Rui Costa won the eighth stage of the Tour De France this afternoon.
Another wet day for the 189 riders who were without Radio Shack's Chris Horner (pictured below) who was forced to withdraw after suffering concussion and a broken nose and Bradley Wiggins who had broken his collar bone in a crash as well as Remi Pauriol on yesterday's stage that was won by Mark Cavendish.
The raced rolled out of Aigurande which was hosting a stage depart for the first time and is situated between the Indre and Creuse departments of France and has a population of 1700.
The days of flat long roads were over and this was the first day of climbs as the race headed after 189km to the 50 year old ski resort of Super-Basse Sancy, about 50kms south of Clermont-Ferrand. There were four climbs plus the Super Intermediate Sprint for the riders today.
AG2R's Christophe Ribon started the first attack after eight kilometres and was joined by Rui Costa (Movistar), Xabier Zandio (Sky), Addy Engels (Quick Step), Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad), Romain Zingle (Cofidis), Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Alexandr Kolobnev (Katusha) and Julien El Farès (Cofidis), who took the first climb of the day at the Category 4 climb of the Cote d'Evaux-les-Bains.
With 83kms gone, the Super Intermediate Sprint at Auzances arrived. Christophe Ribon took the full twenty points with Mark Cavendish adding another three to his tally.
BMC who were trying to get Cadel Evans into yellow ahead of Thor Hushovd, controlled things at the front of the peleton and had reduced the escapees lead to four minutes 45 seconds with 75km to go.
Climb two came at the top of the Category Four Cote du Rocher des Trois Tour and this time, it was Katusha's Alexandr Kolobnev who took the single available point ahead of the Cofidis paring of Zingler and El Fares.
The peleton were just over a minute and twenty seconds behind as the escapees went up the Category 2 climb of the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert with 25kms left of the stage.
Jonny Hoogerlands, Alexandr Vinokourov and Juan Antonio Flecha all went to bring the escapees back after Tejay Van Garderen beat Rui Costa over the top of the climb.
The four escapees of Rui Costa, Van Garderen, Cyril Gautier and Christophe Ribon were not being persued by a second group which comprised of Vinokourov and his Astana team mate Paolo Tiralongo and the Team Sky duo of Flecha and Xather Zandio with the peleton a further 45 seconds back.
As we approached the 10km to go banner, with the raining coming down again on newly tarmaced roads, Vinokourov was now in the yellow jersey position. He caught up to Gautier and Ribon after dropping Flecha.
Today's finish line was on the D149 and came after a 1.5km Category 3 climb at 7.8% gradient and saw Movistar's Rui Costa plugging away as Vinokourov seemed unable to gain any time back on him. All the other escapees were swept up by the peleton which had Philippe Gilbert, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador on the front with Tony Martin, Damiano Cunego and Cadel Evans.
Rui Costa (pictured below) got over the line in a time of 4hr 36 mins and 46 seconds to win and with Vinkourov being swept up, Gilbert came in second, 12 seconds back ahead of Evans, Sanches and Velits who were 15 seconds back.
Photo courtesy of ©Pool/Tim De Waele
Thor Hushovd keeps his yellow jersey a second ahead of Cadel Evans. David Millar is ninth.
Teejay Van Garderen (Pictured below) is now the King Of The Mountain.
"It's my first Tour de France so I'm very pleased with my performance," Van Garderen said to the HTC High Road Press Office, "I was trying to go for the stage win, but the group was not working together so well and I maybe got a little too nervous."
"I tried for the King of the Mountains jersey, got that, but I didn't quite have the legs to chase Rui Costa down after he attacked."
"Still, it's great to have the polka-dot jersey."
Tomorrow's ninth stage is from Issoire to Saint Flour and is 208km long.
Pictures copyright of Covsupport News Service. Credit CNS/KM and ©Pool/Tim De Waele