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The Slovenian showcased another complete performance in the maglia rosa, chasing down late attacks from Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain-Victorious) and Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) before surging to victory in the uphill finale.
Dani Martinez (BORA-Hansgrohe) and Australian Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) tried to keep up, but ultimately came in second and third respectively. Pogacar remains firmly atop the general classification ahead of Martinez with Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) rounding out the top three.
"I was not expecting it at all today," Pogacar said after the stage. "As a team, we rode super-well from the beginning. We came with a good time gap on the last climb, and the team did a super-good job to the finish."
"At the bottom [of the final climb], when I saw our guys were still good – Domen [Novak], Felix [Großschartner] and Rafał [Majka] – I was confident that we could win today."
Impressive in the race so far and sitting fourth overall, O'Connor showed great legs to pursue Pogacar's uphill sprint, with Michael Storer (Tudor Pro Cycling) also having a good climbing day to come in ninth.
"i’m really happy with how the stage went today," the West Australian said of his effort in a post from his team on social media. "I laid it all down for the sprint at the end. Third is a good result in a mountaintop finish at the Giro. So hopefully I can go one better next time."
While O'Connor took positives from the day, it wasn't the same outcome for fellow Aussie Luke Plapp (Jayco-Alula) who lost the best young rider jersey to Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma Lease-A-Bike) after finishing in 84th place.
Stage 8 was set to be the first significant mountain parcours with 3,850m total metres of climbing, and while a breakaway of 14 riders got away, they were kept on a tight leash with an advantage of just 36 seconds at the base of the finishing ascent of Prati di Tivo.
Riders up front steadily began to fall away as the gradients increased and the overall contenders came to the fore with 4 kilometres to go, Pogacar's trusty teammate Rafal Majka setting the pace.
With tension building, Tiberi was the first to try and get the jump on his rivals two kilometres from the line but was reeled in by Pogacar, before the Slovenian did the same to Arensman's effort just 500m out.
With the group back together, Pogacar launched a dominant sprint to cross the line with a significant gap to Martinez behind and mark a second race win on the Prati di Tivo, his first coming at the 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico.
