Stage 8

The road

At the start

Into the hills without Wiggins

Bradley Wiggins broke his collarbone in the crash that wrecked yesterday's finale, Tom Boonen finally climbed off, and Chris Horner does not start today. Hushovd still leads Evans by one second and Fränk Schleck by four, and Rojas has green back. Now the road goes up: four categorised climbs across the Massif Central to the first summit finish of the Tour, six mostly uphill kilometres from Besse to Super-Besse Sancy.

How it was won

1. 1183 km to go

   Riblon lights it

   After a string of moves has been neutralised Christophe Riblon goes at eight kilometres and eight riders come across, Rui Costa and Tejay van Garderen among them. Costa starts the day four minutes down and is quickly the leader on the road.

2. 2108 km to go

   Auzances

   Riblon clips off the front of his own break for the twenty points, from Costa and Kolobnev. Back in the bunch Gilbert uses the rise to the line to outkick Rojas for tenth place and the crumbs of the green jersey.

3. 327 km to go

   Vinokourov goes hunting yellow

   On the Croix Saint-Robert, Alexandre Vinokourov and Juan Antonio Flecha come out of the yellow-jersey group and chase the leaders frantically, the Kazakh riding for a jersey he has talked about all season.

4. 46 km to go

   Costa, out of Besse

   Six mostly uphill kilometres left. Gautier accelerates through the village and Riblon is instantly gone; Costa chases him down, sits on him a moment, then attacks and is clear before Van Garderen can answer. Ahead is the best win of his career; behind him Vinokourov drops Flecha and rides himself empty.

5. 51 km to go

   Jabs under the kilometre banner

   Gilbert attacks, Contador counters, Andy Schleck and Evans shut it down; the Spaniard has another dig five hundred metres out and gets nowhere. The favourites cancel each other out and leave the road open to the puncheur.

6. 6At the line

   Twelve seconds at Super-Besse

   Costa holds the yellow-jersey group off by twelve seconds for Movistar's first stage of this Tour. Gilbert takes second and green back off Rojas, Evans is third, and Gesink — dropped five kilometres out — keeps the white jersey but loses more than a minute to everyone who matters.

The result