Home victor as Kadri wins stage eight
THERE was a home winner on the eighth stage of the Tour de France, while Vincenzo Nibali remains in the yellow jersey after a thrilling battle with Alberto Contador.
Blel Kadri dragged himself over the line, rain-soaked, after a 161km ride from Tomblaine to Gerardmer La Mauselaine, his victory itself a story as he went solo after being part of a breakaway that had featured gutsy Brit Simon Yates.
But as Frenchman Kadri crossed the line, Nibali had to dig as deep as he could to stay with Contador who, with a kilometre or so to go, tried to drop the Astana rider.
All he saw was a magnificent response from Nibali, who went with him and lost just three seconds of his overall lead to the Spaniard, but increased it to 1min 44sec over secondplaced team- mate Jakob Fuglsang.
Contador is 2min 34sec down in sixth, while, away from the scrap between he and Nibali, Team Sky’s new leader Richie Porte moved up to third overall, although he has lost four more seconds to Nibali, trailing by 1min 58sec.
It had looked as though Bury’s Yates would be in the mix at the end, sticking with the breakaway he joined 35km in until they approached the gruelling climax of the first of three successive days in the Vosges.
The final 30km saw the category climbs of the Col de la Croix des Moinats and the Col de Grosse Pierre, while the steep finish at La Mauselaine did its best to separate the challengers from the rest.
Yates battled gamely but was duly eaten up by the peloton, with Contador, Nibali and Porte emerging as the big three as the Tour reaches its oneweek mark.
The big loser was Andrew Talansky, who crashed on the ride down the Grosse Pierre, losing over two minutes on his yellow jersey rivals.
It was a positive day for Porte, who is adapting to the role of Sky’s main man after defending champion Chris Froome had to abandon injured.
He said: “I’m happy with how that went, it is not really my bread and butter and I think that on the longer climbs I will be better.”
Today’s ninth stage is a 170km hike from Gerardmer to Mulhouse.
On day two of the prestigious Diamond League meeting under grey Hampden skies, the world’s best sparkled — but Brits largely failed to make an impact on the results board, despite a cluster of personal bests.
After the disappointment of the late withdrawals byMo Farah, Adam Gemili and Christine Ohuruogu, plus Yohan Blake failing to finish on day one, the meeting was dealt a huge blow when yesterday’s headline act Greg Rutherford pulled out of the long jump after injuring his knee during his warm-up.
The London 2012 gold medallist