tour de france stage 7 preview

PREVIEW | Tour de France 2023 stage 7 - Brutal heat and strong wind to make sprint day an all-out challenge

Preview . After an incredibly explosive weekend in the mountains, stage 7 of the Tour de France sees a return to the Pyrenees. However it'll be a difficult day, with the wind and heat making a flat day a very difficult one.

Stage 7 of the Tour de France sees the riders leave the Pyrenees and start heading north. The metropolitan area of Bordeaux receives the Tour de France back, for a stage that will be perfectly suited to the fast men. The first true transition day as the riders steer away from the mountains.

Click here to create your own team for the Fantasy Tour de France Stage 7. At least $1,085/€1,000/£850 in prizes!!

Estimated start and finish times for Tour de France stage 7: 13:15-17:10CET

Tour de France: Tadej Pogacar strikes back and wins stage 6 distancing Vingegaard, after duo demolish race with long-distance attack

In all reality there isn't much to analyze from the day, other than a majority of pan-flat country roads which can be exposed to strong winds but there isn't much to it other than that. The riders will put all their attention into the finale.

It's not a technical finale however the riders head into the center of the city, speed and tension will be high among the urban environment. The final kilometers see the riders cross the river, but the final two kilometers will virtually be completely straight, only with a couple of roundabouts to stretch things out before the finish line.

Prize Money Tour de France 2023 - Full guide to how €2.308.029 will be split between teams

The Weather

A rest day? Before checking the weather, many GC riders would certainly be happy to leave the mountains for now, but they won't find a pleasant day. Temperatures will go over 30 degrees throughout the whole afternoon into Bordeaux, and if that wasn't enough the wind will also blow! In these plains the roads will be exposed, the wind will be moderately strong from the southeast, a tailwind throughout most of the day, however in a few sections early in the day there will be crosswinds. Tension will be real, and the sprint should be very fast with a tailwind.

Route Analysis | Profiles & Route Tour de France 2023

The Favourites

Jasper Philipsen - Winning two out of two sprints, Philipsen has now become the sprinter to beat. Incredible positioning skills, perfect leadout by Alpecin-Deceuninck in both sprints, and the green jersey on his shoulders and as a goal. He nails all types of sprints, here the tailwind may favour heavier sprinters, but there are no arguments against the Belgian who could make it three for three.

Caleb Ewan - Ewan has so far positively surprised me. Avoided the crashes, not had an injured de Buyst helping his leadouts, but has thrived with positioning, where he usually struggles. In fact Ewan has already confirmed he has the legs to win a stage, but has faced a brutal Jasper Philipsen. Will this be the day finally? I reckon he'll have better suited sprints, but everyday is an opportunity.

Dylan Groenewegen - I talk about Groenewegen here not because he's better or in better form than the remaining sprinters, but because it's a perfect day for him. Almost pan-flat, with a tailwind all day long and tailwind flat sprint. If he is to succeed this could be it, it's a pure powerhouse finale and here he could be just as fast or even faster than the two above.

Tour de France 2023 Medical Report | Stage 6: Day in the mountains sees peloton remain unscathed

The heavier riders will like this stage. Think Phil Bauhaus , Mads Pedersen , Alexander Kristoff ... The BORA duo of Danny van Poppel and Jordi Meeus could do quite well here too but they have not shown the same chemistry as the Dutchman did with Bennett, Meeus had bad luck in the last sprint being hampered by a nearby crash. By Fabio Jakobsen no less, who should also be quite fond of this finale, but has been struggling quite a lot the last few days and that fatigue may be felt here.

Then we have Jumbo-Visma, Wout van Aert has been extremely active but has not yet taken the stage win he seeks, alongside Christophe Laporte the duo could be eyeing a result here - although stage 8 will be ideal for them. Mark Cavendish , Sam Welsford and Biniam Girmay are riders to keep under eye, Bryan Coquard is chasing the points classification quite well and will try to remain in the fight, this won't be an easy finale for him but so far he's done good. Peter Sagan , Corbin Strong and Luca Mozzato sit as outsiders, possible Top10 finishers on a good day.

TV Guide - Where and When to watch Tour de France 2023

Prediction Tour de France 2023 stage 7:

*** Jasper Philipsen ** Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen, Phil Bauhaus * Fabio Jakobsen, Wout van Aert, Mark Cavendish, Mads Pedersen, Sam Welsford, Alexander Kristoff

Pick : Jasper Philipsen

Jury & Fines Tour de France 2023 stage 5 - O'Connor and Bettiol fined for public urination

Read more about:, place comments.

You are currently seeing only the comments you are notified about, if you want to see all comments from this post, click the button below.

Confirmation

Are you sure you want to report this comment?

UNDER_ARTICLE

Sat 06 Apr 2024

Sun 07 Apr 2024

Tour de France 2024 Route stage 7: Nuits-Saint-Georges - Gevrey-Chambertin

The Tour de France never before visited Gevrey-Chambertin, while Nuits-Saint-Georges was a finishing venue in 2017. Back then, the riders came from Troyes, a race of 213.5 kilometres, and Marcel Kittel took the spoils in a photo-finish sprint ahead of Edvald Boasson Hagen.

No photo finish will be needed this time, a clock will do in Nuits-Saint-Georges. The 7th stage of the Tour de France is a time trial through the rolling landscape of Burgundy.

The riders face one climb along the way. The Côte de Reulle-Vergy appears 10 kilometres into the race and goes uphill for 1.5 kilometres with an average gradient of 6.5%. The route continues to climb false flat for almost 4 kilometres before a downihll leads to Chambolle-Musigny. The rest of the route is flat.

The last Tour de France saw only one time trial, an 22.4 kilometres ITT from Passy to Combloux with the shirt and steep Côte de Domancy to pep things up. Jonas Vingegaard stormed to a commanding victory, 1.38 minutes ahead of Tadej Pogacar with Wout van Aert at 2.51 minutes in third.

Ride the route yourself? Download GPX 7th stage 2024 Tour de France.

Tour de France 2024 stage 7: route, profile, videos

Click on the images to zoom

Your cart is empty

Tour de France 2023 stage seven preview - an uncomplicated day for the sprinters

After two back-to-back mountain stages in the Pyrenees, the riders will be thankful for an uncomplicated day for the sprinters to win

Words: Stephen Puddicombe

Photos: Alex Whitehead/SWpix

Distance: 169.9km Start location: Mont-de-Marsan Finish location: Bordeaux Start time: 13:15 CEST Finish time (approx): 17:07 CEST 

This year’s is an unusually hard start to the Tour de France , with the Pyrenees already finished before even the second weekend, not to mention all the climbing done in the Basque Country. So it will come as some relief to the riders to see that the profile of stage seven is about as flat as anyone pining for an easier day could have hoped for. 

From Mont-de-Marsan (a small town in Landes that Eddy Merckx’s great adversary Luis Ocaña once called a home), the riders will head northwards away from the Pyrenees and through plains and forests of Nouvelle-Aquitaine for a finish in Bordeaux. Known as the Pearl of the Aquitaine, Bordeaux is among the most popular tourist destinations in France, and its old town has been listed as a UNESCO world heritage site. Especially impressive is its ‘Port of the Moon’ harbour, so-called because of its crescent shape, and which was the heart of its booming maritime trade — the most famous product being wine, which is considered by many to be the best in the world, and which was very popular in England during the Middle Ages when the English ruled Aquitaine. After such a relaxed day in the saddle, and with another relatively straightforward day to come tomorrow before a return to the mountains, maybe the riders will treat themselves to an extra glass or two over dinner. 

Bordeaux has had a long love affair with the Tour, having featured in the first ever edition in 1903, and has hosted another 80 stage finishes since then. But this will be the Tour’s first visit for an unusually long absence of thirteen years, after the town cooled on the race and were unwilling to make the considerable spending commitments required. Only now, with the enthusiastic Green mayor Pierre Hurmic welcoming it back, will the residents of Bordeaux once again get to witness the carnival come to town.

Stage seven profile sourced via ASO

Most of the Bordeaux stage finishes have ended in bunch sprints, and the list of former winners here read like a roll call of the all-time sprinters, with Erik Zabel, Freddy Maertens and André Darrigade all having triumphed here. In 2010, the greatest of them all, Mark Cavendish, was the victor, meaning he’ll be one of the few riders in the peloton today with experience of racing on these roads.

The wide, long boulevards that characterise the town (and which were the inspiration for Baron Haussman and his radical redesign of Paris in the nineteenth century) are very conducive for straightforward sprinting, so no local knowledge of particular twists and bends will be especially advantageous in determining the winner of the sprint finish. And make no mistake, with just the solitary and very modest Côte de Béguey to be climbed, a bunch sprint is all but guaranteed.

It will be a welcome return to the flatlands for the sprinters today after they have hauled themselves over the mountains of stages five and six. For the GC men, it should be a recovery day too, it will just be about avoiding crashes and crossing the finish line safely. There's been two real sprint opportunities in this year's Tour de France so far and in both of which  Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin- Deceuninck ) has taken the top spot. Philipsen will be looking to do the same again and further add to his win tally; he'll have lead-out man supreme Mathieu van der Poel to help him do so, too.

One man dreaming of it being his day to take glory will be Mark Cavendish of Astana-Qazaqstan team. The Manx rider is searching for his record-breaking 35th Tour stage win and hasn't been too far off the pace so far, finishing fifth and sixth in the last two sprint stages respectively. Another impressively consistent finisher in recent sprint stages has been Bahrain-Victorious' Phil Bauhaus – he's been second and third so far in this race. Could the day be the day he converts those podium finishes into victories?

Lotto-Dstny's Caleb Ewan has had an impressive start to this Tour de France too, finishing a close second place to Philipsen on stage four in that hectic sprint to Nogaro. Someone who suffered a much worse fate on that same stage to Nogaro was Fabio Jakobsen of Soudal-Quick Step. The Dutch rider crashed hard inside of the final kilometre and has been nursing his injuries ever since. Jakobsen could be a contender today, but it will depend on how he has recovered from his crash a few days ago.

Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) could also give the sprint a shot today – the Belgian rider has been playing super-domestique in the mountains for the last two stages but has proven he can perform on almost every type of terrain. Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-Alula) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) are also riders to watch today, as are Bryan Coquard of Cofidis and Biniam Girmay of Intermarché-Circus-Wanty. Sam Welsford (Team DSM) and Jordi Meeus (BORA-Hansgrohe) are two outside bets.

We can't see anyone getting past Jasper Philipsen once again today, and are betting on him for his third victory of the race. With MVDP leading him out, the Alpecin-Deceunick duo are virtually unstoppable. 

Team Cars | Service Des Courses - Organic Unisex T-shirt

Rouleur Team Cars Bone China Mugs

Rouleur ELITE Jet Water Bottle Bidon - 550ml

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt - Black/White

Team Cars | Campagnolo - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt – White

Rouleur Logo - Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - Burgundy

Team Cars | Peugeot - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Colours of the Peloton - Short Sleeve Base Layer - Men's

Rouleur Logo Organic Unisex T-Shirt – Tonal Grey

Team Cars | Raleigh - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Rouleur Logo Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - Grey

Coppi - Rouleur Notebook

Rouleur Logo - Organic Sweatshirt - Unisex - French Navy

Rouleur Logo - Organic Hooded Sweatshirt - Unisex - Heather Blue

Rouleur Logo - Organic Jogger Pants - Unisex - French Navy

Rouleur x Kaweco Rollerball Pen - Black + Gold foil logo

Allez - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Tours Issue - Rouleur Tote Bag

Dai! - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Rouleur Water Bottle Bidon - Ride Fast, Read Slow - Cream + Green

True Grit - Rouleur Notebook

Rouleur Water Bottle Bidon - Green + Pink

Rouleur x Kaweco Rollerball Pen - Brass + Black etched logo

Rouleur Embroidered Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt - Natural Cotton + Green

!Vamos! - Organic Cotton Unisex T-Shirt

Colours of the Peloton - Short Sleeve Jersey - Women's

Rouleur Logo Women's T-Shirt - Navy

Rouleur x Kaweco Aluminium Rollerball Pen - Silver + Engraved logo

Rouleur Logo - Organic Jogger Pants - Unisex - Heather Grey

Tour de France stage seven preview

All you need to know about the route, timings, and what to expect from stage seven

• Sign up to our newsletter Newsletter

Stage seven of the Tour de France 2022 starts in Tomblaine and finishes atop of La Super Planche des Belles Filles.

