2009 Tour de France - Stage 8

Stage 8 - Andorre-la-Vieille Saint-Girons 176.5 km

Back to France!
In part two of the Pyrenees adventure the riders will have to contend with 3 climbs, two of them are Category 1s.

Km 23.5 - Port d'Envalira - 23.2 km climb to 5.1 % - Category 1
Km 102.0 - Col de Port - 11.4 km climb to 5.5 % - Category 2
Km 132.5 - Col d'Agnès - 12.4 km climb to 6 % - Category 1

These three ascents will offer good climbers the chance to stand out. The decents and the flat finish will mean that gains can be caught if the peleton so wishes and riders in breakaways will have to work quite hard to stay away, especially if they go early. That said, with the larger time gaps that have now developed a breakaway will be allowed some leeway and polka dot point chasing and defending might be on the agenda of a few teams.

Of course there will be some that are waiting for a stage just like this to make a name for themselves as they attack up the road early on. For me, this is a day for the durable climber that perhaps isn’t quite in the GC race, pick a rider 7 - 12 minutes in arrears at the start of the day to get into a breakaway and succeed by 3-5 minutes.

Then again with the game playing at the top of the table who knows?
Those high up in the GC might wish to whittle away the pretenders and have decent push on the final climb - Contador might just want to be in yellow come the end of the day? Doubt it though, with another tough day of climbing tomorrow before a rest, it is one for the breakaways.

No betting on this stage!