Thomas De Gendt saves Lotto Soudal’s Giro d'Italia after team replicates Jumbo-Visma in Naples on Stage 8

It was a case of very recent history repeating itself on the sunny Campania coast on Saturday with Lotto Soudal pulling off a near identical coup as Jumbo-Visma just 24 hours earlier. Seldom do you see riders finishing fourth from a four-man move cross the line with such beaming smiles on their faces – but this has now happened twice on successive days on the Giro.

Just as Tom Dumoulin paved the way for Koen Bouwman’s win in Potenza on Friday, Harm Vanhoucke did the honours for Thomas De Gendt in Naples – even if the latter had initially been working for the former in a thrilling game of cat and mouse in the streets of the pizza capital of Italy. Ad/> “I was working for Harm so he could attack on the final climb,” De Gendt explained after the 17th win of his career.

“But he said he didn’t have good legs anymore so I told him to ride full on the last three kilometres because I was sure I would win the sprint. He did it perfectly until a few hundred metres to go so I have to thank Harm a lot that he could pull this result off for me.

We did a good job as a team today.” /> Giro d'Italia‘He had kind of given up’ – De Gendt rolls back years with breakaway victory38 MINUTES AGO Return of the Breakaway King: De Gendt delivers on Stage 8 Giro d’Italia Stage 8 as it happened – Lotto Soudal use the power in numbers Opinion: Dumoulin’s fourth place to tee up Bouwman better than any win /> 'Good' was an understatement. Lotto Soudal were flippin' brilliant.