Tour de France Stage 8: Merlier Makes It Two with Incredible 400 Meter Effort

Tim Merlier took his second consecutive stage win at the Tour de France on Saturday, coming from a long way back to win a frenzied bunch gallop into Bergerac.

The Belgian became the first rider to win in the city since Marcel Kittel took another big sprint in 2017, and put in a similarly dominant effort.

He looked well out of the picture rounding the final corner with 450 meters to go but began his effort there to close down on those out front and then to power by, overtaking Mathieu van der Poel who was just ending his leadout effort for Jasper Philipsen (both Alpecin-Premier Tech).

Philipsen delayed his jump and got swamped by Merlier, Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling Team), and Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA GGM Team), having to accept fourth.

“If you win one you can win a second,” Merlier said. “I’m happy on three sprint stages I have two. Definitely my Tour de France is [a success] already.”

His sprint was incredible but he underlined that things weren’t easy.

“I needed to fight for position all the time until the last minute. Just before the corner I was a bit boxed in. And then they almost crashed. I thought it was almost over but I gave it a try to come back on the lead out

“I was coming with so much speed, I saw it was 250 to go so we I said ‘we give it it a try and we’ll see.’ At 50m I couldn’t push anymore.”

He had done enough, though, and grabbed the fifth Tour stage win of his career.

Overnight leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Emirates-XRG) finished safely in the peloton and maintains his grip on the yellow jersey. The top 18 remains as it was before the stage, with Pogačar still 2:42 in front of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).

Slock nearly rips up the script

Stage 8 was the second big chance for sprinters in as many days, being a mostly flat 180.4km stage from Périgueux to Bergerac. An early uncategorized climb would help attackers to build a lead, with two fourth category ascents following in the second half of the day.

Jakub Otruba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) was aggressive from the off and responded to a move 3km in to the stage by Liam Slock (Lotto Intermarché). Otruba and Thibault Guernalec (Total Energies) bridged 6km after the start, making it three up front.

They gained 2:15 with 120km go to, with the gap down to 1:40 when Slock led over the first of the fourth cat climbs.

Otruba won the intermediate sprint from the trio, while behind Philipsen beat green jersey Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and Max Kanter (XDS-Astana) for fourth place.

Slock was stomping and went clear on the day’s final climb, while behind Kasper Asgreen (EF Education-EasyPost) attacked hard and dragged a strong group clear, with Van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) and Egan Bernal (Netcompany Ineos) amongst the others present. However the bunch soon closed them down.

Slock was riding very strongly and had 1:22 with 20km to go. He was still 54 seconds ahead with 8km left, giving it everything to try to take the first grand tour stage win of his career. However he was gobbled up with 1.7km remaining, with Merlier prevailing in a stunning surge.

Final Km Stage 8

Results: Stage 8