Stage 8 - Thunderstorm

Norway’s God of Thunder continues to roar! World Champion Thor Hushovd yet again held on to his yellow jersey following Stage 8, a 190km slog from Aigurande to Super Besse Sancy. The Norwegian finished in the main group, reduced to little more than 25 riders, and as such managed to maintain his 1 second lead in the General Classification over Cadel Evans. The day’s stage saw the first breakaway win in this years Tour, with Portugal’s Rui Costa taking his first ever stage victory. Costa was the sole survivor of the day’s break, and hold off the heads of state of this year’s Tour to take the win ahead of Philippe Gilbert and Cadel Evans. While Gilbert clearly had the form to win the stage had Cotsa been caught, he can console himself with retaking the lead in the Green Jersey competition. There is also a new leader for the Polka Dot Jersey, with phenom American Tejay Van Garderen now leading the mountains classification after being the main protagonist in the day’s break.

While almost all the big GC contenders finished in the main bunch with little difficulty, the big loser on the day was Dutchman, and White Jersey wearer Robert Gesink. Gesink lost over a minute to his main GC rivals and was clearly suffering the effects of a big crash in the previous day’s stage. Given this was a relatively easy finishing climb by the standards of the mountain men, this was a terrible display of form by Gesink, and it would be fair to say he is the first of the major podium chances to show signs of weakness. You would have to think he is no chance of him finishing on the podium now, and the Dutchman is becoming a massive Tour disappointment. He has raced three times, and each time entered the race with a fair degree of hype. In 2009 he crashed out early, while last year, when again seen as a podium threat he finished 6th. Sure that is a credible finish, but he pretty much sucked wheels the entire trip around France and never even looked like threatening any of the riders who finished in front of him.

The other highlight of the stage for me was seeing Alexander Vinokourov potentially blow his last chance at a Yellow Jersey. At one stage it looked like this former doper had been given his head by the peleton, and he charged clear in search of the stage win and the maillot jaune. And I have to say at the foot of the climb I thought he had it. Thankfully he compounded over the final few k’s and ended up being sucked back into the main group by the finish. Go back to Kazakhstan!

However, all the plaudits on the day must go to Hushovd, who I would say defied most pundits to hold onto his Yellow Jersey for another day. Given the groupetto containing all the major sprinters finished the stage almost 20 minutes down, Hushovd did a marvellous job to dig deep enough to hold onto the golden fleece. The jersey certainly can make one man ride with the strength of twenty, but it will be interesting to see how much energy the World Champ has left in the tank for tomorrow’s difficult route.

Yellow Jersey – Thor Husvhod
Green Jersey – Philippe Gilbert
Polka Dot Jersey – Tejay Van Garderen
White Jersey – Robert Gesink