After four places of honor in the sprint in the Giro d’Italia, Biniam Girmay achieved a fifth place in the eighth stage this Saturday thanks to a breakaway on a hilly circuit around Naples.
The Eritrean 22 year old, who’s making his Grand Tour debut, joined a group of 21 riders immediately after the start. The advantage of the group stagnated around 2 minutes for a long time on a local circuit containing the Monte di Procida (2km at 6.1%).
On the fourth and last passage on this climb, Girmay reacted to an acceleration of Mathieu van der Poel and was then on of the actors in an exciting final battle between two quartets.
15 seconds after the winner, Biniam Girmay won the sprint for fifth place and thus acquired his fifth top five in eight race days.
In addition to this new good result, Girmay scored maximum points in the intermediate sprint, decreasing the gap to Arnaud Démare to 27 points in the battle for the maglia ciclamino.
Rein Taaramäe crossed the line in the peloton and stays third in the general classification on the eve of a mountain stage to Blockhaus.
At the end of this eighth stage, Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux conquered the lead in the team classification and this for the very first time in a Grand Tour.
« This was an incredible day! I'm very satisfied with my performance today. My Grand Tour debut is a journey of discovery. I'm impressed about what I was capable of today after such a hard day yesterday. We rode full gas from start to finish. In the final it was difficult tactically, because everyone was watching Mathieu van der Poel and myself. I'm happy to achieve another good result for the team. In addition, I won important points in the battle for the maglia ciclamino. Today I seized a nice opportunity and I'm convinced that more will come in the next two weeks... »
