Approaching the finish line, Dumoulin turned around to make eye contact with his team director in a auto behind him then, on the verge of tears, stuck his tongue out and raised his arms in celebration. “It’s fantastic having so many fans out on the road but I would urge the fans, please, don’t run with the riders”, he said.
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Crouched on top of his handlebars for extra aerodynamics, he opened a 20-second lead and used his time trial qualities to post a sixth stage win in Tour history.
“There’s not much you can do when you are at the sprint stage and you are going 70 or 80 KPH so there’s nothing you can do”. Yates, 23, also earned the white jersey as the tour’s highest-placed young rider after officials took the finishing times about 2 miles from the end of the 101-mile leg from L’Isle-Jourdain to Lac de Payolle. Froome, Quintana, and other riders had to lift the crumpled arch off the ground and slip their bikes underneath it. Jones tearfully denied knowingly using any performance-enhancing drugs.
In the overall, Van Avermaet leads Julian Alaphilippe of France by 6:36, with Alejandro Valverde of Spain third, 6:38 back.
French hope Thibaut Pinot suffered badly on the climb and lost more than 3min to the favourites.
After the Cavendish-Sagan group was caught by the peloton, a 29-man pack featuring Van Avermaet and 2014 victor Vincenzo Nibali established a more risky lead of five minutes. The British outfit set the pace at the front and prevented Froome’s challengers from trying their luck in hot temperatures, and increased the tempo on the final climb.
“I have to try to enjoy every moment, that’s also why I went full gas today: to keep (the yellow jersey) another day”, said Van Avermaet, who admitted he didn’t expect to succeed again on Saturday.
“I don’t want to overstate it but ultimately we have a unique sport; it is a privilege to be able to get up close to the race and to the event”, he told The Sunday Telegraph.
“No doubt people out there will be calculating my VAM (average descent speed) going down the last climb, and that it was off the charts”, the defending champion, who has always vigorously denied doping, said with a smile. Cummings attacked just before the ascentf the 1490-meter Col D’aspin. “It was frightful, actually”.
It was the fifth victory for a British rider in the first eight stages of this Tour following three early successes for Mark Cavendish and Friday’s win for his Dimension Data team-mate Steve Cummings.
Region: The 184-kilometer (114-mile) stage began in Pau in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department, crossed four mountain passes of the Hautes-Pyrenees – including the legendary Col du Tourmalet – and concluded in the thermal spa town of Bagneres-de-Luchon in the Haute-Garonne department.
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“We’ve got a really big weekend coming up and there’s a lot of hard racing to come”, said Briton Froome, 31.
