Tour de France Stage 8 Results: Evans Takes Yellow, Armstrong Falters

After the brief, hill-climbing appetizer of Stage Seven, the race gets into the serious high mountains of the Alps. With two category One climbs, we were unlikely to see the heroics of Quick Step’s Sylvain Chavanel repeated, with his best hope being to stay with the bunch.

As per the script, the attacks began immediately as did the falls. Second-place rider for the General Classification, BMC’s Cadel Evans, was involved, as was wearer of the polka-dot jersey Jerome Pineau, Team Sky’s Simon Gerrans and Saxo Bank’s Chris Sorensen.

Evans apparently has a sore wrist and shoulder, but did not appear to have been affected too badly. Pineau spent a fair amount of time with the medical car but managed to keep going.

Lance Armstrong crashed at the 133 km mark and although he looked okay at the time, his bike was damaged to the point where he had to replace it and then had to expend a lot of energy to rejoin the peloton before the start of the first of the big climbs.

The first category one climb of the tour, over the Col de la Ramaz, saw a frenetic pace being picked up first by Team Sky and then by Saxo Bank. The continued pressure eventually told on the wounded Armstrong and he started to slip off the back of the pack. Sensing blood in the water, the sharks at Astana went for the kill, moving to the front of the peloton and driving the pace even higher.

Again, the field shattered and the three leaders—Mario Aerts of Omega Pharma-Lotto, Amael Moinard of Cofidis and Rabobank’s Koos Moerenhout—managed to hold their lead all the way to the base of the final climb.

The drama was not over for Armstrong. At the peak of the penultimate climb, a comparatively simple jaunt over the category three Les Gets, a Euskaltel rider made an awful mess of picking up a bag full of water bottles and came down directly in front of Armstrong, completely destroying what little momentum Armstrong was able to muster.

The Euskaltel riders have gained a bad reputation at this year’s Tour, being blamed for a large proportion of the crashes so far. They have earned the nickname of carrots, only partly due to their bright orange jerseys.

Team Astana, however, showed no mercy, intent on grinding out the pace in support of their leader Alberto Contador. An elite group had formed on the shoulder of Contador, with Andy Schleck, Bradley Wiggins, Ivan Basso, Michael Rogers and Evans all staying very close to each other and keeping a watching brief.

The leading group continued to thin out all of the way up the final climb to Morzine-Avoriaz. Contador’s Astana teammate Daniel Navarro set an incredible pace up the mountain, unhitching Wiggins and Rogers.

As always, the final few kilometres through the crowd, was bedlam and terrifying to watch as drunk exhibitionists compete to get some TV time. As they approached the peak there were a series of mini-attacks from riders trying to gain a cheap victory, until Schleck decided it was time to go at the one kilometre mark.

Schleck and Olympic champion Sammy Sanchez fought it out before Schleck eventually claimed the stage win. Evans claimed the poison chalice of the Maillot Jaune.

Most notable of all was the demise of Armstrong, two crashes and a frightful pace set by Astana has all but finished his 2010 Tour campaign. A bruised and bloodied Armstrong eventually slipped over the line with Yellow Jersey holder Chavanel, almost 12 minutes behind Schleck. It will be interesting to see how Armstrong approaches the Tour from here on.

At the head of the field, not much has been revealed. Schleck proved that he has a strong kick and Evans showed that he still can’t accelerate going up a hill. The mystery remains with Contador. Did he want to sit back and keep the others guessing or was he at the edge of his performance?

We’ll find out more after the rest day.

Standings after Stage Eight

1.    EVANS C.            37h 57' 09"
2.    SCHLECK A.            00' 20"
3.    CONTADOR A.        01' 01"
4.    VAN DEN BROECK J.    01' 03"
5.    MENCHOV D.        01' 10"
6.    HESJEDAL R.        01' 11"
7.    KREUZIGER R.        01' 45"
8.    LEIPHEIMER L.        02' 14"
9.    SANCHEZ S.            02' 15"
10.    ROGERS M.            02' 31