Tour de France 2025 Live: Stage 8 Route and updates with Sprint Vooruit in Laval

“I am super happy with the victory, we almost did it perfectly, unhappy Joao crashed and I hope he is doing well,” Pogacar said afterwards. “If he is good, it is a perfect day, if it is not good, then this victory is for him. At the moment I just wanted him to be fine.

“Me and Mathieu, we both know this finish very well, we have nice memories here. We wanted more or less the same, to win on this iconic climb, but I think he might have left it on the road too much yesterday, so that we couldn’t have this rematch! But for me the day we planned and the victory is great.

“Back in Geel, let’s hope for two more easy days.”

The big change on GC was the disappearance of Joao Almeida from the top 10, which finished 10 minutes and now 28th is after a annoying crash on the last climb of yesterday’s stage.

Ben Healy has fallen from the eighth to 11th, the result is the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe pair Florian Lipowitz and Primoz Roglic, each up a place, although both lost another 30 seconds to sit for more than three minutes.

The gap from Evelepoel to Pogacar went to 54 seconds, Vingegaard has lost a few seconds and Van der Poel has fallen from the first to the fifth.

Oscar Onley is the great beneficiary and goes back to the seventh of 11th. He is back 2’49 ”and took four bonus seconds of his third place.

Pogacar opened his sprint 200 meters from De Lijn with Vingegaard The only man from a select group that was able to follow his wheel, while the 22-year-old Scot Oscar Onley continued his excellent tour by hitting Felix Gall in third place.

It was here that Van der Poel Pogacar defeated an emotional first career tour podium profit and with it the Yellow Jersey four years ago, in honor of his deceased grandfather Raymond Poulidor, and with Van der Poel only an advantage of a second compared to Pogacar.

1) Tadej Pogacar (VAE team Emirates-XRG) in 25:58:04

2) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) +54 ”

3) Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B & B hotels) +1’11 “

4) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike) +1’17 ”

5) Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-DECEUNINCK) +1’29 ”

6) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike) +1’34 ”

7) Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) +2’49 ”

8) Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +3’02 ”

10) Mattias Skymose (Lidl-Trek) +3’43 ”

1) Tadej Pogacar (VAE team Emirates-XRG) in 4:05:39

2) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike), at the same time

3) Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL team) +2 ”

4) Felix Gall (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondialle)

5) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease A Bike)

6) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step)

7) Kevin Vauquelin (Arkea-B & B hotels), all at the same time

8) Jhonatan Narvaez (VAE team Emirates-XRG) +7 “+7”

9) Axel Laurance (Ineos Grenadiers) +15 ”

10) Tobias Halland Johannes +21 ”

The neutralized start of phase eight is at 1.10 pm local time (12.10pm), with the end time expected around 5.15 pm local time (4.15 pm BST).

There is also the issue of a categorized climb in the last 20 km, the Cote De Nuille-sur-Vicoin, which is 3.8% for 900 meters short but steep enough to punish the pure fast men and to ensure that they waste some energy for the final.

Unlike that, it is almost Pan-Flat, and with the teams of the sprinters undoubtedly check those things all day, we may see that no riders are completely concerned with an escape. Let’s hope they do that, because otherwise it will be a long day.

Phase Eight is one of the only five friendly days for the fast men in this year’s route, a ride of 174 km from Saint-Meen-le-Grand in Brittany to Laval in the Pays de la Loire region.

And even this one has a key in the works in the form of a uphill resistance to the line, the type of finish Mark Cavendish would make a downright objection.

It means that people like Tim Merlier, winner of phase three, perhaps struggle to flow along the more versatile sprinters.