When is stage seven of the Tour de France taking place?

The Tour de France stage seven takes place on Friday, July 8, starting at 12:15 BST with an anticipated finish time of 16:29 BST. 

How long is stage seven of the Tour de France?

The Tour de France stage seven will be 176.3km long.

Tour de France stage seven: expected timings

Tour de france stage seven route.

This stage is a good deal tamer than the first time this final climb was used three years ago. On this occasion, the peloton only crosses a couple of small hills as it travels towards Thibaut Pinot’s home town of Mélisey, before switching due east just before it arrives. There’s another short climb, from which the route descends into the bottom of the 7km ascent to La Super Planche des Belles Filles. 

Averaging 8.7%, it begins with a steep kilometre, rising sharply through dense forest, then eases for a kilometre before steepening again. There’s a 20% ramp leading up to the traditional Planche des Belles Filles finish, a short section across the ski resort car parks, then the final kilometre on the dirt road, with a ramp that touches 24% not far short of the line.

Useful Tour de France 2022 resources

• Tour de France 2022 route
• Tour de France 2022 standings
• Tour de France 2022 start list
• Tour de France 2022 key stages
• How to watch the 2022 Tour de France
• Past winners of the Tour de France
• Tour de France leader's jerseys
• Tour de France winning bikes

Tour de France stage seven: what to expect 

This looks a good opportunity for a breakaway to go the distance, a day when the GC teams and favourites are likely to be more focused on sizing each other up on the final climb. 

Events in 2019 suggest that there will be very little between the GC men at the line. Geraint Thomas was the pick of them back then, but another eight riders crossed the line within 10 seconds of the Welshman

Tour de France stage seven: riders to watch

It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Dylan Teuns and Giulio Ciccone in the mix like in 2019. Bora-Hansgrohe are making a point of chasing stages, as well as GC, this season and should have someone in contention – Max Schachmann or 2021 Tour stage winner Patrik Konrad perhaps. This is also the kind of Ardennes-like terrain that will suit Israel-Premier Tech’s Michael Woods.

Get The Leadout Newsletter

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!

Thank you for reading 20 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

Peter Cossins has been writing about professional cycling since 1993, with his reporting appearing in numerous publications and websites including Cycling Weekly ,  Cycle Sport  and  Procycling - which he edited from 2006 to 2009. Peter is the author of several books on cycling - The Monuments , his history of cycling's five greatest one-day Classic races, was published in 2014, followed in 2015 by  Alpe d’Huez , an appraisal of cycling’s greatest climb. Yellow Jersey - his celebration of the iconic Tour de France winner's jersey won the 2020 Telegraph Sports Book Awards Cycling Book of the Year Award.

British rider was a late addition to the Ineos Grenadiers team for the race across the pavé

By Tom Thewlis Published 7 April 24

Can reframing your pain help you push yourself harder, faster and for longer?

By Hannah Bussey Published 7 April 24

British rider crashed during recon of opening stage time trial last weekend and injured his right hip

By Tom Thewlis Published 3 April 24

Cavendish will ride Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye later this month, Astana Qazaqstan confirms

By Tom Thewlis Published 2 April 24

Dutchman starts his 2024 road season at Italian Monument on Saturday

By Tom Thewlis Published 15 March 24

US star grabbed his first ever Grand Tour win at last year’s Giro d’Italia

By Tom Thewlis Published 8 March 24

The American could step into the leaders yellow jersey on Tuesday evening after stage three’s team time trial in Auxerre

By Tom Thewlis Published 5 March 24

Colombian snapped up key bonus seconds in the general classification battle on run in to Les Mureaux

By Tom Thewlis Published 3 March 24

'He can still surprise us all the time’ João Almeida on Pogačar's performance in Tuscany

Roglič up against Remco Evenepoel for the first time in 2024 as he gets set for a return to the Tour de France

Useful links

• Tour de France
• Giro d'Italia
• Vuelta a España

Buyer's Guides

• Best road bikes
• Best gravel bikes
• Best smart turbo trainers
• Best cycling computers
• Editor's Choice
• Bike Reviews
• Component Reviews
• Clothing Reviews
• Contact Future's experts
• Terms and conditions
• Privacy policy
• Cookies policy
• Advertise with us

Cycling Weekly is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site . © Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number 2008885.

Tour de France Stage 7 Preview: A Long Day Out With a Wicked Finish

The Tour’s longest stage in 21 years should provide exciting racing in the mountains.

Stage 7 - Vierzon to le Creusot– 249.1km - Friday, July 2

Aside from crashes, the Tour de France’s opening week has been notable for the distance traveled between the Grand Depart in Brittany and its first mountain stages this weekend, in the Alps. To get riders from one spot in the country to the major set pieces of the race like the Alps and Pyrenees requires long transitional stages, but Stage 7 is unusual even by those standards.

After 161km of racing—which, it’s worth noting, is already longer than two of the stages done so far—things get spicy with a short Category 3 climb, the Côte de Château-Chinon. Four more climbs follow, most notably a Category 2 ascent, the Signal d’Uchon, at 231km in. It doesn’t look that bad on paper, at 5.7km long with a 5.7-percent average gradient. But after a relatively gentle start and short downhill in the middle, the final two kilometers are 9.4 and 13.1 percent grades, respectively, and it pitches to 18 percent at one point. Coming relatively close to the finish, that’s where we’d expect the winning move to launch.

Here’s how that’s likely to play out: we will probably see an early breakaway go clear, and this one, in contrast to recent days, may be sizeable. We’ll also likely see a split peloton develop on the climbs. If the time gap is around five minutes or less at that point, there will be a second breakaway that forms late in the race, as riders try to bridge to the early move and use it as a springboard for a stage win. A slight downhill from the last climb gives way to an up-down final 5km and one sharp switchback corner at 1.5km to go.

Even as the action goes off upfront, keep an eye on the main group of contenders on the Signal d'Uchon climb. Normally we wouldn’t expect gaps to develop among the GC contenders on short climbs, but the steepest part of the Uchon ascent—coming so late in the stage and after a stressful week of racing that has left numerous riders nursing injuries from crashes —could produce splits. If that does happen, expect zero mercy from any rivals. Strange things happen when races go past 225km long; riders who normally go well find their legs empty, while others find another gear. We don’t know exactly who will come out on top, but it should be an exciting day on Tour.

Geek Out on the TdF!

What Happens After a Tour Crash?

How Do Your Stats Compared to a Pro?

Why Are Tour Riders’ Legs So Big?

How Do Tour de France Riders Pee?

Riders to watch.

This is a day tailor-made for Lotto-Soudal’s Thomas de Gendt. He’s a long-range breakaway specialist and tried to get clear today but was caught. Lotto’s had a tough week, losing sprinter Caleb Ewan to a crash and with Brent van Moer’s heartbreaking catch with just 250 meters to go in Stage 4. A stage win here would be just what they need, so expect him to have plenty of company. A later-race move may come from riders who excel at the Ardennes Classics : Israel Start-Up Nation’s Dan Martin and Michael Woods are two to watch. Trek-Segafredo’s Vincenzo Nibali and Toms Skujins and BikeExchange’s Simon Yates are other possible attackers. Among the overall contenders, watch for any signs of weakness in riders battling injuries, like Jumbo-Visma’s Primož Roglič or Geraint Thomas of INEOS Grenadiers.

When to Tune In

Friday should be a slow build, but the final third or so promises to be riveting viewing. If you want to watch it all unfold, starting your stream a little before 9 a.m. Eastern will get you all of the final climbs. The last 50km from Autun should be around 10 a.m. and comprise the last three climbs. But absolutely-definitely get your stream rolling by 10:30 to catch the Signal d’Uchon ascent and the final 20 kilometers.

How to watch the 2021 Tour de France

.css-1t6om3g:before{width:1.75rem;height:1.75rem;margin:0 0.625rem -0.125rem 0;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-background-size:1.25rem;background-size:1.25rem;background-color:#F8D811;color:#000;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-position:center;background-position:center;}.loaded .css-1t6om3g:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/bicycling/static/images/chevron-design-element.c42d609.svg);} Tour de France

Challengers of the 2024 Giro d'Italia and TdF

2024 Tour de France May Start Using Drones

The 2024 Tour de France Can’t Miss Stages

Riders Weigh In on the Tour de France Routes

2024 Tour de France Femmes Can't-Miss Stages

How Much Money Do Top Tour de France Teams Make?

2024 Tour de France/ Tour de France Femmes Routes

How Much Did Tour de France Femmes Riders Earn?

5 Takeaways from the Tour de France Femmes

Who Won the 2023 Tour de France Femmes?

Results From the 2023 Tour de France Femmes

Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

UK Edition Change

• UK Politics
• News Videos
• Paris 2024 Olympics
• Rugby Union
• Sport Videos
• John Rentoul
• Mary Dejevsky
• Andrew Grice
• Sean O’Grady
• Photography
• Theatre & Dance
• Culture Videos
• Food & Drink
• Health & Families
• Royal Family
• Electric Vehicles
• Car Insurance deals
• Lifestyle Videos
• UK Hotel Reviews
• News & Advice
• Simon Calder
• Australia & New Zealand
• South America
• C. America & Caribbean
• Middle East
• Politics Explained
• News Analysis
• Today’s Edition
• Home & Garden
• Broadband deals
• Fashion & Beauty
• Travel & Outdoors
• Sports & Fitness
• Sustainable Living
• Climate Videos
• Solar Panels
• Behind The Headlines
• On The Ground
• Decomplicated
• You Ask The Questions
• Binge Watch
• Travel Smart
• Watch on your TV
• Crosswords & Puzzles
• Most Commented
• Newsletters
• Ask Me Anything
• Virtual Events
• Betting Sites
• Online Casinos
• Wine Offers

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in

Tour de France 2023 stage 7 LIVE: Result and winner as Jasper Philipsen pips Mark Cavendish in Bordeaux

The astana rider will be among the contenders as the peloton heads for bordeaux, article bookmarked.

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Jasper Philipsen won a dramatic sprint in the final metres of stage 7 of the Tour de France as he edged past Mark Cavendish in Bordeaux to stop the Brit earning a record breaking 35th stage win on Tour.

A long, flat stage left many riders in contention as Simon Guglielmi headed off on his own in a breakaway and never looked comfortable in that role.

For most of the day the general classification teams, including Jonas Vingegaard’s Jumbo Visma, took the time to rest up after a brutal few days in the mountains.

When the peloton finally hit Bordeaux the sprinters burst into action with Philipsen taking on an early attack 800 metres from the line. He left Caleb Ewan behind only for Cavendish to make a move on the outside and get the lead with 100m to go. Philipsen, however, was too savvy. He dropped onto Cavendish’s wheel and swept past the 38-year-old in the final few metres to win the stage and leave the Brit slumped over the handlebars is heartbreak.

Relive all the action from stage seven below:

• Tour de France 2023 stage-by-stage guide: Route maps and profiles for all 21 days
• Tadej Pogacar makes Tour de France statement with stage six win
• Tour de France 2023 stage 7 preview: Route map and profile of 145km from Mont de Marsan to Bordeaux

Jasper Philipsen pips Mark Cavendish to claim third stage win of Tour de France

Jasper Philipsen denied Mark Cavendish a record-breaking Tour de France victory on the line as the Belgian won stage seven on the line in Bordeaux .

Philipsen made it three wins from three sprint stages in a row in this Tour as he came around Cavendish in the final few metres, leaving the Manxman to curse as he rolled in second, still tied with Eddy Merckx on 34 career Tour wins.

