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  French success Durand wins 8th stage; Desbiens takes overall lead from Ullrich
Posted: Sunday July 19, 1998 04:15 PM
MONTAUBAN, France (CNN/SI) -- France finally had something to smile about in this years Tour de France when Jacky Durand won the eighth stage Sunday and Laurent Desbiens took the tour leader's yellow jersey from defending champion Jan Ullrich.
Durand, a former French champion won the 190.5 kilometer (118 mile) eighth stage which with several minor hills stretched between Brive la Gaillarde and Montauban in a time of four hours 40 minutes and 55 seconds.
Durand outsprinted his six breakaway companions at the end of the stage held in intense heat to beat Andrea Tafi and Fabio Sacchi of Italy who finished second and third respectively after the first long successful breakaway in this year's Tour.
"I attacked every day since the start of the Tour... I knew my chance would come," said Durand, who won a stage in 1994 and the prologue in 1995. His Casino team have now won 43 races this season. Desbiens had won a stage last year in Perpignan but, unlike Durand, had never held the yellow jersey in the world's most prestigious race. "I won a stage last year and I was hoping to do the same again this season. But this is even better," said the 28-year-old from Lille. Desbiens, Durand, Tafi, Sacchi, along with France's Philippe Gaumont, Italian Eddy Mazzoleni and Finn Joona Laukka, launched the decisive move after 74 kilometers and crossed the finish line with a lead of seven minutes 45 seconds over the main bunch. Last year's winner Jan Ullrich of Germany, who seized the overall lead by winning Saturday's time trial, kept it for only 24 hours. He now lies fourth overall, three minutes 21 seconds behind Desbiens. Durand was dropped from his Casino team for the Tour last year and was eager to prove his team director Vincent Lavenu wrong. "It hurt me a lot last year and I'm not the kind of rider to sit on a defeat. I think I deserved to be here this year, didn't I?" he said. "There was only one rider I feared in the sprint -- Gaumont. But he worked so hard for his team mate Desbiens that he had no strength left." Desbiens also wanted to set the record straight after he was awarded victory last year in Perpignan by the race jury at the end of a hard fought sprint which led to Ukrainian Serguei Outschakov being disqualified. "Some people had questioned my victory then. I knew there was a chance today and I had like a vision that I would do something great," he said. Desbiens also had his career tarnished in April 1996 when he failed a dope test for the banned steroid nandrolone. He leads Tafi overall by 14 seconds and Durand by 43 seconds. The riders had left Brive without the nine Festina riders who were excluded from the Tour on Saturday after their director was quoted as saying doping substances were made available to the team. They all left their hotel and returned home. Monday's ninth stage takes the 172 remaining riders to Pau over 210 kilometers. It will be the last stage before the Pyrenees.
Reuters contributed to this report. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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