It was a relatively calm stage in the context of such a dramatic opening week but the finish was enthralling and Alexis Vuillermoz displayed brilliant climbing abilities to leave the peloton behind in that manner at Mûr-de-Bretagne. It was a tough finish for Dan Martin, who didn’t quite time his attack. In the jersey standings Froome maintained yellow, Teklehaimanot kept the polka dots and Sagan’s fourth-placed finish helped him grab green from Greipel.
That’s it for today but join me tomorrow for the team time trial. I’ll leave you with the words of today’s winner, France’s Alexis Vuillermoz of Ag2r-La Mondiale, after the stage finish:
“I’m not sure that in the mountains I’m going to be able to take on Chris Froome but in this type of finish, I’m a puncher. Everyone has their speciality and this is mine.”
Updated
Victoire d'A.Vuillermoz pour l'étape 8 / A.Vuillermoz is the winner of stage 8! https://t.co/bimkv9RO6z
— Le Tour de France (@letour) July 11, 2015
#TDF2015 Stage 8: BMC Racing Team's @tejay_van and @GregVanAvermaet remain third and fifth overall, respectively.
— BMC Racing Team (@BMCProTeam) July 11, 2015
#TDF2015 Another strong result of @tonygallopin, who was already 5th in Huy and 6th in Le Havre! Now he's 5th on Mûr de Bretagne!
— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) July 11, 2015
No changes at the top of the GC leaderboard then going into the team time trial tomorrow, Sagan 11sec behind Froome, and Van Garderen 13sec down on the overall leader from Team Sky.
Stage eight top five
- Alexis Vuillermoz
- Dan Martin
- Alejandro Valverde
- Peter Sagan
- Tony Gallopin
Alexis Vuillermoz wins stage eight!
Froome hits the front, Vuillermoz quickly hits back, and he drives away from the rest! 0.5km away the Frenchman leaves the rest behind and only Dan Martin gives chase, but Martin gives the Ag2r-La Mondiale rider too great a head start and Vuillermoz takes stage eight!
1km to go
This is a brutal finish to this stage, so many riders not able to handle it, Kwiatkowski one of them! Sagan is on the front with Vuillermoz leading, Froome and Sky a little futher back.
They take a sharp turn into the climb and boy it looks steep. Heads looks down, teeth clenched and Geraint Thomas gets to the front with Chris Froome on his wheel. Astana and Giant are close by with 1.5km to go.
Orica GreenEdge come to the fore. Michael Matthews isn’t there with the injuries he has suffered this week so it looks like they are riding for Adam Yates. Katusha are near the front as the incline begins – 2.4km remain and the pack is being stretched out.
5km to go
Tejay van Garderen’s BMC team get themselves to the front of the peloton and drive up the pace. We are nearing what could be a pack-splitting hairpin before the sharp 2km incline to the finish. Chris Froome and Team Sky are well placed near the front.
“I think we needs some clarification over what Chris Evans means when he says he’s “not that Chris Evans,” emails Nick Honeywell. “Does he mean he’s not the ginger one but actually the Hollywood one? Or not the Hollywood one but actually the ginger one? Or should he have said he’s “not those Chris Evanses”? Or possibly I’m just overthinking this some.”
This live blog doesn’t seem to have a big Hollywood following, which I find weird.
Huzarski gives it up and only Bak and Golas remain in the breakaway, just 15sec clear of the peloton. They both glance back and know it’s over. With 8km remaining all the main favourites are in the peloton together as one.
It looks to be another thrilling climax in the 2015 Tour de France. 10km to go and Bak, Huzarski and Golas lead the way to Mûr-de-Bretagne, 30 secs clear of the Cannondale Garmin-led peloton. Out of nothing there’s a crash at the back involving a couple AG2R La Mondiale riders and Nicolas Edet, but all jump back up and seem OK to continue.
As a totally irrelevant aside before we get our teeth into this finale, here’s a tweet I’ve just seen which raised a smile:
Problem being a cyclist at the gym-my legs can handle squatting the weights but arms aren't strong enough to lift the plates onto the bar.
