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Stage 8 is the first and only individual time trial in this years race coming on Saturday
the 11th of May. The GC riders are going to be looking to make their mark now and British
Bradley Wiggins for example are really going to be looking to take some time.
Today we will see the first big time differences between the contenders for the overall classification.
The 55,5 km from Gabicce Mare to Saltara are the riders first chance to put the hammer
down and get clear in the General Classification. The first half of the stage takes place in
the beautiful scenery of San Bartolo with a stunning view over the Adriatic Sea before
the time check at the 23,9 km mark in Pesaro.
In 2008, Pesaro hosted the start of that year's hilly time trial in the Giro d'Italia. Marzio
Bruseghin won the stage in front of Alberto Contador and both riders later made it onto
the final podium with Contador as the overall winner. Bradley Wiggins is the big favourite
for this stage and we may very well see a couple of today's best riders making it onto
the final podium again this year.
After the checkpoint in Pesaro, the road goes uphill to Novilara followed by a flat stretch
of 12 km before the hilly final three kilometres. After more than 50 km against the clock, these
steep final kilometres will make a big difference, especially the last kilometre with an average
gradient of 10% and parts of 15%.
This is an incredibly hard stage and most of the GC riders will be happy if they can
keep their time loss to within 2 or 3 minutes. Having a bad day in this time trial could
very well end their GC dreams already and the small lightweight climbers will have to
fight with every ounce to try to stay within 4 or 5 minutes of the leader.
It's a long time trial and it should give us some sizable time gaps. It's quite likely
then that the Maglia Rosa will be changing hands but the question is who's will they
be? Watch GCN to find out about stage 9.