Profile, final climb & map of stage 8 (Saturday, 9 July: Dole - Lausanne - 186.3 kilometres)
Re-Live: This is how the 8th stage of the Tour de France 2022 went
Neutral start: 13:05
Official start: 13:20
Finish: ~17:28-17:53
Rolf Aldag's assessment: A chance for the runaways
It goes through alpine countryside and into Switzerland, the third country in which the Tour de France outside France. However, we are a long way from a mountain stage with a classement effect. The question is, who wants to control the peloton today and expend energy on the breakaway?
It will hardly be the sprinters' teams, as the finishing straight to the Olympic Stadium in Lausanne is far too steep for their protagonists. Those aiming for the moderately uphill finishing straight first have to tackle almost a whole kilometre with a gradient of almost ten per cent.
Mohoric coup as a blueprint?
The teams of the classification riders will also remain calm today. This is an invitation for teams hoping for a stage win from the breakaway and who have riders with punch. The scenario reminds me of last year's stage 7, when Matej Mohoric was able to break away from the escape group. However, the decisive attack is likely to come just before the finish.
The scenario in Lausanne will therefore be completely different to the previous five guest appearances of the tour in the "Olympic capital", which always ended flat. Once again, a puncheur with the qualities of Julian Alaphilippe will be in demand. However, only riders who have no chance of yellow will get the chance.
As a professional cyclist, our expert Rolf Aldag rode the Tour de France ten times up to 2004; as manager and sporting director, he has led various top teams through France and this year, for the first time, he will be in charge of the German team Bora-Hansgrohe as sporting director at the Tour de France. There are few people who can tell so vividly what can happen on the stages of a grand tour and within the peloton.
VIDEO: 15 Tour de France terms explained
What weighting does the stage have for the individual rankings?
For TOUR the 53-year-old sports manager has once again carefully studied the elevation profiles and route tables for this year's Tour de France. In his predictions, he names the teams and riders he sees at the front on each day, assesses the difficulties of the routes and says where he expects attacks and from whom. Will there be a bunch sprint? Will a breakaway group make it to the finish?
Aldag also assesses for TOUR what role each stage plays for the classification jerseys (see above): The more coloured jerseys our expert assigns to a stage, the greater its significance for the respective classification. The yellow jersey symbolises the weight of the respective stage in the overall classification, the green jersey stands for the importance of the best sprinter in the points classification and the red dotted jersey for the mountain classification, i.e. for the best climber.
TV broadcast & live stream of stage 8 of the Tour de France 2022*
- ARD - Das Erste: 14:30 - 17:45
- Eurosport 1: 12:55 - 17:45
- More live pictures on ARD One, Sportschau.de and Eurosportplayer.com**
- You can also find all the important information here in our live ticker
The preview with Rolf Aldag of the stages of the 2022 Tour de France
This is how the stages of the 2022 Tour de France have gone so far
*Broadcast times subject to change; please note updates in teletext and on the Internet
**The Eurosport internet live stream is subject to a charge.
