By Antonio J. Salmerón
CSC's Kurt-Asle Arvesen won the eighth stage of the Giro d'Italia but one of the escape group members was the Caisse d'Epargne climber David Arroyo.
"It was a good opportunity to gain time on the principal favourites and it was necessary to seize this chance," he noted at the end of the stage. "For this reason, I collaborated until the end of the stage.
"I took the start of this Giro with the ambition of achieving a good general classification and the result of today is an important step towards my objective. Now it will be necessary to resist and remain in company of the favourites on the mountain stages, with the hope to win a stage too."
Caisse DS José Luis Jaimerena commented on the escape. "A 27-man breakaway started at the beginning of the stage," noted Jaimerena. "We had two men there, with David Arroyo and Mathieu Perget, even if one was dropped later on.
"It was an important escape, with riders who can play a part in the general classification, like Hincapie, Bruseghin, and Bettini, to mention a few. The course was hard and these men managed to make a gap of seven minutes with the main bunch, which caused the reaction of the riders of T-Mobile and Saunier-Duval.
"In spite of that, the escape still had an advantage of more than four minutes on the line. Arroyo is now the seventh on the general classification."