The 38-year-old had come from well down in the pack to power his way down the right hand side and up to the front of the race, but Philipsen got onto his wheel and powered by, with Biniam Girmay in third.

Philipsen made it three wins from three sprint stages in a row.

Jasper Philipsen wins stage 7!

Post race reaction from the stage winner:

General classification leaderboard after stage 7:

1. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) - 29hr 57min 12sec

2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) +25sec

3. Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) +1min 34sec

4. Simon Yates (Jayco-Alula) +3min 14sec

5. Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +3min 30sec

6. Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) +3min 40sec

7. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) +4min 3sec

8. Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich) +4min 43sec

9. Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) +4min 43sec

10. Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) +5min 28sec

Here are the top five results from the Stage 7 finale. It was almost there for Mark Cavendish but he had to settle for second place.

1. Jasper Philipsen

2. Mark Cavendish

3. Biniam Girmay

4. Luca Mozzato

5. Dylan Groenewegen

Elsewhere, Jonas Vingegaard retains the yellow jersey.

The stage winner spoke after his victory and there’s no surprise that he was quite complimentary about Mark Cavendish.

“I’m super happy and proud, I was always in a good wheel, I never had to do a big effort before I launched my sprint, I can’t believe it,” he said,

“If you’d told me this one week ago [he’d win three stages] I’d have said you’re crazy. So far, it’s a dream tour … from now on, I am looking to Paris also.

“He [Cavendish] was really strong, I would also have loved to see him win … I think everybody … but for sure he will keep on trying, he’s up there, he’s in good condition.”

What a result for Jasper Philipsen, what a finish, what a race.

Tour de France stage 7

Mark Cavendish is pipped right on the line. It’s heartbreaking for the Brit who finishes in second place. He was beaten in the final 10 metres or so.

Philipsen timed his second attack perfectly and had enough in the legs to get past.

800m to go: Inside the final kilometre and the sprinters go for it. Japser Philipsen starts to accelerate but Mark Cavendish makes a run on the outside....

2km to go: When will they decide to go? The sprinters are all close to the front as the peloton heads over the river and moves through a chicane.

Caleb Ewan and Jasper Philipsen seem to be the front men.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article

Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.

New to The Independent?

Or if you would prefer:

Want an ad-free experience?

Hi {{indy.fullName}}

• My Independent Premium
• Account details
• Help centre

Tour de France Stage 7 Preview

The first summit finish of the Tour de France. Sure it’s not high altitude but the climb’s usually very revealing of form.

Longwy à votre vélo : a wild start to the stage with 104km covered in the first two hours, they covered the 220km stage in under four and half hours – quicker than taking the train from Binche to Longy – and arriving 45 minutes ahead of the fastest schedule. The tailwind helped but a large part of this was down to Wout van Aert who kept making moves. At one point he was towing away a group with Pogačar and Vingegaard but obviously nobody could let this go clear. Finally the peloton gave in and Van Aert was away with Quinn Simmons and Jakob Fuglsang for company but it was a doomed move, the peloton kept them on a leash and Fuglsang even sat up realising resistance was futile. Van Aert kept toiling, each time he took a pull on the front you could see Simmons shoulders rock in response to the pace and finally the American cracked on a section of open road. Van Aert continued but was caught and dropped, his spell in the yellow jersey over. It’s hard to know what to make of his raid, if he’d sat back in the peloton he was probably the only rider who could have beaten Pogačar for the stage win, or at least pushed him to the line. But if he’s out of yellow it’s just a day earlier and in the green jersey he came for.

Coming into Longwy and Alexis Vuillermoz made a darting attack that enlivened the finish. He wasn’t a priority to mark nor to close down but it kept the suspense going. Climbing through Longwy Michael Matthews did everything right but couldn’t do anything about Pogačar’s jump in the final straight, he left everyone behind and collected the yellow jersey. Pogačar is now in yellow, this feels almost as familiar as fields of sunflowers in July. Will he keep it all the way to Paris? He’s looking strong but his team much less on.

The Route : first Tomblaine to Gérardmer in 100km, it was 160km in 2014 with more climbing when Blel Kadri won the Tour stage here… and vanished from the sport a couple of years after. This time there are two small mountain passes to scale soon after. The second has a mountains classification point but it’s only 3km at 6%, although steep at the start. Then come a succession of unmarked mountain passes, they’d be certain KoM points earlier in the week but the race is going up in the world today. The final one is the Col de la Chevestraye, a warm-up for what is to come at 10km at 3-4% most of the way before a quicker, steeper descent. The Tour’s visited the Planche des Belles Filles five times before and sometimes there’s more climbing before, today is a more direct approach.

The Finish : a sharp right turn and the road soars. The climb is only 7km long and averages 8.7%, steep enough. The reality is that it’s frequently much steeper, the opening ramp is 14% and that first red part of the climb on the profile? It includes a brief descent. After a long steep ramp to the first hairpin, things then ease with a variety of steep inclines and flatter sections. Higher up and the road gets progressively steeper. In the past the final straight was 300 metres between 14 and 20% but now that’s just part of the road leading to the flamme rouge and the “Super Planche” which is 900m longer and involves a gravel section around the side of the mountain where the final section is tarmac… but little relief as the road reaches 22% for the last 150m to the line.

The Contenders : the breakaway has a good chance. UAE have a yellow jersey to defend but Bjerg, Hirschi and Laengen were dropped yesterday so the team is lacking horsepower and they might well be happy to loan the maillot jaune to another team for a few days. Ineos and Jumbo-Visma might pick up the pace on the approach to the final climb but there’s time to build up a lead.

Yes Thibaut Pinot is stage hunting and this is his local mountain… but Marc Madiot sounded firm when he said the team is 100% behind David Gaudu for now and Pinot can guide Gaudu on the final climb. Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) was second here in 2019, but form is unknown and team mate Bauke Mollema could be more reliable but a steep summit finish isn’t ideal for him either. Ruben Guerreiro (EF Education-Easypost) is climbing very well but can he float up the road when Neilson Powless is sitting second overall? Yes because Powless is unlikely to overhaul Pogačar today so they can spare him for the breakaway. Geoffroy Bouchard (Ag2r Citroën) climbs well but a summit finish win is a tall order. Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) is having problems descending so today’s course suits if he can make the breakaway. Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic) and Dylan Teuns (Bahrain) suit but are only three minutes down on GC. Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty), Ben O’Conno r (Ag2r Citroën) and Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) have more room.

Michael Woods (Israel) is perfect for this steep climb and five minutes down in GC so he’s the ideal rider today, however getting in the break and covering the moves doesn’t make it formality, far from it.

Otherwise if the breakaway can’t stick, it’s hard to see past Tadej Pogačar (UAE) who returns to the climb where he sacked Primož Roglic but how will he do in match against others on the steep slope? Adam Yates returns to the climb where he held the Strava KoM for many years (normal, not the Super version) and rode as an U23 nearby, more importantly he’s in shape and good on sharp climbs and it’ll be interesting to see how Tom Pidcock does. David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) is riding well and also suited to shorter climbs like today.

Weather : sunny and a light S wind, 25°C.

TV : the finish is forecast for 5.30pm CEST . Check in early to see if it’s another bar fight for the breakaway, then be sure to tune in for the final 45 minutes for the approach to the climb.

The Super Plank of the Beautiful Girls : that’s the literal translation of today’s finish. “Super” just means higher up, some ski stations do this, think Superbagnères above Bagnères de Luchon. Planche comes from the nearby town of Plancher-les-Mines and whose name is an old word for a bridge, a village that grew up around a river crossing. The mountain above Plancher does have the Etang des Belles Filles , a small lake where legend says some beautiful girls, the belles filles , threw themselves rather than face Swedish invaders in 1635; but the mountain has been covered in beech trees which were called fahys in an old dialect. So today’s finish might really be “the nice trees above Plancher” but that would never sound as good. Either way it’s a fixture for the Tour de France because it offers a sharp summit finish that’s just 20 minutes long, enough for a big test at the end of the first week while still leaving room for next week’s giant Alpine summit finishes of the Col du Granon and Alpe d’Huez.

96 thoughts on “Tour de France Stage 7 Preview”

I thought that I was going to get a look at Rimbaud’s home town but as soon as they got there my coverage went to a food interlude followed by a commercial. To top it off Matthews lets Pidcock have Pogacar’s wheel when he could have stayed on it. Powless seems to be quietly going about his business so it will be interesting to see how long he lasts.

We got more Rambo than Rimbaud yesterday thanks to Van Aert.

Pog and Van Aert as so clearly the best cyclists in the world. The diversity is skills they possess make them head and shoulders better than their rivals. I think we are witnessing some very special years with these two.

Pog for today, he is on cannibal mode.

Do you think van Aert is better than prime time Sagan?

Yes. More versatile but less charismatic

Still a bit less explosive, and a pinch below in handling skills and descending (which may sound odd, but it’s all in comparative terms and against sort of top-ever benchmark), but WVA is clearly stronger on longer efforts. Sagan was also decent climbing, but that was before his actual prime, in a sense, because he tilted his skill according to his objectives and the Worlds’ routes. So should we speak of an utopic Sagan or the real one in any given moment? ^___^ Theoretically, Matthews could have become a Zabel or a Freire (to say the least!), whereas unless he finds a further couple of big big big victories from now on, he’ll fall somewhere in between Olaf Ludwig and Thor Hushovd. Generally speaking, this sort of question is always fun although it makes little sense. Very top riders are often such a specific mix that they’re hard to compare. Is Van Aert stronger than Boonen? Yes, clearly. No, wait, I meant clearly not. Or yes… of course! 😛 At this level, and I don’t mean pro level, I mean absolute monstres among the pros, at the end of the day a lot is going to depend on what you actually make of your career, which by definition, especially in cycling, isn’t totally up to you.

Me i personally think so. But they are different riders. Van aert is better as a overall rider, Sagan could not climb as he does, van aert can fight on hilly stages with much steeper and longer climbs. He can win or is even favorite in time trials if pog is not in best shape. In sprints in can happen sagan was slightly better at the best, but non of them was better or could outrun the best sprinters like cav in their prime shape. For me their sprint abilities is very close to same, but van aert is much more visatile and can win so many different stages. Perhaps he won’t because he has other captains on his team and is some time a helper. Yesterday was a bit stupid team tactics. I can understand it as team was tired from running hard to save rog and vingegaard the day before. But did they really belive the other team was gone let van aert in a yellow jersey in a breakaway with 15 other riders??

If you don’t think Sagan couldn’t climb, check out 2013 TA, when Sagan was essentially out climbing Nibali. He was also a solid TT rider early in his career, though not as good as WvA and it was a discipline soon neglected. There was talk early in his career that he could possibly be a GT rider if he set his mind to it, that’s how good he was at a full range of stages. His natural adult weight was too high for that, and Sagan wanted no part of such a path, but it wasn’t crazy talk based on his skills and abilities in the first four years or so of his career.

You’re quite right below about recency. It was ten years ago or so, people maybe weren’t around (while I’d be slightly surprised they just don’t remember).

Sagan’s Forrest Gump antics, if I am not wrong – I’m going by memory so maybe it wasn’t that day, but it definitely happened ^___^ – were on a Liège-like day with a final côte harder than yesterday’s. And Sagan was also winning Marche’s walls stages on other occasions, I remember one finish line over a vertical ramp of sort in Chieti where Sagan bested a top-20 of pure climbers after some 3,500 m of altitude gain. More recently he did the same in Fermo outsprinting after crazy climbing a shortlist of pretty much the best climbers over the world. It’s an area I know well, so it’s easier to recall, but there must be more examples from other races, too. Somebody cited here the 2015 Mende stage… that finale with Bardet and Pinot beat by Cummings is hard to forget. But in the break there was Sagan, too, and on the hard climb to Mende only Urán, apart of the trio above, climbed faster than him. It’s sure a climb Sagan likes, as in very recent years he also performed decently from a break, but I can’t recall the details, just thinking “hell, he likes that climb” – and it’s some 3 km avg. 10% or so, not your usual côte. And what about that Grindewald stage where he won after catching Cunego in the descent from, heck, the Grosse Scheidegg!

