After two consecutive sprint stages, the battle for the yellow jersey moves centre stage this weekend at the Tour de France with back-to-back days in the Jura mountains.
Chris Froome leads his Sky teammate Geraint Thomas by 12 seconds but with Fabio Aru, Daniel Martin, Richie Porte, Simon Yates and Romain Bardet all within 50 seconds, the overall standings are set for a significant shake-up over the next two days.
Stage 8 from Dole to Station de Rousses acts as a warm-up before the first brutal day of climbing in this year's race between Nantua and Chambery, with the hors-categorie Mont du Chat featuring prominently, cresting with 25km to go.
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Froome, who moved into the maillot jaune on stage 5, knows that none of his principal rivals can be given the same room that Aru was afforded on La Planche des Belles Filles and will know first hand that the Astana rider can be a threat having been dropped by the Italian on the Mont du Chat at the Critérium du Dauphiné last month.
"In terms of my rivals certainly Fabio Aru is threatening. Looking at the GC he's my closest rival at this point but I certainly wouldn't say that he's more of a threat than Richie," Froome said after stage 7 when he was asked if he wanted to change his pre-race prediction that Porte was the main opposition to a fourth Tour title.
"I think that the GC is still too close at the moment. At the moment the biggest threat is Fabio Aru, he's only 14 seconds down. Having said that it's still very close in the top 10 and this weekend we'll see where everyone is at in the mountains, especially on Sunday's stage."
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