— SamBewley (@SamBewley) July 11, 2015
Updated
Although the lead of Bak, Huzarski and Golas has been eroded over the past 10km or so, they have steadied things and retain at arm’s length with a 30sec advantage. Cannondale Garmin continue to take responsibility to close the gap and they might pay the price for this effort at the finish. Things are simmering away nicely in stage eight with only 15km to go.
“I wonder if Mark still tried going too early yesterday,” emails Chris J Evans (not that Chris Evans, he clarifies. With that nice middle-initial deployment, Chris, I hadn’t noticed). “If Greipel hadn’t at first impeded him would he still have won?”
The riders head though Saint-Gérand and the leading trio’s gap has been cut by the efforts of the Cannondale Garmin team to around 30secs. The peloton glides smoothly through a potentially treacherous chicane and onwards: 20km remain in stage eight.
“This day (in fact this whole week) has been a sportfest,” emails Guy Hornsby. “I’ve had the tennis and cycling on TV with TMS in the ear and Guardian MBM/OBO keeping me entertained as my hangover ebbs away. This stage is just one long aperitif for the last few km. It could be a really grandstand finish. I’m sure the GC contenders will be wanting to land a few psychological blows but this has Purito or Martin written all over it for me. I think the climb will be a little too much for Sagan.”
Updated
There are 25km to go and at the end of a 180km ride this brutal finish awaits, getting up to 15% gradient and averaging 6.9% over 2km:
58” advantage for @golasmichal, Bak, Huzarski. 29.3km to go. This finale coming up! #TDF2015 pic.twitter.com/QxlPWPk5Ei
— Etixx - Quick-Step (@Etixx_QuickStep) July 11, 2015
Cannondale Garmin continue to set the pace at the front of the peloton, Ryder Hesjedal and Andrew Talansky heading the group in fluorescent green.
#TDF2015 58 seconds for Lars Bak, Michal Golas and Bartosz Huzarski with less than 30 km to go!
— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) July 11, 2015
The peloton swoops through the small town of Rohan, a 20km/hr wind breezing across its path. The leading trio of Bak, Huzarski and Golas resemble a well-oiled machine, maintaining their one minute advantage. There are 30km remaining and the final 2km will the most testing: a tight hairpin turn precedes a hard climb up the Mûr de Bretagne to the finish, a category three climb.
Cannondale Garmin take the initiative at the front of the peloton, putting the whole team in place to push the pack forwards and stop the lead trio from extending their advantage much beyond a minute. Garmin have Dan Martin in mind for the stage win but other teams, including Sky, are taking the opportunity to ride on their wheel.
Lars Bak appears to be the leader of the breakaway, working well with Golas and Huzarski. It will be interesting to see how this plays out tactically over the final 40km, and whether Tony Gallopin and Andre Greipel, for example, can benefit from having their Lotto Soudal team-mate Bak out in front. Likewise, Michal Kwiatkowski and Zdenek Stybar might fancy a go at the stage victory – can Golas help to play the stage into their hands?
@LawrenceOstlere kayaking, no t.v but following your stupendous commentaries, my gratefulness to you http://t.co/zFgSgPkIod #TDF2015 👍✌🚴
— Alex Doalliad (@terravidastar) July 11, 2015
Bak gets to the front of the breakaway trio (Bak, Huzarski, Golas) and heaves them on. It’s working: the gap to the peloton has slowly increased to 1min 10sec with 47km to go.
Sticking together out there. 50km to go before the Mûr-de-Bretagne. A new three-man break have gained a minute #TDF pic.twitter.com/yGstTEWne0
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 11, 2015
The peloton snakes up behind the counterattack and swallows the 15 or so riders up. That break didn’t seem to have the cohesion to make any incisive gains to the leading trio, who are around 52sec up the road from the peloton. The riders cut through lines of high trees in the sunshine – this must be a far more pleasant day for most of the peloton than the week that’s gone before.
