilometres from home on the steeper ramps.

3. 32 km to go

   Lafay reels in Carboni

   With 2.2km left the 25-year-old Frenchman catches the Italian and goes straight past him — his first professional win, taken on the hardest gradients of the day and defended all the way to the line.

4. 4At the line

   Guardia Sanframondi

   Lafay holds off a late charge from Gavazzi. Behind, the GC men finish together and save themselves for the gravel waiting tomorrow.

The result