Vincenzo Nibali’s Tour defense is creaking as Chris Froome takes control

MUR DE BRETAGNE, France – Vincenzo Nibali is making a patchy start to the defense of his Tour de France title, and if Saturday’s eighth stage is anything to go by it may not get much better in the mountains.

Nibali lost another 10 seconds to race leader Chris Froome, the 2013 champion, on the short and sharp final climb up Mur de Bretagne, setting off alarm bells in the Italian’s Astana team. While the stage was won by Alexis Vuillermoz to give France its first victory in this year’s race, it was the way Nibali was dropped on a distance of just 1.2 miles that had people talking.

“I don’t understand what happened. Hopefully this was just a bad day, otherwise this Tour will be difficult,” Astana manager Giuseppe Martinelli said. “Our team should deliver a perfect performance in (today’s) team time trial, we can’t make more mistakes.”

Nibali already trails Froome by 1 minute, 48 seconds and riders have yet to tackle the high mountains.

Two-time champion Alberto Contador, former runner-up Nairo Quintana, and American rider Tejay Van Garderen also helped themselves to 10 seconds on Nibali.

In the overall classification, this means that Froome still leads Van Garderen by 13 seconds, Contador by 36 and Quintana by 1:56.

“I guess we’re going to have to see how Vincenzo goes up on the long climbs, it hasn’t been a great start for him but things can soon change,” Froome said.

Monday is a rest day, and after an intense start to the race marked by three crashes, it will be much needed.