Mind, it’s not just how much you win, it’s also about how you win and in that sense WVA and even more so MVDP are just great, and may get even a step further when compared to Sagan (of course, different cycling era, sometimes lesser rivals etc.), who on turn looks hard to match in quantitative terms. But it’s not like Sagan’s only show was about celebrating. He just won so much it may become difficult to remember!

You are right, i was not following tour de france as well in the early years of Sagan, so i have no memory of him beating nibali. Perhaps both these riders struggles a bit with the discipline. They are both on 78kg now. I guess its possible to loose some kilos and get even better in climbs. But all depends on what you aim for. Thor Hushovd changed his career a bit when he stagnated a bit.. lost weight and went for early sprint points even in mountainous stages. So who is best of these riders is difficult comparison. Like messi against ronaldo and maradona, specially against maradona, who played in a different era.. you cant objectively tell for sure. Both grait cyclist to enjoy, possibly van aert could loose 2 kilos and climb even better?

I see this question a lot recently, and it also sometimes includes MvdP. I think the answer is pretty simple: Sagan by a wide margin. By age 27 Sagan had three WCs, five green jerseys, been ranked number 1 twice, and had won over 100 races, the vast majority of which were high quality races. WvA has done none of that so far. Of course it’s problematic to compare palmares, since WvA stayed focused on CX in his very early 20s and came into road racing fairly somewhat gradually, but results are all we have to compare them. On that basis WvA needs to do much more than he’s done the last couple of years to even begin to match Sagan’s accomplishments.

The question of how a 23 y/o Sagan (then still an excellent climber and a pretty good TT rider) or a 27 y/o Sagan would fare against current WvA is a fun one, and we could while away many hours speculating, but I think the best we can say is they both have entered an astonishing range of races as favorites, and had a very high percentage of amazing rides and proportionally top results. Inevitably, though, in these kind of fantasy athlete comparisons there is a recency bias, and so it’s not surprising that so many people put “peak WvA” over “peak Sagan.”

But in terms of career you are comparing almost ‘complete’ Sagan against WvA and MvdP who have already had CX careers for the ages and are potentially still not even halfway through their road careers. Though the depth of field may be less, you add in the off road wins and they at least match Sagan’s record at a similar age. I get the feeling that Sagan may be petering out into ‘what could have been’ mode but of course the other two are all likely to fade too. I can’t help but wonder if Sagan now wishes he’d have been allowed more freedom to carve out an off-road career too. He did try.

As Gabrielle pointed out, we are just splitting hairs in considering genuine galacticos and in the end that just comes down to who you like most. On that score I would repeat what I said to Larry before he overcame his MvdP aversion, in closely following their careers since they were juniors I’ve always been impressed by what professional, polite, respectful young millionaire superstars Matthieu and Won’t seemed to be……….now Sagan, not so much.

I cited accomplishments that Sagan had done by age 27, which is the age both WvA are MvdP are now. The question was about “peak Sagan” and his peak in terms of results was either age 22-27 or 21-28, depending on how much of a ‘peak’ you’re looking for. Of course we don’t know where WvA and MvdP are in terms of their peaks for road racing, which is what we’re talking about here, but I don’t think there’s any doubt that the last three years are part of both MvdP’s and WvA’s peak periods. Perhaps the two of them will have another 3-4 incredible years as they’ve just had, but they need to do better than they’ve done the last three years to come close to matching Sagan’s palmares.

As for their professionalism and so on, I have seem evidence that all of them have their egos, and episodes that don’t meet the definition of politeness. I suspect one’s judgement here comes down to confirmation bias.

Sagan also had a CX and MTB career before he came to raod. The older amongst us may remember

Pidcock was well placed in third wheel but somehow seemed to get boxed in and had to come from further back. He finished as sprightly as any – bar Pogecar. Could he be a candidate today if the breakaway doesn’t stick? It’s steep but not high altitude, and the gravel should suit.

Thomas dropped 5 seconds after being well placed while Fuglsang did well to finish in the same time after energy spent in the break. What’s his objective?

Pidcock said after the stage that Roglic sprinting so early surprised him, he got boxed in, and effectively ‘stalled’, so he did well to get back to 4th. And Roglic’s early jump provided a perfect leadout for Pogacar… A tactical day to forget for Jumbo.

That would be most days in a Tour for JV. Even when WVA does his thing and bag a big win, tactically that would also be a day to forget for JV.

I presume given Israel–Premier Tech’s need for points I suspect they will be hoping Fuglsang can ride a decent GC, especially now they have a stage win. It is not something he’s been able to do often in the past, but when you look at the riders that made the top 10 last year something I think he could be capable of if the forms there.

Fuglsang has on several occasions said, that he wants to go stage hunting and that he consider his days as a GC man in the TdF is over. From earlier he has a couple of second places, and he would really like to add that stage win to his palmares. Fuglsang is very diplomatic when being interviewed,but in interviews given you sense that even though that is still his objective, his team wants him to hang on or better his current GC position.

I wonder if Thomas thought the allowable gap was 3 secs rather than 1 – he seemed to me to not bother rather than being cooked.

Woods today for the sharp finishing climb?

Exactly, did mean to give him a separate paragraph but seems that got overlooked, he’s back now.

There is something not quite right at JV. Wout van Aert’s windmill tilting display made no sense from either a personal or team perspective. I can see that there was a hope it would be a bigger break but when that didnt happen, sit up, dont ride yourself into the ground, WvA hardly needs combativity awards. By sitting in the bunch he could have hung on to yellow for another day, helped in the finish (he could have led out Primoz Roglic, who knows he might have won) and still collected green jersey points. It was the culmination of three strange days of racing for JV, an ill timed mechanical now for Jonas Vinegegaard would leave them struggling for the podium let alone yellow.

Surely today the other teams have to get UAE to chase, no point in potentially giving Tadej Pogacer more bonus seconds. I think a largish break which stays away maybe even takes yellow.

Might other teams think, “help UAE today and force them to spend many tiring days chasing on the front with the Yellow Jersey in the team”? The alternative – one day’s half-arsed chase followed by 5 days with your feet up – is possibly playing into Pogačar’s hands. UAE should be ‘condemned’ to holding the jersey!

He threw away up to 50 green jersey points. Even if he didn’t win (against Pog uphill that’s a tough ask) the 1st 15 places scored sprint points. The idea of making uae chase makes little sense: surely JV had to know that ef would pull for powless, ineos for their trio, other squads for a stage win, while uae would hang fire for Super La planche. He’s going to do a MvdP and burn all his matches before the race is half run.

I also can’t believe this was WvA’s idea. I can see that he’d buy into it if he were convinced it would benefit the team. He was a mensch yesterday, sacrificing green jersey points to save Vingo’s bacon. What I can’t see is how it benefits JV or weakens Pog.

I’ve always thought that this Yellow / Green balancing act that Jumbo-Visma are attempting was difficult and, in hindsight, they did look to get yesterday all wrong. But two things – 1. I am in favour of an attacking, positive mindset in sport. We are seeing it in many sports at the moment and it is really fantastic to watch. 2. What do you do with a rider like Pogacar? He’s got all the answers to any puzzle set for him. Best GC rider I’ve seen, I think.

Agreed – very odd. He was no use up the road. Surely an injured roglic needs helps and wva’s forcing just put JV under more pressure until the break went.

I cannot claim I completely understood either van Aert’s thinking or sthat of his DS, but if van Aert had sat in the bunch, we would’ve seen a different race. There would have been another breakaway, quite probably larger, quite possibly stronger. Who or which team(s) would have given chase? Would it have been succesful? Would anyone in yesterday’s Top Ten have been there to fight for the victory?

PS Pogacar wouldn’t have won the stage and gotten the bonus seconds and he wouldn’t be in yellow. Van Aert wouldn’t be quite as tired today. But, oh my golly, it would’ve been a much poorer stage for us specstators and road cycling fans!

They said they did this to not have to tow the main gropetto and control breakaway. The reason was the team was battered after towing vingegaard and roglic up in 2 different groups after 2 accidents the day before. They wanted to send of van aert in a larger group, witch was stupid to think that would be possibly allowed. That was their stupidity. He was only alowed in a smal group with only 1 other very strong cyclist. Their logic was also that if they let any other group away without van aert in it… the stage victory would have been in that group. Witch might be true. And that would have been the normal approach to let that happen. Yet perhaps they just wanted to allow van aert to try. He could normaly not win todays stage. But they should have understood how futile it was to try yesterday as long as he did not loose time to the yellow jersey. But the logic was to let the rest of the team rest while giving van aert freedom.

To control who is and who is not in a breakaway in this stage is difficult. Many riders have not lost time yet. And the problem now is how to beat pogachar. It looks impossible. But there is 2 weeks more, and perhaps the biggest chance is to give uae the lead very early and make the weaker team a hard as possible task… if pog shows weakness in the last week or have some accident, perhaps its possible. So there might be some logic to it in depth.

C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c’est de la folie

” Longwy à votre vélo ” Another delectable ‘jeu de mots’ (i.e. a French pun – “longue vie”). Chapeau Inrng! If sport were scripted, today would be where Pogačar loses time, to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. However, form points to him for the moment, and we must hope his rivals can cling on now and get stronger later.

Van Aert’s raid yesterday was definitely a bit weird. It would’ve made some vague sense if he’d sat up after the intermediate sprint. If he’d just stayed in the bunch you’d imagine he’d have won the stage. As a general rule of thumb if Michael Matthews can be there then Van Aert can. Sean Kelly, brought up in the best old school conservative ways of bike racing, was getting exasperated with both him and Van der Poel on commentary. He suggested at one point that MvdP needs to learn how to bike race… reckoning he’s so tired at the Tour because of his constant need/pointless attacking at the Giro. Van Aert might have been pointlessly burning through reserves yesterday that he’d have been better holding back for the worlds.

Will the top photo be “the moment the Tour was won”?

You might as well use a picture of him signing on for Stage1

Hahaha! Nice

Sean Kelly may have been right and maybe it was a bit futile (but aren’t 99% of breaks?) but did it not make for a thrilling stage to watch?

Not sure what’s thrilling about watching one guy, no matter how talented, ride himself into the ground for no purpose? There never was any hope he could hold on for the win. His raid into Calais was exciting, his efforts pulling over the cobbles were impressive even if the riding was tactically inept at times but yesterday was pointless and damaging to his team. Sean Kelly might be rather old school and overly dismissive of newer ways of racing but he is spot on here.

Reminded me of Remco pulling in the worlds

“There never was any hope he could hold on for the win.” I’d like to know who was saying this and how early into WVA’s lone escape they were saying it? I wonder if that same person would be crowing about how they predicted the win had WVA managed to hang on? Hindsight’s always 20-20.

I don’t think I could maintain your view point for more than about 50 km, it would wear me out pretty soon after that 🙂 Anyway, if you like I can give you names of eight (out of eight who were watching) guys who said or agreed with this long before Fuglsang stopped on the roadside. (All are passionae road cyclists, but no one has any eny experience of racing at pro level…) PS There were four different “armchair DS” explanations for van Aert’s and/or Jumbo Visma’s tactics – but no one was willing to claim that there couln’t be a fifth one…

“(All are passionate road cyclists, but no one has any experience of racing at pro level…) I was asking about someone who knows WTF they are talking about, as in someone who HAS experience being the one making predictions like these. The rest of these people are just drunks yakking in a bar IMHO.

I think you moved the goal posts :- ) I mean I cannot imagine your *someone who knows WTF etc* *crowing about how he predicted etc had WVA etc*…

Personally I thought he would pack in after the intermediate sprint, after that could not see any sense in it. Its not just “armchair experts” but the expros on the commentary were stumped too, they have been there and done the lot and they could not make head nor tail of it.

