Tour de France 2021: Stage 8 – Dylan Teuns stays clear of Pogacar’s dream crusher to take the stage

A week of incredibly exciting stages and I get this one. Stage 8 of Tour de France 2021 was the stage where the other GC teams were supposed to skewer UAE and leave Tadej Pogacar isolated and vulnerable. It was the stage where Wout Van Aert was supposed to play a blinder and take yellow. It was the stage where Richard Carapaz was supposed to put himself in the GC equivalent of the cat-bird seat. None of that happened. Bahrain-Victorious’s Dylan Teuns pulled off an emotional solo victory (which we loved), while the top of the GC now looks unassailable as Pogacar put every other rider into his dream crusher (which we didn’t love that much) and is now at the top of the heap in yellow.
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Tour de France 2019: Stage 6 – Breakmates Teuns gets the stage, Ciccone takes yellow

It was heralded as the hardest stage in the Tour de France this year (by Dan Martin, amongst others) with seven categorised climbs in 160km and it was predicted to separate the wheat from the chaff by the time they reached the summit of La Planche des Belles Filles. And while it took until that last climb to bring the GC group to life, there was plenty of fireworks once they did wake up. But it was a duo who had been out in the break all day who have their names written in the Tour’s history books tonight. Neck-and-neck until the flamme rouge and the gravelled climb to the finish, Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Merida) proved to be the strongest, leaving Trek-Segafredo’s Giulio Ciccone in his dust (literally), as he crossed the line. But Ciccone didn’t go away empty-handed, donning the maillot jaune at the end of the day.

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Il Lombardia 2018: Pinot solos to his first Monument

Thibaut Pinot has had a marvellous season and it’s fitting that it’s been capped off by the Frenchman’s first Monument win with Lombardia. In great late season form, he took his second Italian win this week by cracking Vincenzo Nibali on Civiglio, the penultimate climb of the race, to take a beautiful solo win. Nibali held on for second with Dylan Teuns putting in a solid performance to round out the podium.

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