Duo hold station after rapid stage eight

Thymen Arensman and Egan Bernal retained their overall positions after a high octane eighth stage of the Giro d’Italia.

The pair sprinted to the line as part of a GC group on a hilly finale into Fermo, which saw them stay ninth and 15th overall as Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates) earned the stage win from the breakaway.

Filippo Ganna, Magnus Sheffield and Ben Turner were all active in trying to escape the bunch, but were unsuccessful in the fastest stage of this year’s race as Narváez took the solo win from a small group.

Ganna made the first move of the stage, attacking with Davide Ballerini (XDS Astana) to gain a small advantage. The duo held their lead despite a high speed chase behind, with riders attempting to join them throughout a frenetic opening to the stage.

Sheffield then attempted on numerous occasions to bridge the gap, but he was caught, deemed too much of a threat by the chasing bunch if he could link up with Ganna.

The battle to establish a breakaway continued for almost 80 kilometres, when Narváez made a decisive move with teammate Mikkel Bjerg and Andreas Leknessund (Uno-X Mobility).

Turner was then part of a large counter-attack once the hilly final part of the stage began, but this group failed to coordinate a successful pursuit of the leaders.

The peloton behind had then thinned to a large GC group, with Bernal and Arensman finishing with their near rivals in Fermo.