All great sportspeople need a degree of arrogance to succeed but there can be a fine line been arrogance and self indulgence.

“The climb is only 7km long and averages 8.7%, steep enough. The reality is that it’s frequently much steeper, the opening ramp is 14% and that first red part of the climb on the profile? It includes a brief descent”

–> Sounds to me like the Tour should indicate the standard deviation next to the average gradient (in total and for parts) to get at least a slightly better idea of a climb

So says pascal. The profiles help for many Alpine climbs but the shorter climbs often have surprises that the profiles don’t capture. Tomorrow’s finish in Lausanne is a case in point.

The Tour has Inrng for this.

Is there a precedent for teams colluding against pog/yellow? If Roglic or pidcock go in a break and jumbo/ ineos refuse to chase who knows where it might end up?

It would be nice to see, especially to see how Pogacar reacts under pressure which we haven’t really seen much in his career so far… sadly history often shows that if this situation were to happen Pogacar would have willing helpers in Movistar (defending Mas’s potential top five), FDJ (for Gaudu) etc. I think deep down most teams know they won’t win the tour but a top ten placing has value both to the team and individual rider so is something worth defending… especially if the alternative is letting a rider as strong a Roglic back into podium contention.

Either Pog would put Bettiol on the front or he would go to the front himself and pull it back, no sweat.

I loved yesterday! If it wasn’t for Wout, it would have been a proper snooze fest and then Pog still probably would have smoked everyone at the finish! Personally I think the sport is much richer because of these guys “who don’t know how to race”. VDP’s antics made a pretty dull giro quite exciting and Wout has been the star of this Tour so far! Watching them makes me want to ride my bike. I can only imagine the effect they have on young kids watching!! I for one hope they never change.

+1 As WVA himself said- “I wanted to be in a big breakaway. That way, we wouldn’t have to waste too much energy in the chase. Right from the start, I took the initiative. A lot of teams had the same idea. Unfortunately, we only got away with three. Because I had already used up all my energy at that point, I decided to push on. I did my best and said goodbye to the yellow jersey in style. I enjoyed today’s stage and I hope the fans did too. It was a nice way to end my time in yellow. It’s not bad at all to be wearing the green jersey now.” – from-http://www.bikeraceinfo.com/news-and-opinion/2022/July/22-July-08-news.html CHAPEAU!!!

RE the strength of uae, were not majka and mcnulty making the pacefor pog on the last climb? How much stronger do they need to be?

They need someone to pull more in the valleys. If Thomas or Roglič, or Thomas and Roglič attack somewhere well before the final climb, McNulty is a previous help but if he’s used up it’s not ideal. Worth keeping an eye on UAE’s riders, many are finishing well down every day and it doesn’t look like they’re just sitting up to coast in, they’re being dropped.

Takes some nerves from all the non uae teams to force pog to chase… is there a precedent for this kind of pact?

Contador and Valverde on Fuente Dé. One went on a rampage – er, quite lot like WvA yesterday – and Valverde just sat on till Purito Rodriguez was empty and then rode away.

If all the other teams hadn’t been so stupid yesterday by helping the chase maybe we would all be celebrating the most fantastic bravura performance where Pogacar got his team and then his pants pulled down by all the others just waiting for him to start working and then sticking at it till empty.

Agreed. It was strange to see so many riders from other teams than UAE absolutely kill themselves in the pursuit of Wout. It did not make sense at all if you want to find out if there’s any way to best Pog. But it’s the TdF where everyone feels the urgent need to show themselves no matter what, and as we know most of the DS are not great tacticians with analytic minds but just ex-racers who are hired by other older ex-racers to sit in team cars and shout the same old orders into a microphone.

Not every team’s goal was to beat Pog. Besides, Pog can just let Wout ride away, he’s not a GC threat.

@hoh Ineos were among the ones, or the ones, chasing harder and, AFAIK, beating Pogi *is* their main goal. Not that they now won’t be able to, but their chasing yesterday was still notable…

Hirschi looks like he isn’t 100% after having covid, and he crashed on stage 2 which it looks like he’s suffering from. Bennett apparently crashed on stage 5, so he’s also in the infirmary. Sounds like Bjerg isn’t at 100% either after having covid just before the Tour as well. Laengen has a good motor, but he’s no Declercq and he’s being asked to do a lot of covering for Hirschi and Bjerg at the moment. So they are quite weak on the flat, even more than it looked before the Tour. Looks like Soler is also being used on the flat, and they would probably have liked to save him more at the moment.

Need more Entropy or in other words out of chaos comes (new) order.

“If Thomas or Roglič, or Thomas and Roglič attack somewhere well before the final climb”

If Thomas or Roglic can attack, then Pogacar undoubtedly will be able to also 🙂

Sure, but then vingegard and yates can go. All of this requires good legs, guts and tactics – and other teams not defending places 5-9 so nothing will happen

We’ll see but the idea is yes, that an attack can go in a point where Pogačar won’t want to follow like a valley road, or if he does, they sit on his wheel and a counter attack. All easy to type rather than do but UAE do look to have cracks, we’ll see if rivals can exploit this.

Need a Ganna plus GC candidate to go up the road – bit like at last year’s Giro.

“but UAE do look to have cracks, we’ll see if rivals can exploit this.”

Isn’t the question rather whether they’re tactically able and ready to exploit it?

If other teams continue to help team UAE reel back any attackers who might endanger their leaders’ top ten places in the GC it will not happen. I really wonder how much of this eventually comes down to to economic pressure. Pressure that team directors feel because of their sponsors’ interest in getting the most visibility out of the TdF coverage. And pressure that individual riders feel who might want to change teams, whose contracts are up at the end of the season, or who simply want to show their worth / significance to their team directors.

I wondered about the pun in “Longwy à votre vélo,” after yesterday’s brilliant Lacs d’Eau d’Heure. However, I learned yesterday that it’s pronounced with a W as in Wout, not as a V as it would be in French. Too close to Flanders.

Too bad re Thibaut, I was looking forward to playing one of my all time favourite grand tour songs:

https://open.spotify.com/track/66hOk17PsacZ7Ou1TF228f

Maybe save it for a breakaway win in style…

My take. Jumbo all had an easy ride whilst Van Aert was up the road. Green not yellow is his target and he would have lost yellow today anyway. Good to see an attacking yellow jersey enlivening the stage. Thomas. Once again an increase in pace sees him lose contact. Difficult to understand how a fast legs ex team pursuiter lacks that little extra acceleration, but it seems to be the norm -Wiggins was a similar type. Sunny here so off for a ride. Look forward to todays finish.

Do we think that UAE would be happy to let yellow go today. Giving chances to the likes of Teuns and Barguil or is that ‘old school’ thinking and Pog going to catch them at the line and eat another stage up? Every time I think they going to take a ‘day off’ he proves me wrong. Surely can’t go at this intensity for 3 weeks!

A crazy +1 to Larry, Wayne, BC, plurien and everybody “defending” (in a sense) WVA’s move. From the POV of obvious meanings, it’s hard to make much of it, but luckily (let’s go on with Roland Barthes), there’s also an “obtuse” – “blunt”, “thick” – meaning to be found in a decision which doesn’t look brilliant. Barthes said that words struggle to account for that kind of meaning, so I won’t try much, but I’d say that WVA was a sacrifice of sort – where he didn’t really sacrifice much in the broader picture – to buy back two things: a very very slight probability to achieve a *huge* success (different options: rest of teams not helping Pogi might lead to an epic stage win or even big troubles for Tadej), which happens seldom, of course, but surely doesn’t at all if you don’t ever put something at stake in order to create the adequate setting for the mere possibility; and a tale of sort about himself as a person and athlete, and his racing style, too – which isn’t just about his opinion of himself or “producing content”, it’s also about generating future strategies (through expectations by other riders or teams). Contador is a good example, indeed. I’m applauding him much more than if I saw him just quitting the break after the intermediate or before… which would have been the obvious decision to take. Obviously. Luckily things have *thicker* layers, too, although most people will look upon those who try that path as… “thick” (until they succeed and everybody jumps on the wagon).

WVA= panache. More racing-to-win, less racing-not-to-lose 🙂 Far too many out there are critics once an audacious move has been tried and failed…but all too happy to “jump on the (band)wagon” when/if one succeeds. Reminds me of all the people during my 6+ decades who have told me “I would race, except……(insert excuse here)” as they criticize the skills, tactics, etc. of those who actually DO. IMHO they fear finding out they don’t have what it takes…they’d rather just run-their-mouth. That’s when I joke it’s too bad for them you can’t make a bike go with your jaw muscles!!!

Hi Larry, I think your critic of genera life condition is quite on point. Though, I don’t think WVA’s exploit yesterday is a good place to argue that point.

My concern with Van Aert, and I say this as a fan of the man, is that he probably starts each season with 3 highlighted, in bold and underlined targets – Flanders, Roubaix and the Worlds. And so far he has won none of them. Other monuments and one day races fair enough, but I’d argue that for a rider such as himself stages of races are a bonus. And perhaps, as long as he keeps going mental in races like Tirreno-Adriatico, the Tour of Britain and the Tour de France he’ll keep missing those major targets. I think that was Kelly’s point yesterday, you only have so much energy and so much top form. Save it for when you most need it.

Agreed. If those are his real targets then he should really get (even) more focused. For with every other stunning stunt like the one he did yesterday achieving one of those targets will become even more difficult. The leash at which the rest of the peloton keeps him will ever get shorter and shorter. But, maybe, his real no.1 target is another one? Just enjoying the racing at the front of the pack, demonstrating the phenomenal shape he’s in once again while getting paid some very good money for it. I mean that’s what professional sports fundamentally is all about, isn’t it? Providing a show, creating entertainment and thus inspiring spectators to watch it, admire the athlete and then maybe sympathize with his / her sponsors.

‘But, maybe, his real no.1 target is another one? Just enjoying the racing at the front of the pack, demonstrating the phenomenal shape he’s in once again while getting paid some very good money for it. I mean that’s what professional sports fundamentally is all about, isn’t it?‘

Not if you’re a professional sportsman.

I consider myself fortunate that I cannot production road bike frames. For while watching yesterday’s demonstration I felt the strong desire to own a Cervélo S5 which is obviously so slick that a World Tour pro in your draft is suffering like hell just to stay there. 😉

It’s a good thing that in the real world it’s perfectly acceptable to criticize without having been a successful professional at something. I’m just as happy to criticize an athlete who does something misguided (which I thought was the case for WvA looong before he was caught) as I am to criticize a writer who does bad writing, or a doctor who commits malpractice, an artist who creates crappy art, or a filmmaker who produces a boring film. If a plumber works on my pipes and they’re still leaking the next day, I don’t need to call in a consultant plumber with years of experience in the trade to decide if a good job was actually done, and I don’t need someone minimizing my judgment by saying “hindsight is always 20/20”. The argument that only authorities are allowed to critique is a particularly weak argument, and only slightly above simply saying “I wish everyone who disagrees with me would just shut up.”

“… that only authorities are allowed to critique is a particularly weak argument, ..” Indeed, this happens so often it even has a name — the “Appeal to Authority Fallacy”. The world suffered a lot of that during the last 2 yrs due to covid … eg, “…we have to shut down businesses and schools indefinitely because professor XYZ of the university said so … “

Yes, but at the same time (actually, two sides of the same coin) when official expert panels said something which would’t work well with the general popularised narrative or the economic and political interests, they were just ignored or even said to shut up. Covid vaccines for children in the UK is a good example, as well as that same subject plus restriction for the unvaccinated in Spain. The media, corporations and politics (in Spain even security forces) too often played a way greater and more decisive role than “scientists” in this whole story.

Besides, and as a more general point, people tend to ignore that there’s a huge chasm between “science” and “science-based technomedical solutions and policies”. Both are great and very useful despite their – different – very significant intrinsic limitations (which become even more significant when there’s a trend to deny or undervalue such limitations – and the other way around). Yet, they fundamentally don’t work the same way irrespective of their manifest common pointsm and the confusion can become really tragic. As it did.

