At the Giro d'Italia just three days ago, Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) publicly questioned whether he still had the stamina to combine a Grand Tour escape attempt with the teamwork of fast man Caleb Yuan. In fact, however, the answer to the veteran Belgian's question came much sooner than anyone, including himself, probably expected.

On the hilly Naples course of stage 8, the 35-year-old outpaced and overtook his rivals thanks to a mixture of planning, teamwork, pure strength, and perhaps most importantly, well-honed racing skills. As a result, a victory that initially seemed nearly impossible, given the strength of the 20-man breakaway group, was ultimately won by De Gendt, who tore across the finish line in a small group sprint to claim his fifth Grand Tour stage win.

Not intimidated by the presence of overwhelming favorite and first stage winner Mathieu Van der Pol (Alpecin Phoenix), de Gendt skillfully exploited Van der Pol's presence and, along with three others, including teammate Harm Vanhocke, made a small, front He started to move.

"I knew it was going to be difficult today with [Biniam] Girmay [Intermarche Wanty-Gobert Matériault] and Van der Pol in the breakaway," de Gendt told reporters after the race.

"But usually they [the other breakaway group] are watching me and there are 20 guys sitting on my wheel, and now there are 20 guys watching Van der Pol and sitting on his wheel, so I took advantage of that."

De Gendt launched his attack shortly after Van der Pol attempted a long run with around 45km to go, but was reeled in.

The time gap between De Gendt and the other three escapees never exceeded 30 seconds, and with a few kilometers to go, Van der Pol's spirited counterattack seemed for a time to collapse. De Gendt then went on to win, against much higher odds than usual.

"Since last year's Volta a Catalunya, I've hardly had a good time, and many times I've been sick, unprepared, or out of shape," de Gendt said.

"With Hahm it was really perfect. I had to work for him first and he was supposed to attack on the climb. So after we got over the last climb, I said let's do a sprint race. I told Hahm to put in a full gas in the last two kilometers and I would finish it off."

"I hadn't been feeling good, but suddenly I was feeling good, so I put all my emotion into the last sprint. I couldn't afford to fail. I couldn't afford to fail. So when I won it, I was so emotional."

Exhausted at the finish and devastated by what he had accomplished, de Gendt, normally a man of many words, instead of returning to the podium to celebrate, remained slumped in the media press box for a long time, hardly saying a word. When he finally opened his mouth, however, it was to say that, at 35 years old, he was becoming increasingly uncertain about whether he would ever win again.

"In previous years I have still won races, but I feel that even resting in good shape is becoming more difficult," de Gendt, who had won a stage of the Giro in 2012, told reporters, "This is probably the third time this year that I have had a good breakaway in any race, so this is an emotional victory."

"It's a big run," he told reporters.

In the larger scheme of things, Lotto Soudal's battle to remain in the World Tour has been the subject of much media coverage after a less than promising start to the season. But even if Ewan has yet to win a Giro stage, Philippe Gilbert recently scored a big win in the 4 Jules de Dunkerque, and now another team veteran, De Gendt, has added to that success in the Giro d'Italia.

De Gendt said that rather than looking at World Tour points, he hopes the stage 8 win will inspire teammates like himself and Vanhocke to try a joint attack, and that even if consecutive finishes generate more UCI, sponsors prefer a complete victory He said it would serve as a reminder that, even if consecutive wins produced more UCIs, sponsors prefer outright victories.

"Winning is the most important thing," de Gendt insisted. Most sponsors are more happy with a stage win than with third, fifth, or sixth place in a one-day race somewhere in France. Another goal of the team is to win in good form, not only in the sprint but also in the attack."

"I hope the rest of the team sees these wins and says to the riders in Toro Bro Leon this weekend, "Let's work together to win the same way."

De Gendt was also asked about the tough early season and whether he felt particularly scared after Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorias) went down in the Catalunya Volta, as reported in Belgium.

In a somewhat roundabout way, he explained that after what happened to Colbrelli, he was more convinced of the need to respect his doctor's orders to stop racing rather than continue being ill. Hence, he abstained from the Volta a Catalunya when he became ill, just in case.

Coincidentally, de Ghent's last victory came last year at the Volta a Catalunya in Montjuïc. Indeed, in an interview with Cycling News a few days ago, de Gendt said of this Naples stage, "It will be difficult to control.

On Saturday, two months after his abandonment in Catalunya, de Gendt was able to remind the world why stages with multiple laps of the same climb still exist in the Grand Tours.

"I've never been to the World Championships or the European Championships. But this circuit definitely had a championship atmosphere"

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"There were a lot of people on the course, and with four difficult laps and short climbs, it felt like a classic race. Maybe not every stage, but I think it should be held several times in the Grand Tour. It's good for the spectators and the race is attractive."

De Gendt said that one of the clear advantages of such a circuit is the increased uncertainty of the outcome, in that the winner on Saturday "was not the rider that everyone expected."

And instead of a predictable outcome, the citizens of Naples got to witness a master class in breakaway group racing, as the Belgian cheerfully tore up the stage 8 script and rewrote it in his own almost inimitable style.