Luis León Sánchez of the Caisse d’Epargne team has won stage 8 of the Tour de France in a four-man breakaway which did not change the general classification rankings for the main bunch.
The four-man breakaway which dominated the 176km stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons in France contained two Spaniards in Sánchez and Mikel Astarloza of the Euskaltel-Euskadi team, plus Russian Vladimir Efimkin of the AG2R La Mondiale team and perennial French hope Sandy Casar of Française des Jeux.
Efimkin looked to be the best placed of the four on the lead into the finish as he had done the least of the work among the four in building and developing the lead over the peloton. However, although he kicked with a couple of kilometers to go and lead by as many as three seconds, he was dragged in by the other three and eventually finished fourth behind Sánchez, Casar and Astarloza.