As they say, “Everyone is a critic” qualified or not. The difference is qualified ones get paid for their efforts while the rest….play keyboard DS, race organizer, racer, etc. without any risks.

Larry, your opinion about critics is not qualified at all ^____^

AFAIK, you’re neither an expert in sociology, nor in content production, nor in text analysis, nor in critical theory, nor in gnoseology, nor actually in any field which could qualify you to evaluate this sort of materials or the process through which they’re generated … so, of course, you can entertain the rest of the pub with your take about the whole subject as we’re sipping our beers, but doing so while at the same time defending that only professionals are entitled to properly criticise is quite paradoxical.

Gabriele – I was gonna let it go there but the comparison to plumbing assumes the person unhappy with the work and entitled to be a critic paid the plumber and discussed the desired outcome before the work began. Unless this critic pays WVA’s salary and discussed how he should race beforehand…it’s a false comparison. This fellow is just a spectator, one who is unlikely to have ANY experience in bike racing. My points were based on Riccardo Magrini’s response to criticisms like these relayed to him by Luca Gregorio on Eurosport. “Magro” dismisses most of them with “Who is this person? I don’t remember seeing their name on any racing results list. Who are they to criticize?” I agree. It’s not that you can’t write your criticisms, but you can’t also expect nobody to question your qualifications to make them from the comfort of your couch.

So when you pay someone to do something that you have no knowledge of or experience with you automatically become an expert? Who’d have thunk it!

I promise to leave it here, and I believe I got what you’re insisting on, with which I may even agree – up to a certain point. That said, I think that Magrini and/or Gregorio aren’t doing their job that well in the anecdote(s) you tell here. They’re paid by users, in a way (not many degree of separation between the ES fee and their wage – not that I like at all this money argument), and what users need is that the commenters do use their experience to make it clear what’s happening and why. Questions from home should be selected in order to highlight points which are indeed hard to understand for the inexperienced viewers, however arrogant the latter might present themselves as while writing down their texts (by the way, why do they read precisely *those* questions when they can perfectly skip them?), then the commenter’s experience should be use to make all that clearer, not to dismiss the questions faced and the people debating them. The wronger the POV presented, the stronger the need of tackling it with pedagogical attitude.

Now, the above is naif, of course; they’re playing this game for an audience which mostly believes to be entitled to judge the rest of fans (typical in cycling, and sadly sometimes on the road, too), and the scene, probably sometimes even made-up (not that you’d need it), creates a feeling of mutual understanding between the journo and the viewers, a wink or knowing look of sort among the Magro and the Larries of the world, hence improving the overall sentimental experience for the niche audience of “long-time cycling hard-core fans” they’re actually after, given that otherwise RAI is too strong a competitor.

Well, things are complicated. And all the world’s a stage, after all 😀

Pogacar is a beast, but both Ineos and Jumbo might not be that interested in fighting to defend a 2nd or 3rd place and have the firepower to create authentix mayhem. Other teams caring about top-10 placings might just be too weak to save Pogi. Ineos and Jumbo are probably the most serious obstacle for each other to win the TDF, in a sense even more than Pogacar himself… can he really mark each and every move from half a dozen top riders by the above superteams? Could really be a craxy Tour ^____^, he’d better grab as much time as he can.

Crazy fast start to yesterday’s stage. If Jumbo think 2 weeks of attrition will knock the stuffing out of Pogacar, then WvA’s stint in the break makes more sense then it appeaed yesterday. Jumbo and Ineos need to put on their thinking caps to use their better teams to upset Pogacar otherwise this Tour could turn quickly into a procession.

And I’d also stress that when the break goes from a situation like yesterday’s, it’s a bit beyond any decision of sort by the peloton, the teams or any rider really, it’s a complex combination like those in front having to go hard, those behind not really able to match that easily and, even more important, nobody being able to make the jump across those two speeds. And this is a simplified version of sort, of course. It’s not like when a break is actually “allowed” or “selected”.

2 hrs. at over 50 km/h on rugged terrain means most riders there are holding on for dear life, and those who feel at ease or ok in any comparative way are forced to be the ones giving it all in the constant actions, hence coming soon very close to their own limit. As WVA said, he felt that the day was gone for him *before* the break finally went…

No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

“Everybody has a plan ‘till they get punched in the face.” Mike Tyson

Blel Kadri’s disappearance partially explained: https://www.ladepeche.fr/2019/07/16/ancien-maillot-a-pois-blel-kadri-est-devenu-vendeur-chez-decathlon,8315200.php

Didn’t google beyond this though.

For people who are connoisseurs of the limitations of literal translations I can recommend Pedro Carolino’s masterpiece from the 1800s “English As She Is Spoke”.

A bit late to comment, but Roglic resetting his own dislocated shoulder after his stage5 crash seems outrageous … like performing unanesthetized surgery on yourself … and then bouncing on the cobbles to finish the stage. I’ve never suffered any dislocation and can only imagine the trauma. Seems the shoulder would be sore and painful for days. During a very hard effort or sprint, you’d be pulling on the handlebars and seems you’d be limited by the injured shoulder. If any reader has had similar injury, would you care to comment?

Not me, but my brother was a fairly competitive youth swimmer for a while and he dislocated his shoulder more than once. But he was insanely flexible and could do things with his arms that were a little freaky. He popped it back in whenever it happened….it didn’t seem to slow him down too much in the pool, but god knows what pain killers he had…

The one that really hurts is an elbow…google Koy Detmer dislocated elbow. Former backup Philadelphia Eagles quarterback. His reaction to the injury was so extreme that some of his teammates–large tough linemen types–almost passed out from watching.

Yes, you can pop a shoulder back in with only slight, brief pain / discomfort. You’re good to go again straight afterwards.

It depends on how it comes out – some ways are easier to reset than others – and how long it was out for. Generally speaking, I find that the longer it was out, the more it hurts when reset.

Roglic apparently couldn’t reset immediately himself, but needed to sit on a spectator’s chair to get his position right. That suggests it will sting for a while longer than if he’d been able to get it back in straight away.

Comments are closed.

• Skip to Navigation
• Skip to Main Content
• Skip to Related Content
• Today's news
• Reviews and deals
• Climate change
• 2024 election
• Fall allergies
• Health news
• Mental health
• Sexual health
• Family health
• So mini ways
• Unapologetically
• Buying guides

Entertainment

• How to Watch
• My watchlist
• Stock market
• Biden economy
• Personal finance
• Stocks: most active
• Stocks: gainers
• Stocks: losers
• Trending tickers
• World indices
• US Treasury bonds
• Top mutual funds
• Highest open interest
• Highest implied volatility
• Currency converter
• Basic materials
• Communication services
• Consumer cyclical
• Consumer defensive
• Financial services
• Industrials
• Real estate
• Mutual funds
• Credit cards
• Credit card rates
• Balance transfer credit cards
• Business credit cards
• Cash back credit cards
• Rewards credit cards
• Travel credit cards
• Checking accounts
• Online checking accounts
• High-yield savings accounts
• Money market accounts
• Personal loans
• Student loans
• Car insurance
• Home buying
• Options pit
• Investment ideas
• Research reports
• Fantasy football
• Pro Pick 'Em
• College Pick 'Em
• Fantasy baseball
• Fantasy hockey
• Fantasy basketball
• Download the app
• Daily fantasy
• Scores and schedules
• GameChannel
• World Baseball Classic
• Premier League
• CONCACAF League
• Champions League
• Motorsports
• Horse racing
• Newsletters

New on Yahoo

• Privacy Dashboard
• Men's Bracket
• Men's Bracket Mayhem
• Women's Bracket
• Women's Bracket Mayhem
• How To Watch
• Scores/Schedules
• Wemby Watch
• Fantasy Basketball
• In-Season Tournament
• All-Star Game
• Power Rankings
• Fantasy Baseball
• World Series
• Free Agency
• Scores/Schedule
• Fantasy Football
• Fantasy Hockey
• UFC Schedule
• Yahoo Sports AM
• March Madness
• Caitlin Clark Scoring Record
• Daytona 500
• Leaderboard
• Masters Tournament
• Playoff and Bowl Games
• Tournament Schedule
• French Open
• Australian Open
• College Sports
• Fantasy Sports
• Sports Betting 101
• Bet Calculator
• Legalization Tracker
• Casino Games
• Beijing Games Home
• Kentucky Derby
• Preakness Stakes
• Belmont Stakes
• Ball Don't Lie
• Yahoo Fantasy Football Show
• College Football Enquirer
• Baseball Bar-B-Cast
• UConn pulls away from Alabama
• Purdue's 1st title trip since 1969
• Staley: Caitlin 'a GOAT' if she wins
• UConn women land No. 1 recruit
• Monterrey vs. Messi a bizarre feud

Tour de France 2023 stage 7 preview: Route map and profile of 145km from Mont de Marsan to Bordeaux

The 2023 Tour de France erupted in the Pyrenees with a slugfest between the major general classification contenders in the mountains.

Tadej Pogacar produced a stunning attack to win stage six on the summit finish at Cauterets and land a psychological blow in his duel with reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard . But Vingegaard had the consolation of taking the yellow jersey from the shoulders of Australia’s Jai Hindley, and leads Pogacar in the general classification by 25 seconds. It is set up to be a classic Tour de France.

There could well be a thrilling and closely fought fight for the overall win, but that can wait: this is a day for those podium hunters to take a well-earned break from the cut and thrust at the front and let the sprinters take the floor. Stage seven is one of very few sprint opportunities left in the race, and that means that while the GC contenders will be recuperating as much as possible, there will be plenty of stress among the sprint teams as they jostle to win the stage.

FOLLOW LIVE - Tour de France 2023 stage 7: Mark Cavendish chases record-setting win in Bordeaux

The 170km route from Mont-de-Marsan offers up an intermediate sprint after 88km – Jasper Philipsen is dominating the points classification and may be tempted to come forward and fight for more points here, unless a breakaway has escaped up the road and swept them all up.

There is a small category four climb before the finish – the Cote de Beguey (1.2km at 4.4%) – but it is not enough to disrupt the sprinters from their task. A breakaway is likely, but we can expect it to be reeled in come the finish to set up a showdown to the line.

Who will win in Bordeaux? Philipsen will be the favourite once more, having established himself as the alpha of the road by winning two sprint stages already, with the help of his supreme leadout man, Mathieu van der Poel.

There are plenty looking to beat him here though, including Fabio Jakobsen, if he can shake off the pain and misery of his crash on stage four. Mark Cavendish is likely to have another go for victory after two top-six finishes as he chases a historic 35th stage win , while Caleb Ewan and Phil Bauhaus have both come close behind Philipsen this week and would love to pip the Belgian here.

Stage 7 route map and profile

The stage is set to begin at around 12.30pm BST and is expected to finish at around 4pm BST.

It is hard to look beyond Jasper Philipsen here but let’s be adventurous – Caleb Ewan looks sharp and ready to win a stage, and this time he can close the deal after losing a photo finish in Nogaro.

Welcome to Escape Collective. Please select your language.

Please note that this is an automated translation and it will not be perfect. All articles have been written in English and if anything appears to not make sense, please double check in English.

Preview: Tour de France 2023 stage 7

Everything you need to know about stage 7 of the 2023 Tour de France.

2023 Tour de France stage 7 profile.

Stage 7: Mont-De-Marsan to Bordeaux – 170 km

Date:  Friday July 7, 2023

Stage type:  Flat 

What to watch for:  An attempt to distance the pure sprinters on the only category 4 climb

Stage summary:  Flat. Flat flat. Flatty flat flat. 

The goal of this stage is simple: Get out of the Pyrenees, get up to Bordeaux so we can all have a nice glass of wine and celebrate …  Mark Cavendish’s record-breaking stage win ? It only seems right. 

Dane Cash’s picks :  Jasper Philipsen looks like the fastest sprinter at the Tour right now and there’s little reason to expect that to change on the very flat seventh stage. That said, Caleb Ewan, Phil Bauhaus, and Mark Cavendish should be in the mix as well, with Fabio Jakobsen more of a question mark after his previous crash.

