Tour de France stage eight: Jonathan Milan takes first stage win, and increasing tension between UAE and Visma

New York Times

a day ago

Lidl-Trek's Jonathan Milan took his maiden Tour de France stage win on Saturday, outsprinting Wout van Aert and Kaden Groves in a fast, technical finish in Laval.
The final 10 kilometres of stage eight were as dramatic as the previous 160 had been sedate, the peloton largely treating themselves to a more relaxed — albeit still quite rapid — day after a tense opening week.
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Milan was the winner of the intermediate sprint halfway through the route, and that moment of excitement also led to the only break of the day, with the Team TotalEnergies pair of Matteo Vercher and Mathieu Burgaudeau heading up the road on a doomed attempt for glory.
Milan's victory means he is now the outright leader of the points classification — he was wearing green today as erstwhile category leader Tadej Pogacar is in yellow — by 36 points. There was no movement in the GC battle, but there were some signs of tension between the two leading teams.
Take a bow. 🦅#TDF2025 l @LidlTrek pic.twitter.com/y8VUkgPhIS
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 12, 2025
Jacob Whitehead and Chris Waugh analyse the key moments from the day.
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As David Millar, the four-time Tour de France stage winner, put it on ITV4's coverage in the UK: 'This was pure domination.'
Although he was wearing green, Milan was not leading the points classification and had yet to win a stage, in this, his debut Tout. Yet his self-belief was evident; after a stroll of a victory in the intermediate sprint, the 24-year-old always appeared in total control during a technical final 2km.
Having already had to navigate a 180-degree turn around a roundabout at 80km per hour, the road jerked to the left with around 1.6km remaining and, with some riders forced wide, the group was split.
That left a select bunch up top with Alpecin-Deceuninck's Mathieu van der Poel attempting to set up Kaden Groves for the victory, but the Australian essentially became a lead-out rider for Milan. The six foot four (193cm) Italian waited patiently until the right moment (even second guessing himself at one point), before making room for himself by swinging out to the right, powering past Groves and sprinting to the win.
🔁 Relive an explosive final kilometre between the strongest sprinters where Jonathan Milan takes his first Tour victory.
🔁 Un dernier km explosif entre costauds qui a permi à Jonathan Milan de s'imposer pour la première fois sur le Tour #TDF2025 pic.twitter.com/8DTIq2X334
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 12, 2025
Visma Lease-a-Bike's Wout van Aert tried to respond and temporarily looked to be closing the gap but Milan, who had gone long, managed to find another level once more and he won easily in the end. As the individual-pursuit world-record holder, he is able to maintain his speed for longer than many pure sprinters.
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Groves was under no illusion about the Italian's strength. 'Milan was super strong, I must say. Wout was even on the wheel, but, yeah, I couldn't pass from there, My tactic was to take the sprint from the front, because to beat Milan from his wheel is difficult — I mean Tim did it a few days ago, but apart from this, you don't see it happen so much.'
Sunday's stage from Chinon to Chateauroux looks likely to serve up another bunch finish, leading some to question why there are two sprinter-friendly stages over a weekend, when television viewership is at its highest.
In part that is because Monday is Bastille Day, France's national holiday, meaning the race's first rest day has been put back, and the stages preceding it tapered down slightly. But the physical geography of France and the wider route chosen for the 2025 Tour has also contributed.
'It may not be ideal to offer sprinter stages on the weekend, but then again, these are the quirks of French topography,' Thierry Gouvenou, the race designer, told RMC. 'We want to reach the Massif Central, and between Brittany and the Massif Central, there are no hills. The goal isn't to have 21 super tough stages. There are moments when you need to ease up, maybe slow down a bit.'
Milan will not care about why the race's rhythm is slightly unusual this year. He will just be happy he has an immediate opportunity to add to his debut Tour victory.
Chris Waugh
When Milan crossed the line first, he brought to an end the 113 successive Tour stages which had passed without an Italian winner. Incidentally, 113 is the number for emergency services in the country — though this drought did not have the embarrassment of coming at the Giro d'Italia, such a wait for a cycling heartland would once have been unthinkable.
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The last Italian to stand on the victory podium before Milan was Vincenzo Nibali — back on stage 20 of the 2019 Tour de France.
'Winning means a lot for me, it means a whole lot for my country,' said Milan. 'I think that's it. I'm really happy with the result and I will try to bring another jersey home of course.'
By that, Milan meant the green jersey which he currently wears, awarded to the winner of the race's points classification. After Jasper Philipsen abandoned on stage three, and with Tim Merlier seemingly not fighting for the jersey, Milan might have been the overwhelming favourite — he is much faster than last year's winner Biniam Girmay. The last Italian to win the green jersey was Alessandro Petacchi in 2010.