Updated
So 60km to go and things have shuffled up a little since that devilish uphill sprint. Lotto Soudal’s Lars Bak has joined Huzarski and Etix QuickStep’s Michal Golas at the front. The trio are around 25sec clear of the counterattack group of around 15 riders, which include Pierre Rolland, Michal Kwiatkowski and Thomas de Gendt. Team Sky are leading the peloton which is only around 10 secs back.
Intermediate sprint result at Gare de Moncontour
Confirmation of the destination of those green jersey points:
- Pierre-Luc Périchon, 20 points
- Bartosz Huzarski, 17
- Sylvain Chavanel, 15
- Romain Sicard, 13
- André Greipel, 11
- John Degenkolb, 10
- Koen de Kort, 9
- Mark Cavendish, 8
- Peter Sagan, 7
- Bryan Coquard, 6
- Roy Curvers, 5
- Angelo Tulik, 4
- Pierre Rolland, 3
- Thomas de Gendt, 2
- Frédéric Brun, 1
Team Sky don’t like the look of this and head to the front of the peloton to close the gap. Less than 70km remain in stage eight.
That sprint has dragged the pack towards the breakaway four and another group of around 15 riders has broken away from the front of the peloton. Warren Barguil, Pierrick Fedrigo and Etixx QuickStep’s Michal Kwiatkowski are all in the group.
The incline to the sprint point of Moncontour makes it a hard slog but Huzarski attacks nonetheless. Local-boy Perichon goes with him and has too much power for the Polish rider, passing the point first. A minute or so back in the peloton, Greipel and Degenkolb break forwards. One or two try to go with them but no-one can keep up and it’s a straight duel, which Greipel wins again! Another impressive show of sprinting from the green jersey wearer and he extends his points lead.
The first past the intermediate sprint point grabs €1500 so even though none of the leading four (Chavanel (IAM), Sicard (EUC), Perichon (BSE), and Huzarski (BOA)) are going for the green jersey they might still fancy a sprint to the line. They are 1km away.
The peloton is cheered vehemently over the summit as they push on towards the next marker, the intermediate sprint point 9km down the road. Given that the leading four riders are 2min ahead, only a maximum of 11 sprint points will be left for the green jersey contenders to compete for. Let’s hope for a good battle between Greipel, Sagan and others.
The sheer density of fans along the side of the narrow road leading to the top of Mont Bel-Air is fantastic. The lead four don’t sprint it out and Sicard takes the point on offer as the other three submit, his first KoM point of the Tour. Remember, Teklehaimanot leads the polka dot jersey race with four points.
The lead four are heading towards the line for the King of the Mountains points, 500m out. Here is a nice little graphic showing how the breakaway group’s lead has changed through 50-90kms:
A look at the gap between the Break and the Peloton between 50 - 90kms. #TDFdata #TDF2015 pic.twitter.com/g5vXi1ghZe
— letourdata (@letourdata) July 11, 2015
The peloton take part in organised littering as they chuck their food wrappers away – all biodegradable of course. De Gendt continues to lead the pack as they bridge the gap to the breakaway four out in front (Chavanel, Sicard, Perichon, and Huzarski) which is now less than 2min. King of the Mountains points are up for grabs for the leaders in four kilometres’ time.
#TDF2015 The riders are in the feed zone, to get some energy for the Col du Mont Bel-Air and intermediate sprint! pic.twitter.com/CeNRjtlUXO
— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) July 11, 2015
Riders are taking advantage of the forgiving pace to answer calls of nature and take on some food, and Alberto Contador has held back to speak to his Tinkoff-Saxo team car. They less are than 10km from the first King of the Mountains point of the day; none of the lead four have any points to show in the race for the polka dot jersey, currently held by Daniel Teklehaimanot.