What did you think of this story?

😐 Meh 😊️ Solid 🤩 Excellent

Read Comments

escapecollective Preview Tour de France

Live coverage

As it happened: philipsen beats cavendish to take tour de france stage 7.

Philipsen the man to beat as Cavendish chases win 35

Tour de France 2023 – Analysing the contenders

Tour de France 2023 - the definitive guide

How to watch stages 5, 6 and 7 of the Tour de France

Tour de France: Tadej Pogacar claws back time with victory at Cauterets-Cambasque

Hello and welcome to Cyclingnews' live coverage of stage 7 of the 2023 Tour de France, 169.9km from Mont-de-Marsan to Bordeaux.

Riders are getting ready for the start in Mont-de-marsan with neutralised racing set to get underway at 13:15 CEST and our official start to be taken at 13:30 CEST. Two days of Pyrenean punishment are behind us and today should be another chance for the sprinters are we head north, at times alongside the river Garonne, and into the finish in Bordeaux for the first time in 13 years. 

The racing has been heating up throughout this incredible first week of racing, and it's actually heating up on the ground at the race in Mont-de-Marsan. Take a look at Danish national champion, Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), doing the media rounds with an ice vest on to regulate his temperature before the action kicks off. 

Both of the bunch sprints at this year's Tour have been won by Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) who has combined perfectly with lead-out extraordinaire, Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), to come into the final few hundred metres a the head of the bunch, allowing the Belgian to hold off the oncoming charge behind. Will anyone be able to stop them and the rest of the well-oiled Alpecin lead-out on an incredibly flat day?

Here's an early look at our new yellow jersey, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) , as he prepares for stage 7 outside the Jumbo team bus as spotted by Stephen Farrand, one of the great Cyclingnews' team on the ground at the Tour. He took the jersey yesterday after Jai Hindley (Bora-hansgrohe) was dropped on the Tourmalet, but did lose time to his key rival Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates). 

Apart from the obvious hot and sunny weather, there is also meant to be a cross-tailwind for the majority of the route which should play a part in positioning and ensuring, if any splits form, you are on the correct side of them. Teams will need to be attentive throughout the day. 

We're underway from the neutral start, the départ fictif, with big crowds already lining the roads in Mont-de-Marsan. The town has a rich history of sport with a with-known team in both rugby and football sharing the same name: Stade Montois. 

We're in the former home of cycling legend, Luis Ocaña, the Spaniard who won the 1973 Tour de France and was a key rival for Eddy Merckx. Read more about his history and the contenders for the day in Stephen Farrand's great preview of the day's racing below. Cavendish growing in confidence as Tour de France sprint chances return - Stage 7 preview

169.9KM TO GO

We're underway on stage 7 of the Tour de France! We had no breakaway for over 100km on the last flat day, stage 4. Hopefully, we will see more riders chancing their hand at making the break today. 

Four riders have somewhat of a split for now, one from TotalEnergies, Arkéa-Samsic, Movistar and Uno-X. They are looking around, however, so may not be totally comfortable. 

Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) have knocked off their effort already with Simon Guglielmi (Arkéa-Samsic) and Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) staying with the move for now. 

Shake of the head for Guglielmi as Burgaudeau is the next to stop trying. Both the Frenchman had conversations on the radio, but were clearly given different instructions. 

Right well that's the break of the day gone in just Guglielmi, who is probably not best pleased with his sports directors leaving him out there on his own. The gap to our lone leader is approaching three minutes already. 

Vingegaard is sitting calmly at the back of the relaxed peloton and waving to the cameras. Here he is at the startline with the other key protagonist of this year's Tour. Today won't be a day for them, however, with a bunch sprint well on the cards. 

150KM TO GO

Guglielmi, thankfully, has a tailwind as the only thing to help him on a day where he'll be all alone for a number of hours. He was in the break on the opening stage of this year's Tour as well and now has a gap of 6:31 over the peloton. 

The teams with big sprinters are taking up their positions at the head of the peloton, but without any impetus as a solo breakaway rider shouldn't be any threat to their ambitions for the day. 

Happy birthday to Lars van den Berg (Groupama-FDJ). The 25-year-old Ducthman is on Tour de France debut in this year's race. 

Fêter son anniversaire sur le Tour ✔️Happy birthday Lars! 25 ans 🎂 pic.twitter.com/UmQpdCiQbF July 7, 2023

Lotto-Dstny have clear ambitions of winning this stage as they are the team most prominent at the front of the peloton. Caleb Ewan will be their man for the final sprint, and the Australian has come the closest to beating Philipsen so far. On stage 3 he was third, but finished runner-up on stage 4 and was only beaten to the line by half a wheel. Can the Australian go one better today for his sixth Tour de France victory?

130KM TO GO

Guglielmi's gap at the front has been reduced to 4:07, not by any real acceleration, however, as the peloton is still completely calm with Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lotto-Dstny swapping turns. 

Here's another look at the day's very flat profile. There is one KOM point available at the top of the Côte de Béguey (1.2km at 4.4%), but that is far too easy to have an effect on our sprint field here. 

Guglielmi is chatting away to those on race vehicles alongside him at the front of the race as he toils away is pursuit of the combativity prize and gold race number for tomorrow. 

Here's an update from the CPA, the union that works to protect riders among other things, that today's 3km rule will be enforced earlier at 3.6km before two trick bends arrive into Bordeaux. The GC teams will race until this point before hopefully clearing the way for the lead-out trains to take up the mantle at the front and battle it out in the final sprint. 

Today, on behalf of the riders we have requested the jury of commissaires to obtain the last 3 KLM rule at 3klm600 before 2 tricky bends. Thank you @UCI_cycling and @LeTour for accepting our request for the safety of the riders 🙏👏👏#SafetyFirst pic.twitter.com/YrTgLxzjQv July 7, 2023

Today's finishing City, Bordeaux, has been visited in the Tour 85 times and is only second only to Paris in terms of appearances. We haven't been here for years, however, as the last time it was used was in 2010. On that occasion, the sprint was won by a certain Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) ahead of Julian Dean, Alessandro Petacchi, Robbie McEwen and Óscar Freire. On that day, the Manx Missile was still at the peak of his powers and was able to even enjoy a look back at the field as he eased to his fourth of five victories at the 2010 Tour. 

100KM TO GO

Thankfully there is a tailwind aiding the riders in their relaxed journey to Bordeaux today. It's time for a feed as the musettes and bidons begin to be passed throughout the pack. 

Guglielmi's advantage has dropped to 2:48 with Lotto, Alpecin and now Astana Qazaqstan all putting riders on the front to help chase. 

We're closing in on our intermediate sprint in Grignols which should act as a warm up for the grand finale in Bordeaux. Guglielmi should mop up the full 20 points available, but who in peloton will go for points to add to their green jersey classification total?

Here we go! Van der Poel hits the front for the lead-out with Philipsen on his wheel and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), but it's Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) who takes the remaining top prize of 17 points over the rise to the intermediate sprint. Philipsen came over in third in the green jersey and Coquard in fourth. Girmay may feature in today's final, but tomorrow's more lumpy stage into Limoges should suit him better. 

As the pace kicks up and our solo escapee's advantage drops below a minute, here's a look at Guglielmi on his solo adventure of the day. 

Nans Peters (AG2R-Citroën) and Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) have decided to move off the front as we enter the final 75km of racing on stage 7. 

We've now got three Frenchman at the front as the counter-attackers have joined their compatriot. Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-Quick Step) is back within the cars having gone for a nature break as the peloton sped up. 

It sounds as if we're going to have a quite technical finish into Bordeaux, with people on the ground describing how the run in will be completed with narrow roads, cobbles, road furniture and constantly changing widths of barriers setting up a dangerous finish. Hopefully, everyone stays upright and we don't have similar carnage in the final to stage 4. 

Our three leaders have rebuilt their advantage to 1:16 as the stage is approaching its latter moments. Tim 'El Tractor' Declercq has hit the front for Soudal-Quick Step and will undoubtably be beginning his huge workload for the day all for Jakobsen's sprint ambitions. 

Cavendish is towards the back of the peloton and is looking for his team car. He's stopping at the side of the road now with two teammates waiting up for him. It was for a wheel change and he's chosen to stay on the specific race bike setup for today. Take a look at that special Willier bike below. Mark Cavendish's Wilier Filante: Is this bike going to make history?

There's some incredibly narrow roads for the breakaway trio as they pass through the town of Langon and cross over the Garonne river. 

Van der Poel has had a bike change onto a wonderful white bike at the back of the peloton. He'll chase back alongside the Astana trio containing Cavendish. 

The front of the peloton is awakening from a quiet start with teams beginning to line up in colour order at the head of the peloton. As the pace increases, it will become more and more difficult to move up in position. 

Cavendish and Van der Poel have safely returned to the bunch as they approach the only categorised climb of the day, the Côte de Béguey (1.2km at 4.4%).

Van Aert and Van der Poel have just shared a nice chat at the back of the bunch. They could both feature in today's finale in different roles, with the Belgian going for the sprint and the Dutchman performing the lead-out for Philipsen. 

Guglielmi was dropped on the climb by his two French compatriots and his solo day in the break has ended. He’s been reabsorbed now by the bunch, but Latour and Peters still have a 1:06 advantage. 

Here's a look at our remaining two escapees from the day's racing on stage 7 of the Tour de France, Latour and Peters flying the French flag on a sunny Friday. 

Dsm-firmenich are showing their faces in the wind at the front now for their sprinter, Sam Welsford. They've not got the first two bunch sprints right by any stretch of the imagination and will be desperately wanting to give him a chance at hitting out for glory in his debut Tour. It's been a good week for Australia already so he'll be hoping for some good luck. 

Latour and Peters are doing a great job for now and holding their advantage at 1:11. They still shouldn't be a threat come the finish in Bordeaux, but the peloton won't want to mess around.

Cyclingnews' Stephen Farrand is at the finish in Bordeaux and you can see in his tweet that we have some dreaded barriers with feet somehow making it into the final 2km. hopefully these won't play any role in the final, but it's not what you want to see at a bike race, let alone the biggest one in the world. 

I don’t understand why the feet of the barriers in the final 2km are in the road and not on the kerb. Any idea @BriSmithy @HansenAdam ? pic.twitter.com/2L9xlL42wq July 7, 2023

Graphics of the final 5km are showing a few roundabouts as they enter the famous French city. They will then turn back on themselves and cross the river Garonne inside the final 4km before they ride north along the riverside and finish adjacent to the Place des Quinconces - Bordeaux’s most famous square, on what should be an incredibly high-speed run to the line. 

Only 36 seconds remain of an advantage for our two remaining breakaway riders. 

It's 33 degrees at the finish in Bordeaux and already heating up in the peloton as the almighty fight for position is about to continue. Every team will want front position for each narrowing of the road and positioning will be vital in the finale, with so many chances to lose your lead-out's wheel with cobbles, turns and chicane all featuring. 

This is one of Cavendish's remaining chances to overtake Eddy Merckx's 34 stage wins and sit alone atop the record for wins at the Tour in his final appearance at La Grand Boucle before retiring. Cees Bol (Astana Qazaqstan) will be his last man in the final and will likely want to position him onto the wheel of either Philipsen of Jakobsen. Can the Manx Missile get it done in Bordeaux? We're about to find out with 12km to go. 

Splits are forming in the middle of the bunch. We've got single file lines behind the block of sprinters teams and GC teams lining the head of the race. An uneven roundabout has lost some of the sprinters vital positions, even this far out from the finish. 

Our two stragglers are still toiling away out in front, but the bunch is really starting to wind up for the third sprint finish of this year's Tour de France. 26 seconds is the gap now. Ineos, UAE and Jumbo are all doing a tremendous job of looking after GC hopefuls for now and remember, their finish line with be the moved 3.6km line, after which is where if any incident or crash occurs, all riders will be given the same time.  

