Saturday 9 July 2016 15:29, UK
Chris Froome expects "proper big gaps" to open up between the Tour de France favourites on this weekend's mountain stages in the Pyrenees.
The iconic Col du Tourmalet is one of four categorised climbs on Saturday's 184km eighth stage, while Sunday's ninth stage ends with a 10.1km hors-categorie ascent to a summit finish at Andorre Arcalis.
All of the general classification contenders finished in the peloton on stage seven on Friday after deciding not to attack each other, but Froome insists it was a temporary truce.
He said: "We have got a really big weekend coming up and we have got a lot of hard racing coming up, so we wanted to save a little bit for the next two days.
"Tomorrow's stage is a lot harder and there are a lot of tired legs. Today wasn't an easy stage, so once we get into tomorrow's stage and Sunday's stage, we are going to see some proper big gaps."
Froome goes into stage eight 6min 42sec down on race leader Greg Van Avermaet in fifth overall, level on time with sixth-placed Nairo Quintana and 1min 22sec ahead of Alberto Contador.
All four will count themselves lucky not to have been brought down on stage seven when an air bridge marking 1km to go collapsed just before the peloton reached it, but Adam Yates was not so fortunate.
The 23-year-old Briton had attacked out of the main bunch 6km earlier and sustained facial injuries when he collided with the stricken bridge.
Froome added: "It was quite a surprise to come around that corner and see Yates on the floor. It's one of those unexpected things.
"I think the jury have neutralised the times and we just neutralised the race from there to the finish line."
Find out more about stage eight's route in our race guide and follow the action with our live blog from 12pm BST.
