The Vuelta continues its journey southward, always hugging the Mediterranean Sea. The eighth stage will take the peloton from Pucol to Xeraco for 171 km with 1,720 meters of elevation gain.

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In this first week of racing, this is the last opportunity for the sprinters. The stage that develops around Valencia is essentially flat and presents as the only difficulty of the day the Barx climb, a category 2 ascent 5 km long at 5.6% with the summit at km 143 of the race. This will be a key point where the fast men's teams will need to defend their leaders from attacks. Let's play and try to imagine a scenario: Visma Lease a Bike on the attack to put the sprinters in trouble and pave the way for Wout Van Aert...