Irishman Ben Healy won the eighth stage of the Giro d’Italia in emphatic fashion to seal the first grand tour stage win of his career.

But he attacked with almost 50km to go and completed a stunning solo finish.

The EF rider, 22, finished with a winning margin of one minute and 49 seconds – the biggest in the race since 2018.

Canada’s Derek Gee took second place ahead of Italy’s Filippo Zana in third.

“I had good legs today, and just gave it a good go,” Healy said.

“On the first little dig, I could see that I went solo and just pushed on to the finish from there.

“I was pretty comfortable and wanted to test the legs, and no one came with me. And I knew I can time trial to the finish pretty well and I was confident in myself to do that, so I just paced myself to the finish and it worked out all right.”

Great Britain’s Tao Geoghegan Hart finished 10th in the stage and moved up to sixth in the general classification, just behind his Ineos team-mate Geraint Thomas in fifth.

Norway’s Andreas Leknessund retained the overall race lead but Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic finished the day with a strong attack on the final climb to move up to third.

Thomas and Geoghegan Hart joined Roglic on the attack and gained 14 seconds on Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel by the end of the stage.

But Evenepoel remains in second place and is just eight seconds behind Leknessund.

Stage four winner Aurelien Paret-Peintre dropped four places to seventh after the efforts of Geoghegan Hart and Thomas.

But despite their improvements, Ineos were dealt a blow before the day started as Filippo Ganna was ruled out after testing positive for Covid-19.

In a statement on Twitter, Ineos Grenadiers said the two-time time trial world champion had “displayed mild, flu-like symptoms” and that he would “rest and recover fully before resuming his remaining 2023 race programme.”

On Sunday, stage nine consists of a 35km time-trial from Savignano sul Rubicone to Cesenato conclude the first week of the race.