The year after he opened his Grand Tour record book by winning a mountain stage at the Giro d’Italia, France’s Nans Peters soloed to victory over the col de Peyresourde to impose himself at Loudenvielle. Thibaut Pinot cracked because of pains after his crash on stage 1. Adam Yates retained the yellow jersey.
14 RIDERS IN THE LEAD
172 riders started stage 8 I Cazères-sur-Garonne. Attacks started at km 2. Benoît Cosnefroy and Nans Peters (AG2R-La Mondiale), Ilnur Zakarin (CCC), Kevin Reza and Quentin Pacher (B&B Hotels-Vital Concept), Michael Morkov (Deceuninck-Quick Step), Neilson Powless (EF), Fabien Grellier and Jérôme Cousin (Total Direct Energie), Carlos Verona (Movistar), Toms Skujins (Trek-Segrafredo), Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) and Ben Hermans (Israel Start-Up Nation) formed a 13-man breakaway group at km 4. Cousin won the intermediate sprint at Sengouagnet, km 42.5, where Peter Sagan missed out on the two points available for the riders of the peloton. The maximum time difference was 14’15’’ at km 46.
COSNEFROY FIRST AT COL DE MENTE
Cosnefroy increased his advantage in the King of the Mountains competition as he crested col de Menté (km 59.5) in the lead. Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale) crashed up the climb but made it back quickly to the pack. The deficit of the peloton was reduced to 11’30’’ at the summit. In the following climb, the Port de Balès, Cousin rode away from the breakaway with 60km remaining in stage 8. He got reeled in 9km before the top of Port de Balès. Peters, Zakarin and Pacher succeeded to him at the front of the race while Jumbo-Visma seized the reins of the peloton. Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) was the first top contender for GC dropped from the bunch.
PINOT SURRENDERS, PETERS WINS
Peters crested Port de Balès in first position with 36.5km to go, along with Zakarin but the Russian didn’t manage to follow the Frenchman in the downhill. Peters started the ascent to col de Peyresourde with an advantage of 45’’ over his rival for the stage win. Up the hill, Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) pulled but Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) was first to attack, followed by Primoz Roglic and Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic). Pogacar went again, so did Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and Quintana at the beginning of the downhill. While Peters kept his advantage to win stage 8, the yellow jersey group was reunited behind Pogacar who reduced his deficit on GC. Bardet gained two seconds to move up as well but Yates remained in the yellow jersey and Roglic was obviously happy to stay in second place.
