Vincenzo Nibali and Julio Alberto Pérez came out of this group and after a lengthy chase bridged to the leaders. This gave three riders in the leading group, and Baliani and Pérez worked to get Sella to the top of the Passo Falzarego first for maximum mountains points and a leading gap. Sella stayed away for the stage win, while the group of favorites caught his two teammates and Nibali, and stayed between two and three minutes behind him for the remainder of the stage. In the steep final kilometer before the summit of the Passo Fedaia, Riccardo Riccò put in an attack that Di Luca, Contador, and Denis Menchov were unable to answer, gaining him time on his competition. Contador, however, took the pink jersey, by a margin of 33 seconds over Riccò.  26 May 2008 — San Vigilio di Marebbe to Plan de Corones, (individual time trial)   This race against the clock was all uphill. It consisted entirely of the first category climb to Plan de Corones. Race organizers had tried to include this climb in 2006, but had to cut it short to a pass on lower elevation because of snow at the summit. The final were on a gravel road, and the last few hundred meters featured a grueling maximum gradient of 24%. A strict 25% time cut was enforced on this stage, meaning that the less skilled climbers and time trialists needed to put in strong efforts just to be eligible to remain in the Giro. The first man to take the course, Markus Eichler, posted a time of 49' 58". This would more than likely survive any time cut, but the second, Thomas Fothen, did not stop the clock until 53' 48" had ticked by. This was the slowest time of the day and put Fothen, along with five others, outside the time limit, leading to their disqualification from the race. The first competitive time was posted by rider Julio Alberto Pérez, who finished the course in 43' 22". The riders were staggered into three groups, and Pérez's time stood as best through the first two, after riders such as David Millar, Philip Deignan, and Vladimir Gusev came close but did not best it. The second rider of the third and final group was José Rujano, who posted a time of 41' 15", which easily beat the times that came before and held up for sixth at day's end.