2019 Tour de France Stage 8 Results & Recap
Stage 8 of the 2019 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
De Gendt wins stage 8 of the Tour de France\nBy Clara Beard
Breakaway specialist Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) won his second career victory at the Tour de France solo after spending the 200 kilometre stage in the breakaway. The Belgian attacked on the seventh and final KOM climb of the day to hold off an emerging Julian Alaphilippe and Thibaut Pinot by just a handful of seconds in Saint-Etienne.
“From 70km to go, I just kept riding full gas until the last climb,” De Gendt said. “The bunch was coming closer but I had to go solo and stay ahead of them. I had really good feelings all day. From 5’, our lead went down quickly to 3’30’’, but we didn’t push that much until the climb of the feed zone. That was the moment to get a bigger gap again. I almost crashed in a few corners but I made it. It hurts so much but it’s wonderful. It’s also mission accomplished for the team. Our goal was to come to the Tour for winning a stage. We almost got it yesterday with Caleb [Ewan] yesterday. I’ve had a very good feeling already for the whole Tour and I had amazing legs today.”
Alaphilippe’s performance boosted him back into the yellow jersey, right before Bastille Day. Ciccone lost the yellow jersey, but remains in the white as the best young rider.
“It was the ideal scenario but I wasn’t sure if it could happen this way,” Alaphilippe said after the stage. “I had nothing to lose. I knew my deficit on GC was only 6’’, but it was a big task at the same time. It’s nice that breakaways get rewarded. I had to attack and go full gas. I didn’t know the finale. I was just focused in the last kilometres and it went very fast. In the last 500 meters I thought it’s now or never, I just went full gas. It was difficult to be in a better situation than with Thibaut Pinot. Had I been alone, I would have gone flat out anyway but with him, I could recover a bit sometimes. I couldn’t dream of anything better than riding in the yellow jersey on Bastille Day tomorrow.”
De Gendt, Niki Terpstra (Total Direct Energie) and Ben King (Dimension Data) escaped in the opening kilometres of today’s 200km hilly stage and quickly opened up a gap of about 3’30” on the peloton, controlled by Bora-hansgrohe and Sunweb.
A man on a mission today, De Gendt was first over each of the KOM climbs collecting enough points to put him into second overall behind his teammate, Tim Wellens.
King and Terpstra cracked on and so did De Marchi eventually after De Gendt attacked 14 km before the end of the côte de La Jaillère. The peloton got serious with about 40 kilometres to go and Alaphilippe took his opportunity to attack, and Pinot the only rider to respond. The duo couldn’t catch De Gendt, however, and the Lotto Soudal rider finished six seconds ahead to celebrate his second Tour de France victory.
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