Tour De France Stage 8 Tomblaine - Gerardmer La Mauselaine

France's Blel Kadri produced a terrific solo ride to win stage eight's first mountainous race of the Tour de France.

Kadri rode clear of four other escapees in the last 25km, including Britain's Simon Yates, to be first to the summit finish at Gerardmer La Mauselaine.

Yates was caught by the chasing peloton a few hundred metres from the finish.

Alberto Contador finished second to claw three seconds back on race leader Vincenzo Nibali, his main rival for the overall victory, who finished third.

Team Sky's Richie Porte finished fourth on the stage, to move up to fourth overall, one minute 58 seconds behind Nibali.

In another enthralling finish, Italian Nibali, who began the day with an advantage of two minutes, 37 seconds over Contador, tracked the Spaniard up the final 1.8km-long ascent and was content to finish in his wake.

But it is Kadri who deserves the plaudits for a sensational ride that began early in the stage when he, Yates and Adrien Petit set off in pursuit of Niki Terpstra and Sylvain Chavanel to form a five-man breakaway.

The quintet opened a lead of 11 minutes on the relatively flat opening three-quarters of the 161km race from Tomblaine.

However, with tired legs in their group and 12km of climbing spread across three hills in the final 30km, the peloton began to reduce their deficit.

Chavanel and Kadri, sensing they would be caught, broke clear again with 25km to go, the latter pushing on alone to be first to reach the summit of the first and longest of the three climbs, a 7.2km ride up Col de la Croix des Moinats.

AG2R rider Kadri stayed clear on the descent, building up a lead of more than two minutes over fellow Frenchman Chavanel, while Yates, who rode clear of Petit and Terpstra was between by the Chavanel and the peloton.

Kadri toiled up the final climb, which featured gradients of 16% but he had built up enough of an advantage to clinch a comfortable victory.

Stage 8 result:
1 Blel Kadri (Ag2r-La Mondiale) 3hrs 49mins 28secs

2 Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) +2:17
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) +2:20
4 Richie Porte (Team Sky) +2:24
5 Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr) +2:28
6 Jean-Christophe Peraud (Ag2r-La Mondiale) +2:28
7 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +2:36
8 Tejay Van Garderen (BMC Racing) +2:40
9 Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) +2:48

10 Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) +2:54

Overall Standings:
1 Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) 33hrs 48mins 52secs
2 Jakob Fuglsang (Astana) +1:44
3 Richie Porte (Team Sky) +1:58
4 Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma - Quick-Step) +2:26
5 Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) +2:27
6 Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) +2:34
7 Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) +2:39
8 Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida) +2:52
9 Bauke Mollema (Belkin) +3:02
10 Jurgen Van den Broeck (Lotto Belisol) +3:02

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