13/05/2023

Brilliant Ben Healy takes stunning solo victory on stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia as the GC battle finally sparks into life

Ben Healy has taken his first Grand Tour stage win in stunning style thanks to a brilliant solo attack from 50km out as the general classification battle finally began to spark into life.

Stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia was expected to be a very dangerous one. Whether the overall classification will be fought over or not comes down to the riders, but the combination of very steep ascents makes it possible to blow up the race.

Stage 7 runner-up Karel Vacek said the following about Remco Evenepoel when he beat him in juniors: "He's not special, he's mentally weaker than me"

After a frantic first 80km that saw more attacking racing and excitement than the whole of stage 7, a 13-rider group finally rode clear. Best placed in the GC from the breakaway was Warren Barguil (Team Arkéa Samsic). Other notable riders that had made the break were Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) and a pair of riders who have seen their brothers already take victory at this year's Giro in Valentin Paret-Peintre (AG2R Citroën Team) and Mattia Bais (EOLO-Kometa).

With Team DSM not allowing the breakaway as much leeway as they had yesterday, mostly due to Barguil being only 6:39 down on overall leader Andreas Leknessund, the gap stabilised at around 5:30.

As the breakaway came over the Cappuccini for the first time with 50km to go, Ben Healy decided the time was right to make his move.

Riding clear solo as he crested the top of the climb, Healy set about putting on an individual time trial to the finish line.

With 40km to go, Healy had stretched his lead to 1:17 of the rest of the break and 5:44 ahead of a peloton where the Maglia Rosa was worryingly all alone. The entire Team DSM other than Leknessund having been dropped as Jumbo-Visma took to the front for the first time in this Giro d'Italia and began upping the pace.

The time gaps seemed to have stabilised as with 25km to go little had changed. Healy was 1:30 ahead of the break with the peloton 5:40 behind the EF Education-EasyPost rider.

With Healy's lead only ever increasing the brilliant Irishman took a simply sublime solo stage win with his nearest competitor literally minutes behind.

Behind him, Primoz Roglic became the first GC rider to launch an attack at this year's Giro. The Slovenian's initial attack was followed by a brave Leknessund, with Remco Evenepoel fighting hard to stay in contact.

Roglic was dangling in front of a group containing Evenepoel, Leknessund and INEOS Grenadiers duo Geraint Thomas and Tao Geoghegan Hart like a carrot.

But when the INEOS pair attacked and reached Roglic, Evenepoel and Leknessund worryingly began to drift backwards as they crested the final climb of the day over 10 seconds behind.

Rather strangely though, Thomas and Geoghegan Hart were refusing to work with Roglic to put more time into Evenepoel.

When they finally did work in the final few hundred metres, the trio gained 14 seconds at the finish line over a group containing Evenepoel and Leknessund.