DISCUSSION Tour de France Stage 8 | Is Wout van Aert back in top form?

Stage 8 of the Tour de France was a transition day, providing sprinters with a third opportunity to secure a victory. The stage was predominantly flat, featuring only one categorized climb, making it an ideal terrain for sprinters to thrive.

Lidl-Trek and Intermarché - Wanty shared the work in the peloton from the beginning, but this time they didn’t have to worry about chasing any breakaway, as there was none. It wasn’t until 82 kilometers to go that the team Total Energies decided to try their luck, sending two riders to the front and providing the spectators with some excitement.

Mattéo Vercher and Mathieu Burgaudeau had to give up with just 9 km to go, when the peloton, led by Visma and Alpecin, chased them.

Mathieu van der Poel, acting as a domestique today, set up a textbook sprint for Kaden Groves, but Jonathan Milan was the strongest rider today, and he took an uncontested win, with Wout van Aert locking in second.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

All-in-all a pretty bland day, but that was to be expected. TotalEnergies at least honoured the race today, something which did not happen on stage 3... All there is to talk about was the finale which to be honest was quite interesting for a sprint. Crossing the town meant lots of technical features and so there was a true battle to keep everyone in front, and a lot of tense minutes leading up to the sprint.

The sprint was as chaotic as you could expect with maybe two or three riders having 1 leadout man entering the final kilometer. Surprises could emerge in such as situation, but Jonathan Milan was clearly the strongest, moving himself through the rival leadouts to perfection and then launching a devastating sprint.

Wout van Aert did a perfect job and surprised me quite a lot with a second place, anticipating his rivals and getting the momentum, but not even he had the speed to go through the Italian who's a deserved winner and finally got what I expected him to already have up to this point in the race.

After the brutal crash in yesterday's stage, it was good to see João Almeida, Santiago Buitrago, Ben Healy, Enric Mas, Louis Barre and Guillaume Martin on the start line. João Almeida was always at the back of the peloton, with all the men alongside him, including Tadej Pogacar.

A demonstration of team unity, where Almeida has worked to earn the respect and affection of his colleagues, who with this symbolic act, show that when you give everything for the team, in the most difficult moments the team is by your side.Chapeau to TotalEnergies, who kicked off the doldrums by storming to the front of the race with two men, thus giving their sponsors what is expected of them: television airtime.

Another sprint finish in which the organisation loves to put the peloton at risk of crashes and a lot of pressure. Why does the peloton have to pass through the city centre in the last few kilometres? A city with narrow streets, bends and more bends, traffic islands, narrow streets... in short, chaos. It's true that there were no serious crashes, but should there be?

Have patience for these guys who design the race routes year after year, and for the UCI who whistle and do nothing in defence of the cyclists. In the final sprint, the strongest man didn't win. The man who didn't have any bad luck or mechanical breakdowns and was able to take advantage of the absence of big names at the front of the peloton won. Milan won, but he didn't convince. Tomorrow I'll remove the doubts, because the finish is cleaner.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the profiles of today’s and tomorrow’s stages. I don’t understand what kind of logic guides organizers to put two pan-flat stages back to back during the weekend, the moment of the week in which TV ratings are much higher.

Even if not necessarily high mountains, they should at least add some condiments to the stages so they can be attractive and worthwhile to watch, especially for the casual fans, who are much less likely to come back to watch another stage if what they see is as uneventful as today.

The only moment worth watching was Jonathan Milan’s magnificent sprint. Honestly, I was not expecting him to have to wait until stage 8 to secure his first win in the Tour de France, but I believe this victory will give him the momentum he needs to go after a few more wins in this race.

Wout van Aert finally showed up in this year’s Tour. Until now, he had gone mostly unnoticed. I was doubtful whether he was in his best shape, that’s why I was surprised to see him contest the stage win. Overall, the Belgian performed well today; he was not close to beating Milan, but Kaden Groves was also far from beating him.

I believe Van Aert has the potential to become a pivotal piece in Visma’s strategies to beat Pogacar. He has already shown in the past that he can ride in an intelligent way. He understands what his role is and what Jonas needs from him. If he manages to show his best shape, Vingegaard will have a powerful ally alongside him.

One of the riders that I missed in the sprint, apart from Tim Merlier, who suffered an inopportune puncture, was Jordi Meeus. I still don’t quite understand Red Bull–Bora’s strategy. On one hand, they’ve brought two general classification leaders in Primoz Roglic and Florian Lipowitz, but only one true mountain domestique to support them (Vlasov).

The rest of the team seems built for other types of terrain, and on top of that, they’ve brought a main sprinter like Jordi Meeus, who so far hasn’t been in contention for any sprint finishes. Today, it was Danny van Poppel who sprinted, but he finished in 11th position.

Right now, their strategy feels like a mix of ideas without clear prioritisation, and in a race as demanding as the Tour de France, that usually doesn’t end well.