"I saw the chance to win but the climb was not too steep and the breakaway had too much advantage."
Those were the words of Astana's Mikel Landa after stage eight of the Giro d'Italia. Landa with Fabio Aru and Dario Cataldo tried to attack the pink jersey on the last climb to Campitello Matese in Central Italy.
Landa left the small group in an attempt to reach the leader, but he finished second only 20s behind stage winner Bēnat Intxausti of Spain.
Fabio Aru is still in second place of the General Classification with a 4s gap to leader Alberto Contador of Spain. Cataldo is fourth and Landa is now fifth in the overall classification with a delay of 30 and 42s respectively.
“We tried to make the race, and we did that. We put in a good performance,” Aru said. “In the end, we decided to put Landa up the road and he came close to winning the stage. It’s a pity that he couldn’t bring back Intxausti.
“Our tactic was to win the stage and Mikel came close. The team is very strong in the mountains and we want to try ride our own race and make it difficult. The team is good and Dario was even able to lead the sprint out for me at the end.
“On the final climb, we tried to win the stage and we wanted to isolate the other leaders, and we’re happy with what we did.”
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