But Pogacar's excellence is dangerous for Milan — despite not being a sprinter, Pogacar has won enough points for stage wins to be a serious contender for green as well as yellow. With 50 points awarded for a win, Milan leads on 182, with Pogacar at 156, and Girmay in third with 124.
'I don't think (tour organisers) ASO thought it could swing Pogacar's way,' Girmay's directeur sportif Aike Visbeek said after stage seven. 'We're now seeing after the first days that this points system favors Pogacar, and I think they didn't think it through enough. They focused more on guys like Mathieu van der Poel, the puncheurs.'
Milan, meanwhile, is still hopeful of victory, despite limited opportunities for the sprinters before Paris — where even there they have been denied their traditional processional sprint stage, due to the introduction of three ascents of Montmartre's cobbled hill.
'I think from today there will be many other possibilities for (Pogacar), but I also still have a few,' he said. 'I will try to take as many points, as many good results as I can in the next stages, and then we will see how it will go. To bring this jersey as far as I can, it's a goal for me, it is a goal of my team, so we will see. I will take it stage by stage, I will enjoy it while I have it.'
Jacob Whitehead
An undercurrent of needle has punctured the skin of the Tour de France over recent days.
UAE Team Emirates and Visma-Lease-a-Bike are unlikely to race each other directly over the weekend — both stages are set up for straightforward sprints — but both are fighting in the gallery of public opinion.
Tadej Pogacar has been visibly exasperated at several of Visma's tactics, calling them 'rubbish' and explaining how he 'didn't understand them' on separate stages.
In response, Visma directeur sportif Grischa Niermann told Belgian broadcaster Sporza: 'It's a good thing Pogacar doesn't get it. We're following our own tactics and did exactly what we wanted.'
'Pogacar can think whatever he wants,' Vinegar also chipped in to Danish television. 'We are allowed to run our tactics, and they are allowed to run their tactics. It may be that you don't understand each other's tactics, but that's how cycling is.'
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On Friday evening, footage emerged of a disagreement in the bunch between Pogacar and Visma's Matteo Jorgenson — with Pogacar appearing to push Jorgenson to access a bidon, causing the American to miss his own. For Pogacar supporters, he was being blocked; for those sympathetic to Jorgenson, it was an aggressive manouvere from the reigning champion.
'Sometimes you have to be patient and stay on the wheel when taking a bottle and pay respect to everybody,' Pogacar said the next morning.
Stage eight was uneventful, but with the decisive mountain stages having not yet begun, relationships could descend even further.
'In the race, we're rivals, fighting for every centimetre of the road but beyond the finish line, we have a good relationship,' insisted UAE directeur sportif Igor Maxtin.
Jacob Whitehead
To appreciate just how much of a sleepy stage this was —'transitional', would be the generous description — we can refer to snippets from the respective team-radio feeds.
For two-thirds of the day, as the peloton rolled through Brittany, the majority of soundbites ranged from frivolous to downright amusing.
UAE Team Emirates' announcement that 'Tadej (Pogacar) stops for a pee' was highlighted, despite riders pausing to relieve themselves on every stage.
The yellow jersey was also under so little pressure that his team were able to relay to him that his partner, Urska Zigart, had just finished seventh on the seventh stage at the Giro d'Italia Women. Pogacar then responded by asking how she performed in the general classification and also how his team-mates were doing at stage four of the Tour of Austria, where the rising star Isaac del Toro had won for the third successive day, and Rafal Majka had crossed the line third.
More amusingly, Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe backroom staff seemed to be entertaining their riders with some local trivia. 'The region of La Mayenne is the biggest region actually in France,' the message said. 'Full of cows! Let's see.' Mercifully, there were no bovine interventions, and the race passed through this area of the north-west of France without incident of note.
this tour de france stage, summarised: pic.twitter.com/TotOOy69Fh
— robyn (@robyn_emz) July 12, 2025
When, after 91km, TotalEnergies' Mathieu Burgaudeau and Matteo Vercher finally gapped the peloton, team radio also provided an insight into their tactical thinking. Lidl-Trek's Quinn Simmons had relentlessly closed down previous breakaway attempts, but he hesitated as the two Frenchman went up the road.
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'If they want to jump on everything, that's their problem,' TotalEnergies' team car said. 'We have the right to race.'
Chris Waugh
Back-to-back flat stages on a weekend might not excite the TV directors but the sprinters will love it. The Chateauroux finish was a favorite of Mark Cavendish's — three of his record total of 35 Tour de France stage victories came here, including his very first. Such is the retired British rider's connection with the city, its mayor has (unofficially) renamed it 'Cavendish City' for the summer.