The 112th Tour de France carried on in Brittany on Saturday, the eighth stage so bunch sprint oriented that there was no breakaway in its first half. In Laval Jonathan Milan took his first Tour victory, holding off a hard-charging Wout van Aert. Upon adding a Tour triumph to his four Giro d’Italia stages, Milan took over the points classification lead from Tadej Pogačar, who was unbothered in the yellow jersey.
The Course
Although the final 1.3 km of Stage 8 was 2.9 percent, it promised to be a sprint.
There were no moves at all in the opening half of the course. Several kilometers before the intermediate sprint in Vitré, Biniam Girmay’s Intermarché-Wanty grabbed control of the peloton, but Milan, wearing Pogačar’s green jersey, claimed the maximum points.
A couple of French TotalEnergies fellows took the midway point of the day as their cue to fly the coop. The duo took a long time to pull out a minute, but Mathieu Burgaudeau and Mattéo Vercher were merely making a demonstration. Tim Merlier had a puncture with only 12 km to race. Michael Woods and Guillaume Boivin were among several riders to puncture as well.
It was a messy approach to the Laval finish. Lidl-Trek led under the red kite, Mathieu van der Poel on Milan’s wheel and van Aert moving up the string. Milan would bide his time, latching on to the Alpecin train. Milan went hard and van Aert grabbed his wheel but could not swing around the Italian. It was the first Italian stage win at the Tour since 2019.
Stage 8 and 9 could be twins.
2025 Tour de France Stage 8
1) Jonathan Milan (Italy/Lidl-Trek)
2) Wout van Aert (Belgium/Visma-Lease a Bike) s.t.
3) Kaden Groves (Australia/Alpecin-Deceunink) s.t.
2025 Tour de France GC
1) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia/UAE-Emirates) 29:48:04
2) Remco Evenepoel (Belgium/Soudal-QuickStep) +0:54
3) Kévin Vauquelin (France/Arkea-B&B Hotels) +1:11
4) Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark/Visma-Lease a Bike) +1:17
5) Mathieu van der Poel (The Netherlands/Alpecin-Deceuninck) +1:29
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