Tour de France 2022 LIVE result: Wout van Aert wins stage 8 in Lausanne sprint finish

Thibaut Pinot has suffered a nasty crash, first falling in the pack while climbing and then getting hit in the face while a team official tried to hand a rider a bidon.

Here is how the battle for the yellow jersey is shaping up, before stage eight:

1. Pogacar
2. Vingegaard +35”
3. Thomas +1’10”
4. A. Yates +1’18”
5. Gaudu +1’31”
6. Bardet +1’32”
7. Pidcock +1’35”
8. Powless +1’37”
9. Mas +1’43”
10. Martinez +1’55”

And Frison’s done. He falls off the pace of the breakaway and has to let Mattia Cattaneo and Fred Wright push on together.

65km to go: The breakaway has upped the pace after Mattia Cattaneo signalled to put their foot to the floor. He obviously had word in his ear that the peloton was resting up briefly for loo breaks and refuelling. They have increased their gap quickly to two minutes once more, although it does look like Frederik Frison is struggling to stick with Cattaneo and Wright.

In to the fourth country of this Tour – Denmark, France, Belgium and now Switzerland. The finish at Lausanne is 70km away.

This is all set up for a thrilling finish once the break is reeled in. Lots of the big stars will fancy themselves to win today, from more natural sprinters like Michael Matthews to more comfortable climbers like Primoz Roglic and everyone in between.

The breakaway is running out of gas here, perhaps they know the game is up. Their lead is down to 1 min 10 sec.

85km to go: So here’s where things stand as we reach the top of the Cote des Rousses, with two more categorised climbs to go. A three-man breakaway made up of Mattia Cattaneo (QuickStep), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) and Frederik Frison (Lotto-Soudal) went off up the road early but the peloton has not allowed them to escape too far, and their advantage is only around two minutes, which could easily be eaten up over the second half of this stage.

The reason for that is that Jumbo-Visma and BikeExchange in particular have been determined to turn today into a bunch finish for their men Wout van Aert and Michael Matthews respectively, so they have kept the pace on the front of the peloton high.

Rigoberto Uran drops back to his team car to receive some bandaging on his right arm after he was caught up in that early crash.

A reminder of the news this morning, which affects Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates:

Geoffrey Bouchard and Vegard Stake Laengen became the first Tour de France riders to pull out of the race with COVID-19, their teams said on Saturday.

Shortly after Bouchard’s withdrawal, UAE Team Emirates said Norwegian Laengen, a team mate of overall leader Tadej Pogacar, had tested positive.

“Vegard tested negative yesterday morning during the routine internal team testing protocol. But he reported sore throat symptoms late last night,” team doctor Adriano Rotunno said.

“The COVID-19 antigen test was positive, and the diagnosis was confirmed on a PCR test this morning. As per protocol, for his, the team, and the peloton’s safety he will be withdrawn from the race.”

Frenchman Bouchard, 30, won the mountains classification at the 2019 Vuelta a Espana and in last year’s Giro d’Italia.

“During the (seventh) stage (on Friday) I did not feel well. It’s a huge disappointment because we were just getting to my favourite terrain, the mountains,” AG2R-Citroen’s Bouchard said in a team statement.

AG2R-Citroen said that the rest of their squad, from whom Bouchard had been isolated, were negative for COVID-19.