Portugal’s Alberto Rui Costa hung on during a tense finish to claim his maiden Tour de France victory on the eighth stage held over 189km from Aiguirande to Super-Besse on Saturday.
Norway’s Thor Hushovd upset predictions to retain the race lead on the first day of climbing in the Massif Central as an expected skirmish between the real yellow jersey favorites failed to materialize.
Hushovd, who took the lead after the second stage when Garmin-Cervelo won the team time trial in Les Essarts, was expected to lose it on the first of two consecutive hilly stages, but the reigning world champion kept pace with the climbers and punchers, who had threatened to steal Rui Costa’s thunder in a wet finish to the stage.
Photo: Reuters
After waiting several minutes for confirmation, Hushovd was finally happy to have retained his one second overall lead on Australia’s Cadel Evans of BMC.
“I’ve been happy with my Tour de France so far ... so if I’d lost the jersey, it wouldn’t have been a big problem,” the Norwegian said. “Of course, when I heard my name, I was happy.”
Having been part of a nine-man breakaway that held a lead of 5 minutes, 30 seconds with 106km to race, Rui Costa did well to stay up front when it split early on the category two climb to Croix Robert.
Photo: Reuters
Biding his time as Tejay Van Garderen of the US and France’s Christophe Riblon launched a series of attacks and counterattacks, the Portuguese finally struck out with 5km to race to finally go it alone.
“It was a very hard stage, but I’m really happy to have taken this win,” said Rui Costa, who had feared being caught by Alexandre Vinokourov as the Kazakh continued his bid for the win and the yellow jersey. “When I saw the gap to Vinokourov in the final kilometer, I thought it would be difficult for me, but I paced myself well.”
The chasing peloton were not far behind, with yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck and Evans testing each other with short bursts on the final 1.5km climb to Super-Besse.
The peloton soon swallowed up Vinokourov and as the favorites kept a close eye on each other’s moves, stage one winner Philippe Gilbert slipped into the big chain ring to launch a telling attack.
In the end the Belgian champion came over the finish 12 seconds in arrears.
“I needed another couple of hundred meters, but Rui Costa would have won anyway,” Gilbert said.
Three seconds later, Evans led a peloton containing Schleck and reigning champion Contador over the finish.
Despite BMC working hard earlier in the day to close the gap to an early nine-man breakaway, Evans claimed that not having the yellow jersey was not a problem.
“I didn’t get the jersey, but for us it’s not a problem right now. As I keep saying, there’s a long way to go to Paris,” said Evans, a two-time runner-up, in 2007 and 2008.
Contador, who is still 1 minute, 41 seconds behind Evans and 1 minute, 30 seconds behind Schleck, said the first skirmishes on the climbs are not likely until the first of three consecutive stages in the Pyrenees next week.
“I felt really good going up the climb, I managed to follow Gilbert, but what counts most for me is to know I’ve got good legs,” said the three-time champion and recent Giro d’Italia winner. “If there is any battle to come, I don’t think it will start until the Pyrenees.”
In the final kilometer to the finish Contador tried to ride away several times, prompting Andy Schleck to counter.
The Leopard-Trek climber, who lost the race to Contador by only 39 seconds last year, is not giving the Spaniard an inch so far.
“We knew Contador was going to try and attack, so I was on his wheel straight away,” the Luxemburger said. “We’ll get to the Pyrenees soon. After Luz-Ardiden [on stage 12] and the Plateau de Beille [stage 14], we’ll have something to say.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but