Britain's Steve Cummings began the French Pyrenees stretch of the Tour de France 2016 on a high note, as the 35-year-old bagged stage 7 on Friday. Stage 8 of Le Tour now sees the cyclists traverse a 184 km mountainous stage from Pau, on the northern edge of the Pyrenees, to Luchon in the Midi-Pyrenees region of south-western France.
The stage is expected to be action-packed, especially for Nairo Quintana's Spanish Movistar armada as they would look to keep defending champion Chris Froome and his Team Sky at bay. The race for the polka-dot jersey -- the king of the mountains -- also heats up now.
Four high summits remain the star attraction of the Tour de France 2016 stage 8. The legendary Col du Tourmalet, rising as high as 2115 metres is the highest climb in Saturday's race. The 'Hors Categorie' summit will be followed by the 1564 metre Category 2 summit Hourquette d'Ancizan.
They will be followed by the Col de Val Louron (1580 m) and the Col de Peyresourde (1569 m) before the race ultimately culminates with a downhill plunge into Bagneres-de-Luchon.
"We have got a really big weekend coming up and we have got a lot of hard racing coming up, so we wanted to save a little bit for the next two days," said defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome to Sky Sports. "Saturday's stage is a lot harder and there are a lot of tired legs. Friday wasn't an easy stage, so once we get into Saturday's stage and Sunday's stage, we are going to see some proper big gaps."
Team Sky's Froome enters stage 8 at No 5 position in the Yellow jersey race. The leader of the race at the moment is Greg Van Avermaet.
Where to watch live
Stage 8 is on July 9.
In India, the 21-day race will be LIVE on Ten 1 (7 p.m. IST), with the option of LIVE streaming on tensports.com
Viewers in the UK can catch it on Eurosport 1 (1 p.m. - 4.45 p.m. BST) and ITV4 (2 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. BST). Live streaming: British Eurosport, ITV4.
Viewers in the US can catch it on NBC Sports Gold from 7 a.m. EST. Live streaming: NBC Sports.
