Tour de France - Wout van Aert powers to another win, Tadej Pogacar third on Stage 8

Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) lived up to his favourite status by sprinting to a second win in Stage 8 to Lausanne to deny Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) as the Tour de France entered Switzerland via the Jura mountains on Saturday.

Belgium’s Van Aert clung on in a select lead group on the final 4.5km climb to the finish before timing his sprint to perfection to come round Australia’s Matthews and the Slovenian race leader. Denied a third successive win on the lumpy 186km ride from Dole, Pogacar’s third place saw the double champion still pick up four bonus seconds and strengthen his grip on the yellow jersey on a day he flirted with disaster with an early crash in the peloton.

“I hit the ground but not so much – it was one of the softer crashes I have experienced. We came back and it was okay,” Pogacar later clarified.

On the eve of the first stage in the Alps, 23-year-old Pogacar now leads Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) by 39 seconds after the Dane came home in eighth place. Welshman Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) retained his third place in the general classification at 1’14” with British team-mate Adam Yates in fourth eight seconds back.

“It was a long day and it got hotter and hotter and there were a lot of dangerous points,” Pogacar said. “I liked the last climb but for the sprint I maybe hesitated a bit and Van Aert passed me with triple speed. For sure it’s a little bit disappointing but third place is still great. When it goes uphill for five kilometres at the end I can be there for the sprint – but I’m not as fast as Matthews of Van Aert.”

Van Aert’s second win of the race saw the 27-year-old Belgian move over 100 points clear of his nearest rival in the green jersey classification, the Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl).

“Of course, I’m super happy,” Van Aert said after adding to his earlier victory in Stage 4. “Today was a big chance to take a lot of green points on a few of my competitors so I’m really glad my team put everything in it to chase down the breakaway – then I had to finish it off.

“It was a pretty tough climb. It said 4.5km and 4% but with the flat bit in the middle a lot of what went uphill was really steep. I had to fight to stay on the wheel of Pogacar and his team-mates. I knew that if I stayed in the wheel then the sprint was a lot flatter and I had a good chance.”

An early crash near the front of the peloton saw that rarity in modern cycling: the yellow jersey of Pogacar hitting the deck. Throughout his short but illustrious career, the Slovenian has never had a crash or illness bad enough to take him out of a stage race – and while that sequence did not change on Saturday, the race leader will have counted his lucky stars that his fall was as bad as it may have been.

The incident occurred when American Kevin Vermaerke (Team DSM) clipped a wheel and went over his handlebars just as a three-man move was carving out a lead off the front and the pace was high. In the melee that ensued, Pogacar was forced to slam on the brakes and was then knocked to the road.

But the yellow jersey was back on his bike in no time, chasing back with his UAE Team Emirates colleagues while the tempo had eased in the peloton ahead. Pogacar was not the only big-name rider to be involved in the tangle, with Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) held up as well as Colombian duo Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost) and Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic), and the Frenchmen Romain Bardet (Team DSM) and David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ).

Vermaerke was forced to withdraw because of his injuries – and he was soon joined by Gianni Moscon (Astana-Qazaqstan), the Italian still feeling the fallout from long-Covid according to his team. And it was indeed a positive Covid test which brought about the overnight departures of Norway’s Vegard Stake Laengen and France’s Geoffrey Bouchard (Ag2R-Citroen) – the former something of a blow in team-mate Pogacar’s quest for a third Tour crown.

The upshot of the big crash was a momentary neutralisation in the pack which ended any chances of the kind of protracted battle we saw for the breakaway in recent stages. This played into the hands of the trio who quickly managed to put some daylight between themselves and the peloton.

Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Frederik Frison (Lotto Soudal) and Mattia Cattaneo (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) soon had an advantage of over three minutes as the race headed uphill towards the intermediate sprint, where Van Aert struck first blood behind by pipping Jakobsen to the line.

After two lower category climbs, the trio took advantage of a Van Aert nature break to throw down the hammer and revive their flagging chances – stretching their dwindling lead back above the two-minute mark as the race passed over the border into Switzerland.

Belgium’s Frison soon hit the wall to leave a duo out ahead while the BikeExchange-Jayco and Jumbo-Visma teams of stage favourites Matthews and Van Aert led the chase on the nose of the peloton behind.

On the penultimate climb, Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) was the victim of an unusual double calamity after he was taken down by the outstretched arm of a Trek-Segafredo soigneur just minutes after crashing on the Col de Petra Felix. Pinot took a musette right to the face and was forced to collect his senses on the side of the road before fighting back on ahead of the finale.

Italy’s Cattaneo was dropped by Wright with eight kilometres remaining as the British youngster dug deep before succumbing to the inevitable at the foot of the final climb.

A hefty tempo set by Pogacar’s UAE team ensured that none of the pure sprinters survived to contest the win, with a select group of around 30 riders – containing a mixture of GC riders and puncheurs – forming after the steep double-digit ramp halfway up the Cote du Stade Olympique.

After UAE’s Rafal Majka peeled off the front in the final kilometre, Luxembourg’s Bob Jungels (Ag2R-Citroen) came to the front with Frenchman Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis). But it was Matthews who then took the bull by the horns, the Australian seeking his first Tour stage win in five years two days after being beaten by Pogacar in Longwy.

If Matthews did enough to ensure he would turn the tables on the Slovenian in Lausanne, he didn’t have enough gas in the tank to hold off Van Aert’s late turn of pace.

“I was pinned,” Matthews said. “Last time, I waited too long. This time I maybe went too early. But Wout was just amazing today. I did my best and the team rode a great race to deliver me where I needed to be. But, yeah, second again. Hopefully I’m knocking on the door of that win.”

The Tour continues on Sunday with a scenic day in the Swiss Alps – the 193km Stage 9 which starts in Aigle and tackles two Cat.1 climbs before returning to French soil ahead of another punchy uphill finish at Chatel Les Portes du Soleil.

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