Stage 8

The road

At the start

Into the Vosges at Gérardmer

The first summit finish of this Tour, and a modest one: 130 flat kilometres out of Tomblaine, then the Croix des Moinats, the Grosse Pierre and a short, sharp ramp to La Mauselaine above Gérardmer. Vincenzo Nibali still leads Jakob Fuglsang by two seconds and Peter Sagan by 44. Alberto Contador, who lost two and a half minutes on the pavé, has to start taking some of it back.

How it was won

1. 1125 km to go

   Five men escape a 51km/h opening

   An hour of racing at 51km/h finally cracks open: Chavanel, Terpstra, Yates, Petit and Blel Kadri get away and are gone.

2. 260 km to go

   Eleven minutes, and three climbs left

   The five carry more than eleven minutes into the Vosges while Astana ride a patient tempo for the yellow jersey.

3. 319 km to go

   Kadri drops them all

   Chavanel attacks the break first; Kadri bridges to his compatriot and then rides straight over the top of him on the 7.6km climb, alone in the rain with three climbs of France waiting for a home winner.

4. 411 km to go

   Thirteen per cent, and Talansky goes down

   Kadri stretches his lead over the walls of the Grosse Pierre while Tinkoff-Saxo grind the yellow jersey group down to twenty. On the descent Andrew Talansky crashes and loses over two minutes; his Tour is coming apart.

5. 51 km to go

   Contador tests Nibali

   On the 1.8km haul to La Mauselaine the Spaniard attacks, and attacks again, and again. Nibali answers every single one, sitting on his wheel until the final fifty metres and then letting him have the placing.

6. 6At the line

   A French winner in the gloom

   Kadri crosses alone in the murk above Gérardmer, the first home victory of the Tour, 2:17 clear of Contador. Nibali keeps yellow, Porte rides into third overall.

The result