“Greetings from a rain-sodden Delhi,” emails Andrew Macintyre. “Nothing else to do but settle back with a cold beer and toggle between the cycling and the cricket...” Sorry about the rain, hope you’re enjoying the sport though. The intermittent shouting from my colleagues tells me England are doing quite well in the cricket. You can follow it here but do come back – stage eight is just about to get exciting.
Updated
And my airport basket is around 15km from the summit of this climb, their lead falling a touch to around 2min. Lotto and their man De Gendt are still at the front of the peloton.
#TDF2015 Sy. Chavanel, Huzarski, Sicard and Périchon are 2'40" ahead of the bunch where @DeGendtThomas sets the pace. pic.twitter.com/kjjy2VPlZW
— Lotto Soudal (@Lotto_Soudal) July 11, 2015
While things amble along rather gently through the countryside of Brittany, it seems the moment to bring back the Tour de France breakaway name game. Chavanel, Sicard, Perichon, Huzarski: sounds like a basket of dodgy duty-free purchases (perfume, cigars, liquor, really really strong liquor).
Updated
The peloton pass the 18th century Castle of Limoelan, still around 3min down on the front four. They are drawing close now to the gradual start of the first major climb of stage eight.
105.8km to go, 3 minute advantage. #TDF2015
— Etixx - Quick-Step (@Etixx_QuickStep) July 11, 2015
Chavanel (IAM), Sicard (EUC), Huzarski (BOA), and Perichon (BSE) continue to lead the break with an average speed 40.5 km/h. #TDFdata
— letourdata (@letourdata) July 11, 2015
With 110km remaining that gap has stretched further to nearly 4min. It will be interesting to see at what point the peloton says enough is enough, but that gap is not a threatening one for now. We are around 25km from the first categorised climb of the day: Col du Mont Bel-Air is a 1.5km ascent at an average 5.7% gradient.
Lotto Soudal and Lotto NL are at the front and in conversation, with Thomas De Gendt (Soudal) leading the way. The peloton has taken up a pretty steady pace after a fairly frantic start to stage eight. 68km down, 113 to go and the breakaway four have extended their advantage to 3min 17sec. Still very manageable and De Gendt doesn’t appear too concerned.
Updated
Tony Martin must be gutted not to be racing but he is understood to be on the mend after successful surgery following his fall at the end of stage six.
Bandage is changed. Doc is pleased. Everything fine so far. pic.twitter.com/cz5sWEm5l1
— Tony Martin (@tonymartin85) July 11, 2015
Thomas De Gendt moves to the front of the peloton as it sweeps through the village of Louison Bobet. The gap to the breakaway four of Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Romain Sicard (EUC), Pierre-Luc Perichon, and Bartosz Huzarski (BOA) has increased a little to 2min 36sec.
Luke McLaughlin emails to point us to towards this amusing exchange between reporter Ned Boulting and Geraint Thomas: “Astonishingly Thomas even backs Arsenal to win the title next season ...”
@LawrenceOstlere the summary of stage 8 on the live page says the steepest gradient is 6.9% but there are bits of 15% - which is it?
— Henry Bloomfield (@DrHenryB) July 11, 2015
Hi Henry – not very clear that, is it? It means that the steepest average gradient of any individual climb throughout stage eight is 6.9% (the ascent to the finish), while there are steep parts within the final climb which reach 15%.
Updated
Stage eight jersey wearers
Yellow Chris Froome SKY 26:40.51
Green André Greipel LTS 199 points
Polka dot Daniel Teklehaimanot MTN 4 points
White Peter Sagan TCS 26:41.02
Updated
This stage bobs gently up and down until the 100km mark, when the riders will reach the first of three categorised climbs, the Col du Mont Bel-Air – at which point I will not be able to resist crowning first to the top The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
A nice touch that Chris Froome turned down the invitation to wear yellow yesterday, given the circumstances in which Tony Martin conceded it. The Team Sky rider is yellow-clad today though, as is his bike:
Now that's a bike fit for a #TDF2015 race leader! Some nice yellow touches on @chrisfroome's Dogma F8 this morning pic.twitter.com/DDHVlx1zAw
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 11, 2015
The lead group of four are maintaining their 2min 20sec gap, with 45km completed of stage eight.
