Giro d'Italia 2025 Stage 8 LIVE - A day for the breakaway as Primoz Roglic looks to lend out the maglia rosa

Just after another attempt ends in disappointment for Wout van Aert, our threesome pass under the first intermediate sprint and Mads Pedersen adds twelve to his tally. They're still only 19 seconds clear, but the first categorized climb starts about here, which should allow for a change in composition.

Which is really helping their own rider, Mads Pedersen. Van Aert and Jan Tratnik, two former team-mates, are shown having a chat at the front of the bunch, relaying messages from each other's team cars. Maybe if they can agree with what's permissible we can get on with the stage.

With the gap down to a dozen seconds again. There's just 12km to the intermediate sprint, and after all this work Mads Pedersen better make it to that line. Not that he needs the points - his margin in the jersey is enormous.

And while the gap between the front of the race and the peloton has grown to 40 seconds, there is a chasing group of five chasers not too far back, all while the bunch continues to fracture.

Which adds a handful of seconds to the trio's advantage in a swoop. Suddenly there are more riders on their way, in three different shades of blue, tracked by a rainbow coalitions of riders. This is the Giro.

Until the intermediate sprint it's all tailwind, he tells us. What's going on, says De Pretto? Where is everybody?

The gap has grown by only six seconds over the past 6km. There's still a lot of interest in this break, and you'd say the riders already installed wouldn't consider its current size and composition to be adequate. Eight or so riders, a mix of teams, maybe a couple with a couple, would be the kind that would give it the chance to go the distance.

But the fire dies as quickly as it roared. There are now three riders at 14 seconds: Pedersen, Cataneo and Davide De Pretto of Jayco Alula on his Grand Tour debut.

Four minutes down, he could be a good candidate. Giosuè Epis (Arkea B&B Hotels) waves his arms calling for rotations, and reinforcements. Some come but it's superman Mads Pedersen, in purple, who surges to the front. He dropped to 57th place, 15 minutes down yesterday.

Satisfyingly alliterate, but that's not going to help the Polti man, who knows a thing or two about big, mostly long breaks.

He's riding hard, but he clearly doesn't want to be on his own up there, and he may not be the rider his team want in the big move. It looks like it might have to be a team effort from Polti to get one of their number away.

Stage eight begins with the first attack from XDS Astana. Movistar want to get involved, as well as plenty of riders from the usual teams like Polti VisitMalta. Red Bull are policing, because they want the right mix of riders and no infiltrators from rival teams. Back in your box, UAE.

With everyone in their nice new jerseys, the peloton pushes out. That's Primoz Roglic Mr Pink, Mads Pedersen Mr Purple, Lorenzo Fortunato still Mr Blue, and Juan Ayuso Mr White. Reservoir Dogs references entirely deliberate.

His first Grand Tour stage win? Of many? Perhaps.

How's this for a profile. I reckon there are a lot of skinsuits on display in the bunch today. The route begins on the coast, at about 4 o'clock from the word Italy, if you're looking at a map, and wends its way generally north-west.

Welcome to live text coverage from stage 8 of the corsa rosa. After yesterday’s Spanish revolution, which saw the general classification shuffled all over the place, we can expect today to be more about the stage hunters.

The terrain certainly favours it - although there’s as much accumulated climbing as Friday, it’s much more evenly distributed. There’s no need for there to be big gaps between the big guns, and the effort of engineering any modest ones will come at a major cost. In short: not worth it.

That doesn’t mean the maglia rosa can’t change hands but it would take bonus seconds and the safest thing is to allow the break to gobble them up. For that reason we can expect a big old battle from the off today. I’ll have my eyes on all of it.