The 8th stage of the Tour de France 2015 took place on July 11, 2015 and led from Rennes over 181.5 kilometers to Mûr-de-Bretagne . There was a mountain classification in the fourth category after 99.5 kilometers (Col du Mont Bel-Air) and an intermediate sprint after 108.5 kilometers in Moncontour . The finish line was a third category mountain classification. The eighth stage counted as a medium-difficult stage. 185 drivers started.
After the pace of the race was very high at the beginning and consequently no one could easily break away, four drivers finally made it: Sylvain Chavanel , Bartosz Huzarski , Romain Sicard and Pierre-Luc Périchon drove out of the field and gained a maximum of three minutes . After the intermediate sprint, which Périchon won, the four outliers were caught up and new groups were formed. After a while there was a new top group of three consisting of Huzarski, Lars Bak and Michał Gołaś . They gained a maximum of around one minute ahead of the main field and kept it at around 30 seconds until shortly before the finish. For a long time the Cannondale-Garmin team did the tracking work alone. The escape ended only eight kilometers from the destination.
At the Mûr de Bretagne, an increase in the third category, the sprinters fell behind as expected. The classification drivers placed in front. Alexis Vuillermoz (ag2r) then attacked on the mountain . He was followed by Daniel Martin (Cannondale-Garmin), but he was unable to catch up with the French. Vuillermoz won the stage ahead of Martin and Alejandro Valverde .
Scoring
Intermediate sprint in Moncontour after 108.5 km at 177 m
Luca Paolini (KAT): did not start the stage (positive result for cocaine)