Ferrand-Prevot wins penultimate stage to take lead
The general classification competition was finely poised before Saturday's dramatic action, with the top five riders separated by just 35 seconds.Le Court, of team AG Insurance-Soudal, held a 26-second advantage over Visma-Lease a Bike's Ferrand-Prevot, while defending champion Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Vollering were both within 31 seconds of the lead.Le Court suffered a crash on a descent and lost around one minute to the peloton earlier in the day, but managed to catch the main group with more than 45km to go.Following that recovery, rather than riding to protect the yellow jersey she claimed in winning stage five on Wednesday, Le Court pushed the pace on the Col de la Madeleine to set up an attack by team-mate Sarah Gigante.However, Ferrand-Prevot was able to follow Gigante and launched a counter-attack to make her way to the front of the race 7km from the summit.Only Fisher-Black and Yara Kastelijn remained from the day's breakaway and Ferrand-Prevot soon proved too strong as she powered clear to the finish.On a gruelling final ascent of the hors categorie Col de la Madeleine, lasting 18.6km at an average gradient of 8.1%, the 33-year-old, who rode to victory solo at Paris-Roubaix in April, put herself in a dominant position with one day of racing left. Sunday's concluding stage offers a final opportunity for the riders to improve their standing, with another mountainous 124.1km route from Praz-sur-Arly to Chatel featuring more than 2,800m of ascent.
Stage eight results
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Fra/Visma-Lease a Bike) 3hrs 47mins 24secsSarah Gigante (Aus/AG Insurance-Soudal) +1min 45secsNiamh Fisher-black (Nzl/Lidl-Trek) +2mins 15secsDemi Vollering (Ned/FDJ-Suez) +3mins 3secsYara Kastelijn (Ned/Fenix–Deceuninck) +3mins 3secsCedrine Kerbaol (Fra/EF Education-Oatly) +3mins 18secsDominika Wlodarczyk (Pol/UAE Team ADQ) +3mins 22secsKatarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol/Canyon-Sram-ZondaCrypto) +3mins 26secsPauliena Rooijakkers (Ned/Fenix-Deceuninck) +3mins 38secsMarion Bunel (Fra/Visma-Lease a Bike) +4mins 31secs
General classification after stage eight
Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (Fra/Visma-Lease a Bike) 26hrs 16mins 11secsSarah Gigante (Aus/AG Insurance-Soudal) +2mins 37secsDemi Vollering (Ned/FDJ-Suez) +3mins 18secsKatarzyna Niewiadoma-Phinney (Pol/Canyon-Sram-ZondaCrypto) +3mins 40secsCedrine Kerbaol (Fra/EF Education-Oatly) +4mins 11secsPauliena Rooijakkers (Ned/Fenix-Deceuninck) +4mins 26secsDominika Wlodarczyk (Pol/UAE Team ADQ) +5mins 2secsNiamh Fisher-black (Nzl/Lidl-Trek) +5mins 52secsEvita Muzic (Fra/FDJ-Suez) +5mins 58secsJuliette Labous (Fra/FDJ-Suez) +7mins 14secs
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