Stagiaires Julien Bernard and Symon Rekita finished seven seconds behind three riders, arriving with a small group that also included Matthew Busche and Leonardo Basso from Trek Factory Racing, moving Bernard into 6th and Rekita into 10th GC.  Basso also sits just outside the top 10 in 13th place.

“We talked a lot about the 8th stage,” said director Adriano Baffi. “We took all the information possible to race this stage well. Overall, it was an easy strategy when the two Astana teams [Astana and Vino4ever] worked to do a hard pace and control the race.

“So we simply waited until the last climb. We made sure to organize well the feed and drink, which was very important today, and Fabio [Silvestre] did a superb job. It was a very good team performance today.”

What has been a close race separated by seconds as the sprinters battled the first week of the Tour of Hainan resulted in little changes after the 205-kilometer stage eight as the climbs failed to create big differences in the overall classification.

Team Astana did its best to upset the overall, and did grab the stage win with Andrey Zeits, but 20 seconds later a third group on the road with race leader Sacha Modolo [Lampre-Merida] arrived at the finish, enough to keep Modolo in the race lead by nine seconds over Zeits.

The day began with two riders forming an early breakaway, but by the top of the first climb it was already down to one sole leader. It was apparent with the two Kazakhstani teams policing the front that it was all coming down to the final uphill and descent to the finish.

At the bottom of the last climb, a group of 40-50 riders arrived together with Astana still doing the work. Zeits attacked in the last part of the uphill, followed by Francisco Mancebo (Skydive Dubai) and Julien El Fares (Marseille 13 KTM). The three created enough of a gap to hold their advantage to the line, with a 12-man group forming behind – containing the four teammates from Trek Factory Racing.

“It all came down to the last climb,” explained Baffi. “Bernard was dropped because he didn’t want to close the gap in favor of somebody, but he come back on the downhill. Busche missed to jump on the climb – he was the only one could do it, but he waited too long. He told me afterward he thought the climb was longer.

“Basso attacked on the downhill and was caught by the two Astana teams -  he was really close to catching Mancebo. Rekita was good and he pulled full gas to chase the leaders. There were 3 in front and then a group of 12 with 4 of us. Zeits was strong all week, but we were there to fight just behind him. Perhaps in hindsight we can say that with 4 in the group that maybe we could do better, but honestly the guys did their maximum. We were aggressive and tried at the end, it was a good performance and I am very happy with our 5 guys."

“So one stage to go tomorrow of 119km. Normally, it will be a sprint again, and it’s the same finish line of the first stage when Fabio did 3rd. The team classification is done, and we are second behind Astana. The GC is close, and with the bonus seconds at the finish things can still change. We will try to maintain Julien’s sixth, but it will be hard and really the best for us is to focus on the sprint for Fabio again and try for the victory.”