2018 Tour de France Stage 8 Results & Recap
Stage 8 of the 2018 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Groenewegen two for two
By Clara Beard
Another sprint, another win for Dylan Groenewegen, who has now notched as many wins as Fernando Gaviria and Peter Sagan at this year’s Tour de France. The 25-year-old Dutchman rocketed past Andre Greipel and Fernando Gaviria, who were eventually disqualified for a bit of argy bargy in the sprint to the line.
“My legs are better every day,” Gronewegen said. “I felt great today. Even though we lost my lead out man Timo Roosen in a crash, my team positioned me very well behind Greipel. That was the right choice. I’m very proud of my team and myself. I had very good legs the first two days of the Tour, possibly because I paid for my efforts in the Dutch national championship that was a very hard race. But I keep improving since. I’d like to win on the Champs-Elysées again but that’s a long way away and we have a hard stage on the cobblestones tomorrow to think of first.”
In the hunt for the yellow jersey, Greg Van Avermaet extended his lead by one second ahead of Geraint Thomas (SKY) after collecting a time bonus sprint second. He now leads by seven seconds ahead of the Welshman. His teammate, Tejay van Garderen is third at nine seconds.
"Everything is going well,” Van Avermaet said. “I was hoping for one day in yellow but not as many as this. I am really enjoying it every day. It is something special and it will be great if I can keep it in Roubaix. It will be nice to go onto the cobbles with the yellow jersey and hopefully I get an extra day after tomorrow. It is definitely going to be different with this many cobbles on a Tour de France stage. We’ll ride with six guys to protect Richie Porte and myself to try and stay up there to defend the yellow jersey.”
Another stage for the sprinters meant the peloton decided to take it easy in the opening half of the stage. About 23 kilometers in, Fabien Grellier (Direct Energie) and Marco Minnaard (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) were the two committed to the day’s break after Laurens ten Dam (Sunweb) sat up to take care of Tom Dumoulin in the peloton.
The duo’s lead reached out to 6 minutes and 35 seconds before gradually dropping back down, thanks to the work by Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) and Tim De Clercq (Quick Step).
With 10 kilometres to go, the break was caught and the sprinters got their affairs in order for a chance to win in Amiens. Peter Sagan wound up his sprint first, but didn’t have the strength to match Groenewegen, Greipel or Gaviria and had to settle for fourth (before their relegation).
“I didn’t see any of Gaviria and Greipel’s sprints, as I was leading them out, so I don’t have anything to say about their disqualification,” Sagan said. “Tomorrow is the last stage before the rest day. I will try and go again for victory. Even if I’ve been doing that for the whole Tour de France, I’ll try to keep my focus and be on the front the whole day. Maybe these days I’ve spent some energy that I will miss tomorrow, so it might be a day for Van Avermaet or the Quick-Step guys.”\n
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