Stage 8 | Bicycling's Tour de France Femmes Daily Coverage - video Dailymotion

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Bicycling recaps stage 8 of the Tour de France Femmes 2025.

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00:00Hello, everyone. Bicycling here with Tour de France films of X Zwift Stage 8 coverage. I'm

00:05Molly Herford. That's Bobby Lee. And okay, you know what, we promised there would be fireworks

00:11on the Queen's stage today. And it delivered. Bobby, what was the point where you were just

00:17like, Oh, this is now this is big. This is a move. Yeah, you saw you saw Pauline Farron-Prévaux

00:26hit out. And there were just no one. It looked like she was she was just doing her own bike

00:31ride. And no one everyone else is powerless to respond. And when the when the terrain is

00:36so extreme in the hill, the climbing is so tough, it pulls team tactics out of the equation.

00:42And all you can all the riders can do is just do their own. They can ride their own race.

00:48Yeah. So that was in every everything was laid there. And we saw today, who like, who had

00:54it? And the cycling fan in me likes I really enjoy watching the tactical nuance. And so

01:02part of me watches a big climb like that, that pulls all the tactical nuance out of the equation

01:06and feels a little bit disappointing. But at the same time, we're watching phenomenal performances

01:11where either you can do it or you can't, right? And that's that's the thing about sport is on the

01:17day. Are you good enough? Did you prepare? Did it work? And yes, here it did. For sure. Yeah. So

01:22we're talking about the Col de la Madelon. And it's where the race finished. It's one of the most

01:27iconic Tour de France climbs. It's a like nearly 20 kilometer climb. It takes about 50 minutes. It

01:33is a long drag race to the top. And actually, I'm going to argue there were tactics, but like a week's

01:41worth of tactics that came into play there, right? Like Pauline Fran Prevot has been very tucked in like

01:47yes. On stage one, she had like one moment where she sprinted at the finish. Her teammate Vos ended up

01:54Mariana Vos ended up getting the win. Pauline was super happy. And then after that, you really just

01:59saw her tucked away, tucked back in the Peloton covering Demi Vollering, covering Cassio Nui-Doma,

02:04just keeping an eye on what they were up to. So I think this was like the team's plan kind of all along

02:11was like, can we keep PFP safe? So that she has the chance to go for it. And obviously, then it

02:18yeah, it comes down to just like brute power. But she also was so smart. She was covering Sarah

02:24Gigante, who was riding for aging, Sharon Sudol. Kim LaCourt, her teammate was in yellow. Kim gave Sarah a

02:31really great kind of lead into the climb, stayed with her as long as she could, and then gave Gigante

02:36her chance to go. And Sarah Gigante is one of the best climbers in the world. So,

02:41you know, PFP said, you know, spotted that went right on her wheel. And you could see though,

02:47right from the beginning of that, that attack, Sarah Gigante is going as hard as she can.

02:52She is grimacing. She is breathing hard. And then you look at Pauline's face and it looks like

02:57Pauline is nose breathing. Yeah, that's the part that I just have so much, so much trouble

03:03understanding when it's so hard for everyone. And I mean, just watching an athlete who's,

03:08you know, clearly done the homework, done everything right, and just knocks it out of

03:13the freaking park on the biggest day of the tour. Yeah. And I mean, she had said in interviews that

03:18this was really less a year about winning the tour overall and more about setting up to win it maybe

03:25next year, maybe even the year after. But I think after today's performance, she's going to be up,

03:30you know, over two minutes in the GC. She's moving into the yellow jersey. Again,

03:34perfectly timed to move into the yellow jersey. While we like to see a bit more of a GC battle

03:40in the earlier days, just because it is more interesting in some, some respects,

03:45this race has been so tactically brilliant on the part of all of the GC contenders.

03:50And they were all thinking towards today. They were like, there's no chance that Demi Vollering,

03:54Cassian Uedoma, Paulina Roikers, they were all thinking today's the day to go.

04:00They just couldn't compete with PFP. Yeah. And you mentioned doing our homework.

04:05And in mountain biking, it's typical for riders to spend a lot of time learning every single line,

04:11every turn, every rock, every route. And in an interview prior to today's stage,

04:15PFP said she did the same thing on that, on that climb. She spent a lot, she didn't just go ride the

04:20climb to see it. She learned the turn, she learned the layout, she learned, internalized the entire climb.

04:26And that makes such a difference. Just knowing where it's steep, where it lets off, what the turns

04:32feel like, having that visual idea of knowing in your brain what's coming around. That kind of

04:38attention and detail at this level of sport makes such a big difference.

04:42Definitely. And I would love to just be in the team buses of Demi Vollering, of Cassian Uedoma,

04:48because I'm so curious if they anticipated a move like this from PFP, if they considered her a true,

04:56is she going to come down to the last days with us? And whoops, if they didn't think she was,

05:03sorely mistaken. I'm so excited to see tomorrow. I think it's going to be real hard to take the

05:07jersey away from PFP at this point, but we still have a whole other stage of racing.

05:13We've got a couple of big climbs coming, so anything could happen.

05:17Yeah. I mean, you know, the, I think as with the men's tour, the, you know,

05:22the more exciting battle is going to be lower down on the, for the, the lower podium spots,

05:27but yeah, an HD climb, a category one climb, um, not an easy drag into the finish. So if someone does

05:34make a mistake, if someone is feeling a little flat coming off of today's stage,

05:38uh, something could change tomorrow. I don't see the top step changing, but, uh,

05:44we'll find out in 24 hours. Okay. Either way, it's going to be fireworks for sure. So make sure

05:48you tune back in. And of course, before that, catch up on all of the past stages and we'll see you on

05:53the final stage.

Stage 8 | Bicycling's Tour de France Femmes Daily Coverage

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