Intro:

Spain's Benat Intxausti won Saturday's (16th May) eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia, while Alberto Contador finished the day in fifth place and increased his overall lead.

Script:

Following Friday's (15th May) longest stage of this year's Giro d'Italia, the field faced a relatively short 186-kilometre ride from Fiuggi to Campitello Matese in Saturday's eighth stage.

Steven Kruijswijk attacked and went clear of a large lead group 60 kilometres into the stage.

The Dutchman was eventually joined at the front by Carlos Betancur and Kristof Vandewalle.

Having been dropped by Kruijswijk, Betancur was later passed by Benat Intxausti and Sebastien Reichenbach, who carried on their work in tandem in pursuit of the stage leader.

That trio of leaders split on the final climb, with Kruijswijk once again going alone after a successful counter-attack.

Intxausti and Reichenbach caught and passed Kruijswijk with five kilometres to go before the former dropped the latter inside the final three-and-a-half kilometres.

Reichenbach had no answer to the sudden change in pace and Intxausti went on to claim the stage victory - the Spanish Movistar rider recording a winning time of four hours, 51 minutes and 34 seconds.

Intxausti's compatriot Landa came through to take second place 20 seconds later, with Switzerland's Reichenbach settling for third.

Aru then put in a late sprint to take fourth place ahead of Contador in fifth.

But having picked up bonus seconds in one of the day's intermediate sprints, Tinkoff-Saxo rider Contador doubled his lead over Aru at the top of the general classification to four seconds.