Jhonatan Narvaez secured a third stage victory for his bruised UAE team at the Giro d'Italia by claiming the eighth stage after the final climb on Fermo's narrow roads on Saturday.
Narvaez, who also won the fourth stage, struck again over 156 kilometres as the team rallied from losing three key riders to heavy crashes early in the race.
Norwegian Andreas Leknessund finished second, 32 seconds down, ahead of Martin Tjøtta.
Narvaez's team-mate Mikkel Bjerg had done a lot of work to set up the Ecuadorian's victory.
Top favourite Jonas Vingegaard, who won the previous stage, gained two seconds on overall leader Afonso Eulalio in the final sprint.
The Portuguese rider still has a 3 minute 15 second lead over Vingegaard, who had a moment of alarm on Saturday when the peloton split and he was in the back group.
However, his team closed the gap and the Dane will look to make more progress on Sunday's mountainous stage.
