2018 Tour de France Stage 8: Groenewegen wins second consecutive stage
With cobbles looming, Stage 6 winner Dan Martin loses time after late crash
Dylan Groenewegen (The Netherlands/LottoNL-Jumbo) became the third sprinter to win a brace of 2018 Tour de France stages on Saturday in Amiens. Green jersey wearer Peter Sagan and Fernando Gaviria have both won two stages as well. Greg Van Avermaet finished comfortably in the peloton to take the yellow jersey into the cobbled stage.
☝ @GroenewegenD ✌#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/7bXHDLvngc
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 14, 2018
The Course
Surely, Stage 8 would prove to be more compelling than Friday’s tedious Stage 7, the longest stage of the 2018 Tour de France. The only interesting things that happened in that 231-km ho-humery wer four breakaways (three of them solo and two of those by the same dude) and Groenewegen’s second career Tour sprint win.
Stage 8 was a little more compact at 181-km, with two Cat. 4 climbs in the first half and your average Tour bunch sprint in Normandy’s Amiens, a right hand turn with 600-metres to go its tricky feature. Could Arnaud Démare be the Frenchman to win on Bastille Day?
#TDF2018 stage 8 will start from Dreux, take the peloton over two small classified climbs and finish in Amiens, after 181 kilometers. pic.twitter.com/ckEwL2wCkB
— Deceuninck-QuickStep (@deceuninck_qst) July 14, 2018
6 riders participating in #TDF2018 have already won on #BastilleDay
?? Cavendish 2009
?? Greipel 2012
?? Froome 2013 & 2015
?? Nibali 2014
?? De Gendt 2016
?? Barguil 2017#TDFdata #14juillet pic.twitter.com/UVsXmGpdRV— letourdata (@letourdata) July 14, 2018
The Breakaway
Before the day’s escape, Bora-Hansgrohe’s German Marcus Burghardt skipped up the road to amuse the peloton with a round of applause.
So @MBurghardt83 went solo to applause his fellow friends in the peloton ! ??
Donc @MBurghardt83 est sorti pour applaudir ces compagnons du peloton ! ??#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/453sXHQhEZ— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 14, 2018
It was another classic, first-week-of-the-Tour breakaway, which are usually under seven riders. Two fellows from wildcard teams shuffled away, each taking the single KOM point on offer on the two peaks.
Lotto-Soudal, Quick Step and LottoNL-Jumbo did the pacemaking in the peloton. A crash with 17-km to go bloodied Stage 6 winner Dan Martin, and the Irishman would lose 1:14.
The Sprint
The final fugitive submitted to the will of the peloton with 6.5-km to go. Groupama-FDJ took over from Sky at the front of the field. Philippe Gilbert tried a move with just under 3-km remaining. No soap. A Lotto-Soudal rider led under the red kite.
Peter Sagan went from a long way out, with Gaviria on his wheel. Gaviria and Andre Greipel rubbed shoulders as Groenewegen went around everyone on the right hand side to earn his third career Tour de France stage win. Two other Dutchmen have won back to back Tour stages: Joop Zoetemelk in 1976 and Jan Raas in 1978.
Sunday’s mini-Paris-Roubaix will be a wild affair for the GC men; someone’s hopes will be dashed on the cobbles.
2018 Tour de France Stage 8
1) Dylan Groenewegen (The Netherlands/LottoNL-Jumbo) 4:23:36
2) Andre Greipel (Germany/Lotto-Soudal) s.t.
3) Fernando Gaviria (Colombia/Quick Step) s.t.
2018 Tour de France GC
1) Greg Van Avermaet (Belgium/BMC) 32:43:00
2) Geraint Thomas (Great Britain/Sky) +0:07
3) Tejay van Garderen (USA/BMC) +0:09
