There were two main battles on stage 8 of the 2020 Tour de France. One for stage honours from a breakaway that led by more than 12 minutes at one point. Another for the GC contenders in the bunch behind, trying to maintain or improve on their overall standing.
Nans Peters (Ag2r-La Mondiale) won the first of those battles, the Frenchman adding to a similar breakaway victory in last year’s Giro d’Italia. Among the GC contenders, Tadej Pogacar (UAE-Team Emirates) was the big victor, clawing back 40 of the 81 seconds he lost in the crosswinds on stage 7, while Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) dropped more than two minutes.
Here’s how our photographers saw stage 8 of the Tour; a stage of ups and downs, and of crowds that insisted on getting far closer to riders than is appropriate in the midst of a pandemic.
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- The breakaway on stage 8 was given plenty of latitude by the peloton.
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- KOM leader Benoit Cosnefroy was up there doing his thing.
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- So too Jerome Cousin who would make an ill-fated attack with 60 km to go.
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- Neilson Powless was in the break again too.
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- The race’s first Pyrenean stage took the riders up three sizeable climbs.
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- Yet another quality rock wall at this year’s Tour.
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- It was a long day for sprinters like Caleb Ewan who had to battle hard to make the time cut.
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- Nans Peters attacked from the break with 46 km to go, with only Ilnur Zakarin (CCC) able to follow.
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- But when Peters and Zakarin started descending off the Port de Balés with around 35 km to, Zakarin was quickly distanced.
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- Peters was able to descend his way towards a solid lead.
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- Had Zakarin been able to stay with Peters on the descents, the stage might have ended in different fashion.
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- The GC contenders descend off the Port de Balés.
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- Primoz Roglic is accustomed to going downhill fast because, well, you know.
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- Ewan and teammate Roger Kluge finished in the gruppetto, more than 32 minutes down.
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- Zakarin tried to make up the time he’d lost on the previous descent, but struggled to catch Peters.
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- In the GC group, Tom Dumoulin was having a bad day and decided to work for Primoz Roglic.
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- What pandemic? It’s not like France is having a resurgence of COVID-19 cases or anything.
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- Kevin Reza (B&B Hotels) was in the breakaway but was dropped, caught by the bunch, then dropped. He finished more than half an hour down.
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- Carlos Verona on his way to third place from the breakaway, pictured here surrounded by COVIDiots.
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- Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) tried a late attack from the GC group on the Peyresourde.
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- They got a gap, but would be caught by stage’s end.
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- Tadej Pogacar, on the other hand, was not caught. It took three attacks from the Slovenian, but the final of those moves saw him get a gap on the GC favourites. He finished 40 seconds up on Roglic and Adam Yates, making up a good amount of the time he lost a day earlier.
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- Roglic was isolated by stage’s end but made do on his own.
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- Romain Bardet made a late move to take two seconds back on his GC rivals.
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- Cosnefroy continues to lead the KOM classification. Nans Peters is closing in now though, just four points behind.
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- Dumoulin was dropped after working for Roglic and lost more than two minutes on GC.
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- Yates, meanwhile, was rock solid and earned another day in yellow.
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- It was an impressive win for Peters who now has two victories as a professional: a stage of the Giro and a stage of the Tour. Not bad.
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- Large crowds flocked to the Pyrenees to watch the weekend’s stages.
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- Yates leads the Tour by three seconds ahead of Roglic. Guillaume Martin remains in third, at nine seconds.
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