Milan outsprints Van Aert to win Tour stage eight, Pogacar still in yellow

LAVAL, France :Italy's Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) fought off Belgian Wout van Aert to win stage eight of the Tour de France from Saint-Meen-le-Grand to Laval on Saturday, with defending champion Tadej Pogacar retaining the yellow jersey.

Milan, riding his first Tour, looked to have been caught off guard when Australian Kaden Groves (Alpecin–Deceuninck) hit the front, but the Italian battled back to take the lead and held off the challenge of Van Aert, while Groves came in third.

Slovenia's Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) remains 54 seconds ahead of Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) in the overall standings.

Milan came close on stage three, beaten into second place by Tim Merlier, but this time the Italian, who has four Giro d'Italia stage wins to his name, powered home ahead of the experienced Van Aert who was chasing his 10th individual Tour stage win.

"In the third one, we were pretty close to the victory," Milan said.

"We know that we just went a bit too early but today we were really focused, we were really believing in it. My guys did an amazing job until the final. It was a really tough final."

After the last few action-packed stages, where the yellow jersey went back and forth between Pogacar and Mathieu Van der Poel, Saturday's race was expected to be a chance for the sprinters to return to the fore on the mostly flat 171.4km ride.

The peloton trundled along for the opening 90km, apart from a brief spurt at the intermediate sprint where Milan took maximum points, before French duo Matteo Vercher and Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) launched the first attack.

With several teams looking to set up their sprinters for the stage win, the break was never allowed to get too far ahead, though they managed to extend their