On August 24, at 14:00 local time, following the customary neutralized rollout, Stage 8 officially began.
Normally, on a stage with only two climbs and terrain more akin to rolling hills, the general classification riders would usually let the breakaway go.
But on Stage 6, Ben O'Connor had used the breakaway to slash his deficit to just two seconds behind the Red Jersey.
So everyone knew that Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe would not be letting another breakaway go today.
At the same time, other GC teams such as UAE Team Emirates, Visma, and Ineos, seeing how close first and second place were on time while their own leaders lagged far behind, certainly would not keep conserving energy. They would take the initiative to attack.
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Otherwise, if they did not seize chances to cut the gap now, their GC disadvantage would only continue to grow.
Even so, seven riders still chose to attack in the breakaway today.
Among them was Movistar Team's veteran breakaway specialist, Oier Lazkano.
After arriving at the Vuelta a España, he had finally made a move himself.
And besides him, there was Alpecin–Deceuninck's Luca Vergallito.
Astana Cycling Team's Harold Tejada.
Jayco AlUla's Mauro Schmid.
Arkéa–B&B Hotels' Mathis Le Berre.
Cofidis's Ion Izagirre.
And Trek's Sam Oomen, among six others.
The overall strength of this breakaway group was fairly ordinary. In any case, none of them posed any threat to Huang Chong.
Even if one of them really won from the breakaway today, nobody could overturn his GC lead and take the Red Jersey outright.
His greatest rival now was really only Ben O'Connor.
The latter's deficit to him was truly negligible. If they let him go in another breakaway, getting overturned would basically be inevitable.
But while UCI WorldTour teams might differ in strength because of