Chris Froome crashed, below, and looked under pressure. Is he deliberately under-cooked at this point or simply in uncharacteristically poor condition? We'll soon find out. There were so such worries for Richard Carapaz, above. The Movistar rider took Ecuador's first ever Grand Tour stage win today.
After the highs of yesterday when Sam Bennett won a stage at the Giro; things were more subdued for the Irish on today’s race.
And when the heavens opened for the last hour of action, the 17km final climb became dangerous due to the poor road surface.
Bennett (Bora-hansgrohe) and Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) finished near the back of the field; as expected as they are non climbers.
Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) would lose time. However, as he is no longer riding for the general classification, any losses from now on are irrelevant.
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Instead, Roche will look to make it into a breakaway, like the one that very nearly produced the winner today.
Stage 8 took the riders 209km from Praia a Mare to Montevergine di Mercogliano, with a long and gradual ascent to the finish line.
The early breakaway consisted of Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Fix All), Davide Villella (Astana) and Matteo Monteguti (AG2R La Mondiale).
Joining them were Rodolfo Torres (Androni-Sidermec), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Merida), Koen Bouwman (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Jan Polanc (UAE Team Emirates).
In the end they would all be swallowed up by the peloton. However, Bouwman was the last to give up. And he survived deep into the final couple of kilometres.
Indeed, but for best young rider classification leader Richard Carapaz (Movistar) shooting from the slimmed down bunch, Bouwman may have just held on.
However, Carapaz – a 24-year-old from Ecuador – took flight and had bridged across to the lone leader in no time.
He promptly passed him, leaving him for dead and riding to a brilliant stage win in the rain.
While Sam Bennett ended Ireland’s 31-year wait for a stage win at the Giro yesterday, Carapaz went one better today.
He is the first rider from his country to win a Grand Tour stage. By the finish he had just seven seconds on those behind.
Davide Formolo (Bora-hansgrohe) brought home the favourites group, with Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) next.
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Race leader Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) was 5th across the line; looking comfortable as he held the maglia rosa.
But one man who, once again, did not look comfortable was Chris Froome. The Team Sky rider looked under pressure during the final climb.
He also crashed; his wheels sliding out from under him on the wet road on one of the hairpins. It was his second spill of the race following his crash in the stage 1 TT warm up in Tel Aviv.
As Chris Froome got back into the group after his crash today he then bumped George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo).
Problems for @TeamSky?
The weather is definitely causing problems as @ChrisFroome slips on the corner pic.twitter.com/GYXAE14wXC
— Eurosport UK (@Eurosport_UK) May 12, 2018
And though Team Sky then hit the front of the group, in a bid to keep Froome out of trouble, the Tour de France and Vuelta champion looked decidedly shaky; in terms of his condition and bike handling.
This may be evidence Froome is not in the type of condition to truly contend for the title; his salbutamol case perhaps weighing heavily on him.
Or we could be looking at a deliberately under-cooked rider at this point who is aiming to peak for the final week and maintain it until July.
Today he would finish in the large group of 30 riders just behind the stage winner. But it looked like he had gone deep, and was panicked, just to hold his place.
For his part, Roche had been in that group for a long time. He came home in 52nd, some 2:03 down.
Tomorrow is another brute; indeed it should be much harder than today. There are 225km to be raced on the road from Pesco Sannita to Gran Sasso d'Italia.
The stage involves almost continuous climbing for the last 50km; a cat 1 ascent followed immediately by another up to the finish line, with no descending between those climbs.
It will be a day when the non-climbers will need to be conscious of the time cut.
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