Vincenzo Nibali closing in to secure his first overall Tour de France victory
Vincenzo Nibali, Bradley Wiggins, Cadel Evans and Fabian Cancellara had been the four major contenders at the Tour de France 2012.
Cancellara was leading the overall classifications right through the start and his dominance was finally overturned during the stage 7 of the race.
The Swiss finished at the 20th position during the seventh stage and was dropped down to the eleventh overall position, leaving the competition between Nibali, Evans and Wiggins.
Cancellara has now dropped down to the 36th overall position after the stage 8 classifications after his 90th place finish during the 157.5 kilometre race.
Wiggins has jumped up to the first overall spot with a massive lead of ten seconds over the reigning Tour champions, Cadel Evans.
Vincenzo Nibali of Team Liquigas-Cannondale, Denis Menchov of Team Katusha and Haimar Zubeldia Agirre of Team RadioShack-Nissan are holding the third, the fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
"I was trying to get away on the descent alright," the Italian said.
"I knew that Evans would be able to follow me, so I suppose it was a bit of an effort to get away even if I knew the descent was very short”.
“It was very difficult, and there was a headwind on the run-in afterwards, so it was going to very hard to stay away".
Van Den Broeck was very strong, maybe because he was angry about losing time yesterday".
"My own thoughts were to save myself as best I could for the time trial tomorrow. It's long and quite hard," he concluded.
Vincenzo opened his 2012 winning account with a stage 5 victory at the Tirreno-Adriatico along with the point’s classifications and an overall victory at the race.
He secured the second overall position at the Tour of Oman, the Liege Bastogne-Liege and finished third during the Milan-San Remo 2012.
The 27-year-old is participating in his ninth Grand Tour race which makes his third successful Tour de France participations.
Nibali’s previous two races were back in 2008 and 2009 where he managed the 20th and the 7th overall positions at the race.
The Italian is ideally placed to secure an overall victory at the race and he is in absolute form to overcome Bradley Wiggins and Cadel Evans during the race.
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