SUPER-BESSE, France – Portuguese rider Rui Alberto Costa won the eighth stage of the Tour de France after withstanding a late attack from Philippe Gilbert in the final climb on Saturday, while Thor Hushovd kept the yellow jersey.
Costa waved his hands in delight and punched the air as he crossed the line in four hours 36 minutes 46 seconds to clinch the first Tour stage win of his career.
“I knew I could get in the breakaway today. The team put me in the best position,” Costa said. “I was lucky that I managed to hold on until the end. I’m very happy with this win.
“I attacked on my own at the end. I saw that my legs were good and that I could hold it alone. When it got to two kilometres from the end, I really worked hard and managed to reach my objective.”
Costa paid tribute to Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondo, who died in May in a freak accident after he was crushed between his car and a garage door.
“I want to dedicate this win to all the people who believed in me and supported me,” Costa said. To my family, my teammates, to Xavier Tondo.”
The race entered the mountains for the first time in the 189-kilometre trek from Aigurande to Super-Besse, featuring a sharp category 2 climb up Col de la Croix and a final climb of 1.5 km.
Gilbert of Belgium made up a huge amount of time before crossing 12 seconds adrift, with Australian cyclist Cadel Evans finishing 15 seconds behind Costa in third place.
“I needed a few more hundred metres,” Gilbert said. “The stage was very fast, there was a favourable wind. The last climb was very hard, I had to sit back down near the end of the line.
“The last 200 metres were very long, but I’ll take a second place on the Tour de France any day.”
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Hushovd is still one second ahead of Evans and has been wearing the yellow jersey since his Garmin-Cervelo team won last Sunday’s time trial.
Hushovd, who was not a renowned climber, was certain he was going to lose the yellow jersey before the stage.
“Maybe I was a bit pessimistic,” he said. “I didn’t think I could do it. Another day in yellow, it’s a miracle.”
Victoria’s Ryder Hesjedal, who rides for Garmin-Cervelo, finished one minute 33 seconds behind Costa in 59th place. Hesjedal is now 46th overall.
Alexandre Vinokourov closed to within 15 seconds of Costa in the last kilometre, but the Kazakh rider ran out of steam as he had no teammates to help him when riding for several punishing kilometres on his own.
Gilbert was fresher after sitting in with the main pack for much of the day’s climbs. He overtook Vinokourov after launching an attack with about 400 metres left. Vinokourov finished in 22nd place as many of the pack swallowed him up.
“Vino is really very strong, I take my hat off to him,” Gilbert said. “He deserved to win this stage.”
None of the main Tour contenders lost any significant time and finished in the same time as Evans, as did Hushovd.
Defending champion Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck of Luxembourg and Evans of Australia – both two-time runners-up – sized up each other with mini-attacks.
“We tested each other, it was interesting to see how every one would end up,” Contador said. “I can see we are all very close. it’s very important to get the measure of other contenders.”
Since Gilbert is not considered an overall Tour contender, they didn’t feel the need to chase down the Belgian when he went after Vinokourov – although Contador thinks he could easily have caught him.
“I had felt very, very good today,” Contador said. “I was capable of following Gilbert.”
Evans is looking forward to trying another attack in Sunday’s ninth stage, which also features several climbs.
“I have a very good team that’s been working very hard every day,” Evans said. “Let’s wait and see what happens tomorrow.”
Hushovd, a two-time winner of the green sprint jersey, only has to survive one more day in the mountains to keep hold of the yellow jersey into Monday’s rest day and wear it on Tuesday’s 10th stage.
“I live in the south of France, in Monaco, and I train a lot in the mountains,” Hushovd said, joking about his newfound climbing prowess. “I also train a lot with Philippe Gilbert, and he pushes me.”
Nine riders charged ahead early on, but only four remained by the time the Col de la Croix appeared on the horizon – a testing ascent lasting for 6.2 kilometres at an average gradient of 6.2 per cent.
Just before the pack reached it, the 37-year-old Vinokourov – who once served a ban for blood doping – accelerated out of a corner and slammed down his pedals in a blistering attack that has been his trademark during his career.
The three riders who went over Col de la Croix with Costa were American Tejay Van Garderen and French riders Cyril Gautier and Christophe Riblon.
Vinokourov was tucked in about a minute behind, but gained time down a sinewy descent made tougher by intermittent rainfall that made the roads slippery and treacherous.
“When I saw that Vinkourov was getting closer, I thought it would be difficult,” said Costa, who rides for Movistar.
Costa’s win comes exactly one year after he was involved in a fight with Spanish rider Carlos Barredo at the end of the sixth stage of the 2010 Tour.
Barredo tried to strike Costa over the head with a bike wheel, and they fell to the ground screaming at each other.
“It was not beautiful, not at all,” Costa said. “But we became good friends after that.”
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AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin and Associated Press writer Greg Keller contributed to this report.
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