“Hello from Lyon France,” reads the first email of the day, from Michael Cosgrove. “Where it seems that not everyone is a fan of the Tour, although I am. A French friend and I were discussing it a couple of days ago and she recalled what she felt when her father used to take her to see it when she was a young girl. It went something like ‘we’d get there at about 9 or 10am and sit there baking in the sun for hours. There was nothing to do and I was bored stiff. Then the riders would blur by in less than 20 seconds and dad said ‘right, that was great, time to go home’ and so we did. Bloody daft if you ask me.’”
I was in York last year as the Tour passed by my sister’s house. We sat out in the front garden for hours and the peloton buzzed by in perhaps five seconds or less, barely time to identify a rider, but the atmosphere before, during and after those five seconds was just something else.
Updated
So what can we expect from stage eight? We are in Brittany where cycling passions run high on a day when the focus shifts from green to yellow. The sprinters have had their fun for now; this route is set up for one of the GC contenders to shine.
If Cadel Evans’ 2011 win on this stage is any indication, then expect the main yellow jersey contenders to be well positioned at the hairpin which marks the start of the tough 2km ascent to the finish. Evans became the first overall winner to claim a stage in the opening week since Bernard Hinault in 1980 – and his shoulder that day was Alberto Contador.
Chris Froome, Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana could all feature along with the quietly impressive Tejay van Garderen of BMC. The finish has echoes of stage three which Joaquim Rodriguez won, but it could also suit the all-round qualities of Peter Sagan, who has consistently finished near the front in the opening week without yet claiming a stage. In short, stage eight is up for grabs, and we might just have an insight into who can win this year’s Tour by Mûr-de-Bretagne.
All eyes are on the Mûr-de-Bretagne today - the tough uphill finish to stage 8. Last time the #TDF came here was 2011 pic.twitter.com/JcmL9wvHoR
— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 11, 2015
Stage eight has ripped along at a fair pace so far today, averaging around 52km/hr in the first 10km before falling away. There have been several short-lived attacks at the front but one has finally stuck: Frenchmen Sylvain Chavanel (IAM), Romain Sicard (EUC) and Pierre-Luc Perichon, along with Polish rider Bartosz Huzarski (BOA), have found some rhythm while the peloton has slowed noticeably. The foursome have opened up a gap of 3min 20sec with 30km of the 181.5km completed.
Updated
Hello and welcome to stage eight of the 2015 Tour de France. Before we take a look at what’s been going on so far today, here’s a quick reminder of yesterday’s news:
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Cavendish answers doubters with stage seven victory
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Italian domestique Luca Paolini tests positive for cocaine
And, in case you missed it, I point you in the direction of this lovely piece on the man who wore the polka dots yesterday, Eritrea’s Daniel Teklehaimanot, who has a dedicated fanbase by the look of this tweet:
TdF's not seen this before! Brilliant... pic.twitter.com/fH5W1qLvg5
— Ned Boulting (@nedboulting) July 11, 2015
General classification before stage eight
- Froome
- Sagan +11sec
- Van Garderen +13sec
- Gallopin +26sec
- Van Avermaet +28sec
7. Contador +36sec
12. Nibali +1min 38sec
16. Quintana +1min 56sec
Updated
Stage eight: Rennes to Mûr-de-Bretagne
Another hilltop finish line on a second ‘Wall’ in the space of six days, but coming with eight days racing in the legs it is a perfect point for the favourites to assess each other’s form.
The 2km climb to the finish, with bits at 15%, figured in 2011 when the damage wasn’t that bad in a stage that went to the eventual overall winner Cadel Evans. The final 80 kilometres are demanding and there will be a fine balance for the teams: how hard to work when there is a team time trial tomorrow?
The brutal finish should suit Chris Froome perfectly, so Sky will want to set down a marker here.
