Demare edges Gaviria to win stage 8 at Tour de Suisse

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Arnaud Demare wins stage 8 Tout de Suisse 2018

Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) won a highly competitive bunch sprint on stage eight of the Tour de Suisse on Saturday while Richie Porte (BMC) held on to the overall leader’s yellow jersey.

Porte must now survive a 34km individual time-trial on Sunday where his nearest rival, Nairo Quintana (Movistar) trails by just 17 seconds.

In his second win of 2018, Demare left it late before turning up the tempo to overtake and beat Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors), who came second while Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) was third.

Three-time world champion Peter Sagan  got slightly boxed in and was fourth.

With three weeks to go before a Tour de France where there should be at least eight bunch sprints, Demare’s win over other top sprinters gave fans a taster for the green jersey sprint points fight starting July 7.

The sprint teams were merciless on Saturday hunting down an escape group with 6km to go and setting up a high tempo finale to a short 123km stage raced in fine conditions.

Tour de Suisse 2018 – stage 8 results (Bellinzona – Bellinzona):

1Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ)

2:41:07

2Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors)

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3Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates)

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4Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe)

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5Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo)

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6John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo)

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7Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (Dimension Data)

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8Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain-Merida)

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9André Greipel (Lotto Soudal)

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10Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb)

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General classification after stage 8:

1Richie Porte (BMC)

28:47:17

2Nairo Quintana (Movistar)

+17”

3Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb)

+52”

4Enric Mas (Quick-Step Floors)

+53”

5Sam Oomen (Team Sunweb)

+01’13”

6Jakob Fuglsang (Astana)

+01’28”

7Mikel Landa (Movistar)

+01’31”

8Steven Kruijswijk (LottoNL-Jumbo)

+01’37”

9Simon Spilak (Katusha-Alpecin)

+01’48”

10Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo)

+02’26”

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