7/28/2019 Tour de France - Froome in yellow after stunning stage eight win

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Britain's Chris Froome led a Sky one-two ahead of team-mate Richie Porte to win the first mountain-top finish of theTour and take the leader's yellow jersey.

A devastating attack on the second of two mammoth climbs towards the end of the 195km stageeight into the Pyrenees saw Froome leave all his rivals for dead.

Porte followed Froomes lead to make his own attack moments later, four kilometres from thesummit, to put air between himself and the other race favourites and underline Skys dominationin the worlds biggest bike race.

Almost a year after Bradley Wiggins and Froome secured a famous one-two on the Champs-

Elysees, Froome and Porte made huge strides to repeat the feat in the fierce heat of southernFrance.

His arms aloft and a huge smile beaming across his face, Froome crossed the line 51 secondsahead of his team-mate, with their nearest rival, SpainsAlejandro Valverde of Movistar, cominghome one minute and eight seconds in arrears and just ahead of Belkins Dutch duo BaukeMollema and Laurens Ten Dam.

Spaniard Alberto Contador of Saxo-Tinkoff considered Froomes main rival ahead of the Tour suffered on the final climb to Ax 3 Domaines and finished 1:45 down on the new yellow jersey,having to be paced up the Cat.1 ascent by his Czech team-mate Roman Kreuziger.

Twenty-eight-year-old Froome now leads Tasmanian team-mate Porte by 51 seconds on GC,with Valverde in third place at 1:25. Contador is seventh, at 1:51.

I couldnt be happier, Froome said after securing the second Tour stage win and the firstmaillot jaune - of his career. It really has been a very nervous week building up till now but theteam has done fantastic job to come through first week in such a strong position.

To win the stage and get Richie in second is a dream come true it was the first proper GC day

and it couldnt have gone better.

Contador was not the only GC rider to wilt in the 30-degree temperatures and the Team Skyfurnace, with 2011 winner Cadel Evans cracking on the final climb to trickle home more than fourminutes down.

Australian Evans fared better than his BMC team-mate Tejay van Garderen, who was distancedby the main pack on the penultimate climb of the day, the Port de Pailheres, to lose more than 12minutes at the finish of a stage which completely pulverised the general classification.

The seeds of Skys victory were sown on the precipitous slopes of the Pailheres climb at 2,001

metres, the highest peak of the 100th edition of the Tour after some relentless pace-setting byVasil Kiryienka and Peter Kennaugh thinned out the pack to just 25 riders.

Colombian climber Nairo Quintana um ed clear of the ack earl in the climb in ursuit of lone

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7/28/2019 Tour de France - Froome in yellow after stunning stage eight win

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leader Christophe Riblon of Ag2R-La Mondiale, one of four riders to break clear of the pelotonshortly after the start of the stage at Castres and build up a large lead of nine minutes on theopening flat stretch of the race.

With the three other initial escapees - Dutch national champion Johnny Hoogerland(Vacansoleil-DCM) and French duo Jean-Marc Marino (Sojasun) and Rudy Molard (Cofidis) already caught, Quintana made his move shortly after similar solo attacks by Robert Gesink(Belkin) and Thomas Voeckler (Europcar).

Quintana caught Voeckler, Gesink and then Riblon, before soloing up the steepest section of theTours first major test with Frenchman Pierre Rolland (Europcar) in pursuit.

The 23-year-old Colombian crossed the summit to take the Souvenir Henri Desgrange awarded each year to the first rider to reach the Tours highest point with a 40-second lead overRolland, and a further 25 seconds over the Sky-led peloton.

Rolland, whose second place over the summit saw him reinstalled as the polka dot jersey for theking of the mountains competition, caught Quintana towards the end of the descent, with theexcellent Kennaugh leading the chase for the main pack.

Quintana eased ahead of Rolland as soon as the final ascent arrived but this was to proveimmaterial once Froome and Porte combined to explode the main pack 7km from the finish.

One by one, the race favourites sank like stones cast into the sea. In quick succession, Evans,Rolland, RadioShacks Andy Schleck, FDJ's Tibault Pinot, Garmin-Sharps Dan Martin andKatusha's Joquim Rodriguez were blown off the back.

Soon, it was a tale of three teams, with the Sky duo leading the race alongside Saxo-Tinkoff pairContador and Kreuziger, and Movistars Quintana and Valverde.

Once Froome made his move, 5km from the finish, none of his rivals had an answer. Seeminglyout of respect to team protocol and hierarchy, Porte took his foot off the gas, before unleashinghis own blistering acceleration moments later.

Porte rode around 30 seconds down on his team leader, but Froome managed to increase thegap over the final kilometres to come home almost a minute to the good.

With Sundays stage nine from Saint-Girons to Bagneres-de-Bigorre featuring a succession offive peaks, Sky could well build up an insurmountable lead at the top of the standings beforeMonday's first rest day.

But 28-year-old Froome remains focused, stressing that there is stil l a long way to ride until Paris.

Despite the result, we were put under pressure today, he said, with reference to Quintanasattack. There are still two weeks to go and theres definitely going to be a lot more attacks towithstand. Now we have the jersey were going to have to defend it.