Tour de France stage 8: Mads Pedersen wins as Mark Cavendish abandons
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Mads Pedersen rewarded the hard work of his Lidl-Trek team to notch up his first victory of the 2023 Tour de France on Saturday.
The former world champion beat three-time stage winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to the line in Limoges, going early in the uphill sprint and holding off the green jersey wearer.
Missing from the gallop was Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan), who abandoned the race with a suspected broken collarbone after crashing with just over 60km to go.
The hard terrain saw off several of the big-name sprinters and played into Pedersen’s hands. He jumped early from behind Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), who had to put on the brakes when his leadout man Christophe Laporte was unable to peel off with Pedersen on his right and Mathieu van der Poel leading Philipsen on his left.
Philipsen tried desperately to pass Pedersen but the Dane had enough left to fend him off. Van Aert came back strongly before running out of road, netting third.
“When we passed [the line] I knew I won, but oh man it was a long sprint,” Pedersen said. “This uphill kick was really painful. I was this close [holds two fingers close together] to sitting down with 50 meters to go, but I think Jasper had to do a pretty good sprint to come from behind and make it that close as well. A tough one, but it doesn’t matter if you win with two meters or one centimeter.”
He was aggressive at the start of the stage but ended up reining it in and trying to save his energy for later.
“We didn’t know this morning if it would be breakaway or sprint. But it really looked like the sprinters’ teams didn’t want it to be a breakaway day. So we stayed calm and man, the boys did a perfect leadout today. Even with the long sprint I still had the legs to finish it off. It is really nice to win a stage faster [sooner] than stage 13.”
There was little change to the general classification, with many of the riders in the top ten staying as they were. However, Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) crashed with 5.9 kilometers remaining, as did Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious). They trailed in 47 seconds back. Yates dropped from fourth to sixth, being passed by Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and his brother Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates).
Landa slipped three places to 14th overall. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) continues to lead overall, 25 seconds ahead of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and 1’34 up on Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe).
They will have a big clash on Sunday’s stage to the top of the Puy de Dome, which returns to the race for the first time in 35 years.
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How it played out:
Stage 8 of the Tour de France was one which could have gone to either the sprinters or the rouleurs or, indeed, to the breakaway riders. The course from Libourne to Limoges was 200.7km in length and featured mainly flat roads early on, then much more rolling terrain in the final 75 kilometers.
This included a third-category climb and two fourth-category ascents, as well as a number of hills which weren’t allocated classification but which would drain already sore legs.
Given the potential for a break to succeed, there were a stream of attacks after the drop of the flag. Those trying early on included former world champions Rui Costa (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) and Rui Costa (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step) and Edvald Boasson-Hagen (TotalEnergies). Andrey Amador and Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost) were also very active.
However, the trio to succeed were Tim Declercq (Soudal Quick-Step) Anthony Delaplace (Arkéa-Samsic) and Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies), who moved clear after approximately 21km. They had five minutes heading into the day’s intermediate sprint, where Delaplace beat Turgis and Declercq.
Back in the peloton, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) reinforced his green jersey with fourth place, just ahead of Jordi Meeus and Danny van Poppel (both Bora-Hansgrohe), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) and Bryan Coquard (Cofidis).
The break moved onto the day’s category three climb, the Côte de Champs-Romain (km 130.4), where Turgis was first ahead of Declercq. There was big news with 61.2 kilometres left on the clock for the break, with Cavendish going down hard in the peloton and ending up out of the race.
He appeared to have damaged his shoulder, with formal medical diagnosis to follow at a later point.
Lidl-Trek was leading the chase behind to try to help Pedersen. Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step) attacked from the peloton with 37km to go and chased hard, but was hauled back 15km later. The gap at that point was down to 1’12, and dipped below a minute with 20km to go.
The fourth category Côte de Masmont saw Turgis push ahead of his breakaway companions and try to hold off the fast-closing peloton. He stayed clear until after the top of the fourth category Côte de Condat-sur-Vienne, but was caught with 8.2km to go.
The lumpy terrain had seen off sprinters such as Meeus, Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team), Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious), and Sam Welsford (Team DSM-Firmenich) and encouraged the attacking riders. Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) tried a move with 7.5km remaining and was chased by Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious), but neither got far before being hauled back.
Lidl-Trek led into the final kilometer, working for Pedersen. Jumbo-Visma swept through for Van Aert, then Matthieu Van der Poel launched to try to set up Philipsen. However Pedersen had too much oomph and held on for the win.
Source: Outside Magazine
