UAE Team Emirates-XRG star rider Tadej Pogacar retained his yellow jersey as Jonathan Milan of Lidl-Trek fought off Belgian Wout van Aert to win stage eight of the Tour de France from Saint-Meen-le-Grand to Laval on Saturday.
Milan, riding his first Tour, looked to have been caught off guard when Van Aert (Visma – Lease a Bike) hit the front, but the Italian battled to overtake the Belgian, with Australian Kaden Groves (Alpecin – Deceuninck) coming in third in a mass bunch sprint.
Slovenia's Pogacar remains 54 seconds ahead of Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal – Quick-Step) in the overall standings.
Frenchman Kevin Vauquelin is third at one minute, 11 seconds, and two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard sits 1:17 behind in fourth spot.
On a day for pure sprinters and with no change at the top of the overall rankings, Lidl-Trek's Milan was the first Italian to win a stage on the Tour since Vincenzo Nibali in 2019.
Milan is the 2021 Tokyo Olympics gold medallist in team pursuit and the 2024 world champion in individual pursuit.
Pogacar, aiming for his fourth Tour de France crown, had earlier secured a superb win in stage seven to regain the yellow jersey. Pogacar had on Friday picked up victory number 60 of the season for UAE Team Emirates.
Milan, 24, took over the top of the sprint points rankings and had been wearing the green tunic in place of Pogacar, who had earned the sprint and the overall leader's yellow jersey by winning stage seven.
The riders rolled through the Brittany countryside with the harvest continuing a month early and colossal crowds on the roadside.
Under clear blue skies and 31° Celsius heat there was little inspiration in the peloton to breakaway until late in the day.
French duo Mathieu Burgaudeau and Matteo Vercher attacked from 70km and the pair were only reeled in on the edge of Laval after enthusiastic support on this Tour.
“I think I still don’t understand what we did. We came with some expectations and dreams to bring home. Then to predict it and bring them home are two different things,” Milan said after his win.
“We were really close in the last (sprint), not the first stage, but on the third one we were pretty close, we know we just went too early, but today we were really focused. I really believed in my guys, they did an amazing job.
“It was a tough final, I have to say it was a bit stressful and I was not expecting it to drag up so much in the last kilometre. I had to wait as long as I could, but I like this kind of finale and I'm really happy for the world that we did. We really deserved it.”
Stage nine on Sunday heads south from Chinon to Chateauroux and is another flat affair with the focus on keeping hydrated in the heat and staying in the saddle.
But on France's national holiday on Monday there are eight classified climbs and many more besides in a stage loaded with opportunities.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Know your Camel lingo
The bairaq is a competition for the best herd of 50 camels, named for the banner its winner takes home
Namoos - a word of congratulations reserved for falconry competitions, camel races and camel pageants. It best translates as 'the pride of victory' - and for competitors, it is priceless
Asayel camels - sleek, short-haired hound-like racers
Majahim - chocolate-brown camels that can grow to weigh two tonnes. They were only valued for milk until camel pageantry took off in the 1990s
Millions Street - the thoroughfare where camels are led and where white 4x4s throng throughout the festival
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Uefa Nations League
League A:
Germany, Portugal, Belgium, Spain, France, England, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Iceland, Croatia, Netherlands
League B:
Austria, Wales, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine, Republic of Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Northern Ireland, Denmark, Czech Republic, Turkey
League C:
Hungary, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Greece, Serbia, Albania, Norway, Montenegro, Israel, Bulgaria, Finland, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania
League D:
Azerbaijan, Macedonia, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, Latvia, Faroe Islands, Luxembourg, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Liechtenstein, Malta, Andorra, Kosovo, San Marino, Gibraltar
Countdown to Zero exhibition will show how disease can be beaten
Countdown to Zero: Defeating Disease, an international multimedia exhibition created by the American Museum of National History in collaboration with The Carter Center, will open in Abu Dhabi a month before Reaching the Last Mile.
Opening on October 15 and running until November 15, the free exhibition opens at The Galleria mall on Al Maryah Island, and has already been seen at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum in Atlanta, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs: McLaren 600LT
Price, base: Dh914,000
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 600hp @ 7,500rpm
Torque: 620Nm @ 5,500rpm
Fuel economy 12.2.L / 100km
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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