Costa wins 8th stage of Tour

SUPER-BESSE, France (AP):

Portuguese rider Rui Alberto Costa won the eighth stage of the Tour de France after withstanding a late attack from Philippe Gilbert in the final climb yesterday, while Thor Hushovd kept the overall leader's yellow jersey.

Costa waved his hands in delight and punched the air as he crossed the line in 4 hours, 36 minutes, 46 seconds to clinch the first Tour stage win of his career.

"I knew I could get in the breakaway today. The team put me in the best position," Costa said. "I was lucky that I managed to hold on until the end. I'm very happy with this win.

"I attacked on my own at the end. I saw that my legs were good and that I could hold it alone. When it got to two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the end, I really worked hard and managed to reach my objective."

Costa paid tribute to Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondo, who died in May in a freak accident after he was crushed between his car and a garage door.

"I want to dedicate this win to all the people who believed in me and supported me," Costa said. To my family, my teammates, to Xavier Tondo."

The race entered the mountains for the first time in the 117-mile trek from Aigurande to Super-Besse, featuring a sharp category-2 climb up Col de la Croix and a final climb of 1 mile.

Gilbert of Belgium made up a huge amount of time before crossing 12 seconds adrift, with Australian cyclist Cadel Evans finishing 15 seconds behind Costa in third place.

Hushovd is still one second ahead of Evans and has been wearing the yellow jersey since his Garmin-Cervelo team won last Sunday's time trial. Hushovd, not a renowned climber, was certain he was going to lose the yellow jersey before the stage.

"Maybe I was a bit pessimistic," he said. "I didn't think I could do it. Another day in yellow, it's a miracle."

Alexandre Vinokourov closed to within 15 seconds of Costa in the last mile, but the Kazakh rider ran out of steam as he had no teammates to help him when riding for several punishing miles on his own.