The Tour de France rolls on Saturday, July 12, with Stage 8 offering a golden opportunity for sprinters to shine on a flat, fast route to Laval.

Mathieu van der Poel did his best, but on the final climb of his beloved Mur de Bretagne, he was done. The Dutchman from Alpecin-Deceuninck couldn’t keep up with the brutal pace of UAE Team Emirates – XRG and lost the yellow jersey to stage winner Tadej Pogacar.

An almost perfect day for Tadej Pogacar. Winning at an iconic finish like the Mur-de-Bretagne and reclaiming the yellow jersey from friend-rival Mathieu Van der Poel is truly significant,

Instead, it was his Classics rival Pogacar who distanced him, with team UAE Emirates-XRG setting an infernal pace up the final slope to whittle the field down to a select group of climbers, including Remco Evenepoel, local boy Kevin Vauquelin, and Briton Oscar Onley, who ultimately finished third.

Dane looks ahead to the mountains on stage 10 and into the second and third week, as he sits fourth on GC 1:17 behind close rival

9. Axel Laurance, France, Ineos Grenadiers/GBR, 04:05:54. 10. Tobias Johannessen, Norway, Uno-X Mobility, 04:06:00. 44. Sepp Kuss, USA, Team Visma ' Lease a Bike, 04:09:43. 53. Neilson Powless, USA, EF Education-EasyPost, 04:10:31. 78. Quinn Simmons, USA, Lidl-Trek, 04:13:51. 1. Tadej Pogacar, Slovenia, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, 25:58:04.

In the thick of the action in a blisteringly fast first hour run off at an average speed of over 53kph, the 2018 Tour de France winner's efforts paid off as he made it into a day-long break of five and stayed away until less than 20 kilometres to go to the finish.

Wout van Aert keeps getting stronger by the day – that much is clear. During stage seven of the Tour de France, the Belgian rider from Visma | Lease a Bike threw himself into the fight for the stage win twice,