2020 Tour de France: Stage 8 Results

In Stage 8 of the 2020 Tour de France, Nan Peters notches a win for the bellwether French team Ag2R – La Mondiale while the country’s best hope Thibaut Pinot had a terrible day, falling nearly 19 minutes off of the race lead.

Peters won the stage following a long breakaway in the Pyrenees. He was part of a group of 13 riders who broke away Saturday in the early stages of the 141-kilometer (87.5-mile) stage featuring three punishing ascents to the town of Loudenvielle, where he soloed to the biggest win of his career.

“This is the best victory of my professional career,” said Peters at the finish. “At the same time, I only have two! I went to look for it in my way, in a mountain stage, in front of everyone. It’s crazy. When we had a 12 minute lead, I knew we were going to play for the win. I thought to myself, “Focus on winning the stage! “. When I dropped Zakarin on the descent from Port de Bales, I thought I wouldn’t give up. I enjoyed it in the last 500 meters because I didn’t do that last year in my stage victory at the Giro. What a day for our team. The stage victory, the polka dot jersey and Romain going very strong.”

Pinot, meanwhile, went into this race edition dreaming of ending a 35-year drought for France but lost contact with the main contenders 41 kilometers from the finish. It got worse and he dropped to 30th overall, 18 minutes and 56 seconds behind race leader Adam Yates. With his hopes of triumphing on the Champs-Elysees effectively ended for another year, the 30-year-old Pinot suggested he might never race the Tour again with the ambition of winning it.

“I could not pedal, that’s the way it is,” said Pinot. “I want to apologize to my teammates and all my supporters because it’s a huge disappointment. It might be a turning point in my career. I’ve been through too many failures.”

Pinot, a talented rider with flair and strong climbing abilities, has been hit by bad luck at the prestigious three-week races. A third-place finisher at the 2014 Tour, he has only finished the race once since then. He skipped it two years ago to focus on the Giro d’Italia, where he was forced to abandon because of pneumonia while fighting for the title.

Back at the Tour last year, Pinot looked like the strongest climber in the Pyrenees but his remarkable ride ended in tears within touching distance of Paris. He was forced to abandon with a left leg injury.

This year, he arrived in great form on the back of a second-place finish at the Criterium du Dauphine but crashed during the Tour’s opening stage in Nice.

Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe, who wore the race leader’s yellow jersey for three days earlier in the race, also had a tough day and dropped to 26th overall. Unlike Pinot, Alaphilippe had no ambition in the general classification.

With Pinot out of contention, French hopes of producing a homegrown Tour winner for the first time since five-time champion Bernard Hinault last won it in 1985 rest upon Guillaume Martin and Romain Bardet, who respectively trail Yates by nine and 11 seconds.

Yates and other Tour contenders, including defending champion Egan Bernal and favorite Primoz Roglic, crossed the finish line 6 minutes, 40 seconds after Peters.

Yates came under a series of attacks in the final climb, the Col de Peyresourde, but hung on to the overall lead after Roglic did not seem interested in taking the coveted shirt this early in the race. Roglic responded to every attack in the last 4 kilometers and gave the impression he could have gone solo.

Overall, Yates has a three-second lead over Roglic, with Martin completing the podium six seconds further back.

“It was a really tough day, in then beginning we let the break go, it was a good breakaway, I think the first guy was 17 minutes down, so it was easy for us to control,” said Yates after the stage. “Then later on in the stage Jumbo-Visma came up and started pushing the pace real hard, and they rode pretty much full gas from when they got on the front until the finish. In the end I did my thing, tried to stay with the best guys and in the end, here we are.

“Dumoulin set a ferocious pace and I just couldn’t hold the wheel, I had to ride at my own pace a little bit, so I could collect myself. I clawed my way back and over the top I manged to stay with the guys, so like I said before, all-in-all a good day.

“Tomorrow is a very similar stage, if we can hold on for another day, the day after that is the rest day, so hopefully we can hold on until then. Who knows what’s going to happen?” Yates concluded.

The stage destroyed Thibaut Pinot, who cracked in the Port de Bales.

Riding at the back with other contenders, Pinot, who did not fully recover from last week’s crash, was dropped in the day’s second ascent. He was accompanied by three teammates who gently patted him on the shoulders and tried to spur him on. Touching his lower back, Pinot could not react and reached the finish more than 25 minutes after Peters.

Another big loser was Tom Dumoulin, the Jumbo-Visma co-leader with Roglic, who was dropped on Peyresourde and lost more than two minutes on the favorites.

Ahead of another tough stage taking riders from Pau to Laruns, the Tour hierarchy is now clearer, with nine riders separated by just 48 seconds. Among them stands ninth-placed Tadej Pogacar, who moved back into contention after losing time in crosswinds the previous day. He regained 38 seconds with a late attack in the Peyresourde that was left unanswered.

“Roglic is one of the strongest rivals but Pogacar is also phenomenal,” Bernal said. “And there are (Nairo) Quintana, (Miguel Angel) Lopez, (Rigoberto) Uran… It’s going to be a very open and interesting race.”

2020 Tour de France: Stage 8 Brief Results

1. Nans Peters (AG2R La Mondiale) at 4h02’12”
2. Toms Skujiņš (Trek – Segafredo) at 47″
3. Carlos Verona Quintanilla (Movistar Team) s.t.
4. Ilnur Zakarin (CCC Team) at 1’09”
5. Neilson Powless (EF Pro Cycling) at 1’41”

General Classification After Stage 8

1. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) at 34h44’52”
2. Primož Roglič (Team Jumbo-Visma) at 3″
3. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis, Solutions Crédits) at 9″
4. Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) at 11″
5. Egan Bernal Gómez (INEOS Grenadiers) at 13″