We've had our first big bottleneck of the run in as the teams are squeezed into a very tight gap, not for the last time today. The riders won't want to see a roundabout for a while after this finale. Jayco AlUla are set up nicely for now with Dylan Groenewegen their option for the sprint.

Van Aert has dropped off the back of the peloton and will play no part in today's sprint. Unsurprising after two long days in the break and the incredible effort he put in yesterday. Latour has been patted on the back by Peters and he now leads solo at the head of the race. 

The GC riders have successfully crossed their safety marker at 3.6km and will hopefully now move out the way and let the big-men get to work in this difficult finish. Vingegaard is in second wheel. 

Jakobsen looks in great form even after two days and a heavy crash on stage 4. Philipsen is also right towards the front as they cross the bridge and the river Garonne. 

Philipsen has two riders to aid him and all the rest have one. Jakobsen, Groenwegen, Ewan, Bauhaus, Pedersen and Meeus are all sat behind Philipsen and waiting to strike. 

Alpecin-Deceuninck are set up absolutely perfectly with their incredible train. Can anyone overcome them and Philipsen?

All the sprinters are there, this is gonna be a hectic finale!

Cavendish is being moved up by Bol in the final kilometre.

Welsford has been dropped off onto the wheel and here we go the finale sprint launches!

Van der Poel is at the front and leading Philipsen perfectly, when will they go?

STAGE FINISH

Cavendish hits the front but Philipsen breaks his heart and overtakes the Manx Missile at the dying moment. So close to 35, but not to be as the Belgian flyer takes his third stage in the 2023 Tour de France. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) wins stage 7 of the Tour de France.

Philipsen had to react once Cavendish took a flyer and hit out for glory. Van der Poel had hit the front slightly early and the Belgian waited for the perfect moment to slip back into the Brits wheel and launch his own sprint as the line approached. Cavendish second and Girmay third. 

Here's what stage winner Jasper Philipsen had to say after completing his hattrick of wins at the 2023 Tour de France on only stage 7. "I think we can be proud enough on our team achievement, like without them it would never be possible to get this third stage win already so, I'm just really proud of them, how they worked together and how we find each other in the final to do everything we can and that leads to success. I'm super happy and proud." "I think were very well grouped in the final 3k and even Soren [Kragh Andersen] did an amazing pull and we still had Jonas [Rickaert] and Mathieu [van der Poel] there so I was always in a good wheel and never had to do a big effort before I could launch my sprint and that's how we win." This is what he said in response to if he could believe he'd already won three stages of the 2023 Tour de France: "No. If you told me this one week ago I would think your crazy, but so far it's a dream for us, a dream Tour and we just continue and hopefully we can add another one but  I think from now I'm looking to Paris also." "He [Cavendish] was really strong and I would have also loved to have seen him win, but I think everybody and for sure he will keep on trying and he's up there, in good condition, so it will be hard." He also extended his firm lead in the green jersey completion: "From now on I think it's a goal as well to try and take this to Paris, but we're only one week far so it's still a long and tough Tour and we'll see. I just enjoy the moment."

Here's the full results of today's bunch sprint, courtesy of FirstCycling.

Here's what Mark Cavendish had to say after his disappointing second-place finish on stage 7 of the Tour de France: "I was in a quite good position, might've looked like I was far back, but I was okay in where I wanted to be. It's a long straight finish. Cees [Bol] had moved me up with good speed into the last k[ilometre]. I was on the right wheels and then yeah I kicked, a little earlier than I'd liked, but actually, it was about the same time as I did in 2010." Cavendish then revealed how he had issues with his gearing come the final sprint, which hindered some of his ability to sprint. "But once I kicked, I started, my gears jumped from the 11 to the 12. I had to sit down. The cadence just whacks up, then it goes back to the 11 then I try and stand up again then it goes back to the 12 and you sit down." He's talking about the sprockets on his cassette there with the 11tooth being his biggest gear and the one he'd want to be in for the final sprint. With some of the bumps in the final, Cavendish's gears would've jumped from his biggest gear into the one below it which meant his cadence increased and it was harder to put the power down. The Manx Missile was forced to have a back wheel change with 40km long to go and even though both cassettes on his original and spare back wheel are meant to be set at the exact same place, it may have been a fraction off causing his chain to jump onto a different sprocket. "It was nothing you can do except kind of hope. I'm bitterly disappointed there, like majorly disappointed, but we keep on trying you know. Again you know, saw an improvement in how the boys were so you can be positive with it."

"What can I do, I'm happy. I'm sorry I can't be more happy about it, I'm a bit disappointed."

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) has taken, with this, his fifth straight win in a Tour de France bunch sprint. That record extending from the 2022 edition of the race into the 2023 Tour. He's well established now his dominance over the rest of the sprint field in the pro peloton and with that well-oiled Alpecin machine working non-stop to deliver him in the right spot, its no surprise. Today however was all about him and his ability to deliver once Cavendish flew by him on the right side of the road. Will we see anyone else win a bunch sprint at the 2023 Tour de France?

What's next? We may get an early answer to whether Philipsen can finally be beaten as we have a day that could be for the fast men from Libourne to Limoges across 200.7km. They will have to contend with three categorised climbs in the final 70 kilometres, however, the Côte de Champs-Romain (2.8km at 5.2%), Côte de Masmont (1.3km at 5.5%) and the Côte de Condat-sur-Vienne (1.2km at 5.4%) before the finish in Limoges. You may remember Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) coming painfully close to beating Marcel Kittel in a finish in Limoges in 2016, the last time it was in the Tour. Le Coq will be trying his hardest to go one better on a stage that suits him perfectly tomorrow. Look to see the teams with fast riders more accustomed to climbing, Intermarché for Girmay, Cofidis for Coquard, Trek for Pedersen and maybe even Jumbo for Van Aert set a high pace on the climbs to try and drop the purer sprinters. Sadly for them, Philipsen is far from poor at getting over hills and Alpecin could also let Van der Poel sprint if the green jersey does get dropped. It should be an interesting finale. 

That wraps things up for Cyclingnews' live coverage of stage 7 of the Tour de France in what was another thrilling bunch sprint. Check back tomorrow for live coverage of stage 8 and make sure to check out our whole host of other content coming out from the race. Also read Laura Weislo's full report and see the growing photo gallery from the day's action below. Tour de France: Philipsen denies Cavendish, completes hat-trick in Bordeaux

Latest on Cyclingnews

Olympics: Mads Pedersen, Skjelmose, Mørkøv selected to Danish team for Paris

Paris-Roubaix Recon - Weather outlook, the 'chicane', and a last taste of the cobbles before race day

Mads Pedersen still in top shape for Paris-Roubaix a week on from Dwars crash

First Remco Evenepoel, now Mikel Landa crashes out of Itzulia Basque Country

As it happened: Itzulia Basque Country stage 5

Cancellara's Classics column: New Arenberg chicane will have consequences at Paris-Roubaix

Don't think, just dance: Alison Jackson's Paris-Roubaix Bike

Itzulia Basque Country: Romain Gregoire wins stage 5

Specialized teams to ditch Roubaix for Paris-Roubaix, brand predicts

• Training and Health
• How To…
• Live Streaming

• Grand Tours
• Tour de France

Tour de France 2022 – stage 7 preview and predictions

Tour de France Stage 7 promises to be a confirmation of what we witnessed on the previous day: a Tadej Pogacar show. While some could not understand Jumbo-Visma and Wout Van Aert’s end-product of giving away the yellow jersey, the results of this display might pay off later as Team UAE Emirates was put to work earlier than they would want to and cracks, if ever present, will appear soon. You can rewatch the full stage 6 HERE .

A fast and furious start is again expected but the breakaway will be hoping to have created a decent cushion by the 100km mark. This is where the race kicks off again with the intermediate sprint followed quickly by a 3rd category climb.

But things are not meant to be that simple. As witnessed in stage 6, the start was scene of utter craziness, undergone at an insane pace with riders trying to get into the breakaway. We could have a repeat of that on stage 7. The effect of which will be felt in the more difficult finish at La Super Planche des Belles Filles. The latter is not of big mountain finish but its 7km with its regular gradient being above 10% should be ascended at a super high pace.

Stage 7 Predictions

★★★ ★★ Thibaut Pinot

If there is a stage that the Frenchman would have highlighted in this reborn defining season of his career, this would be it. The FDJ rider grew up a few kilometres and would know every inch of the climb. The only question mark would be whether he strikes from the breakaway or within the big boy’s group.

★★★★☆ Tadej Pogacar  is the huge favorite for this stage in his latest Maillot Jaune. But it remains to be seen as to whether Team UAE Emirates will be given a hand to control the breakaway. Indeed, why would Jumbo-Visma bring Pogacar to another stage win?

★★★★☆ Primoz Roglic As witnessed by him throwing the first punch at the finish the day before, he is stronger than we think. He has just been unlucky and the climb at the Super Planche des Belles Filles could see him try something from a bit earlier to try to grab some time back.

★★★☆☆ Aleksandr Vlasov He possesses one of those sprint that if it comes down to an unlikely finish he will dominate.

★★★☆☆ Jonas Vingegaard He is the most threatening rider from Jumbo-Visma. Pogacar is aware of that will keep a closer watch on him rather than Roglic.

★★☆☆☆ Dylan Teuns He won the last regular stage finish here in 2019 from a breakaway.

★☆☆☆☆  Guilio Ciccone Just like the above mentioned, he has good memories here when he earned his first ever Yellow Jersey here in 2019 after being dropped by Teuns in the last 100m

You watch the stage live with us as from 12:50 pm (local time) here:

Follow A LeadOut on Twitter for updates on Velogames contents.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE FROM AUTHOR

Pogacar to ride Giro d’Italia for the first time in 2024

Geraint Thomas to focus on Giro and Tour in 2024

Wout van Aert says will target Giro d’Italia in 2024

Pogacar says rivalry with Vingegaard could go down ‘in history’

Primoz Roglic heading to Bora-hansgrohe in 2024

Mark Cavendish delays retirement, brings Mørkøv to Astana

[…] Tour de France 2022 – stage 7 preview and predictions […]

LEAVE A REPLY Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

EDITOR PICKS

2024 Paris-Roubaix LIVE STREAM

2024 Scheldeprijs LIVE STREAM

2024 Itzulia Basque Country LIVE STREAM

Popular posts.

Giro d’Italia, Milan-San Remo under threat of cancellation due to coronavirus

2020 UAE Tour LIVE STREAM

Ewan storms to victory on stage 2 of UAE Tour

Popular category.

• Results 1805
• Grand Tours 1566
• Tour de France 707
• POPULAR THIS WEEK 616
• Live Streaming 564
• Giro d'Italia 547
• Interviews 382

Official games

2023 Edition

• Stage winners
• All the videos

Tour Culture

• Commitments
• key figures
• Sporting Stakes
• "Maillot Jaune" Collection
• The jerseys

Stage 6 Mâcon > Dijon

Length 163 km

Stage 7 Nuits-Saint-Georges > Gevrey-Chambertin

Length 25 km

Type Individual time-trial

Stage 8 Semur-en-Auxois > Colombey-les-deux-Églises

Length 176 km

Prepare for the stage

Watch the videos from the stage

A few words from C.Prudhomme

The stage of the day in video

Come to the Tour

Ride like the pros

On the route of the stage

Find the best route, come on your bike, come by car-sharing, follow the tour, watch the stage on tv, follow the caravane du tour, play the video games, discover the towns of the day.

Receive exclusive news about the Tour

Accreditations

Privacy policy, your gdpr rights.

2023 Tour de France Stage 7 Preview

Mont-de-Marsan > Bordeaux 170km

After two days of carnage, everyone gets the chance to have a little rest as it should be a relatively straightforward sprint stage. There’s a bit of wind around, which means it won’t be without stress, but this should end in another big sprint.

Very warm, temperatures will hit 36 degrees. The wind will come from the south-east and will be under 20km/h. There could be gusts up to 30kmh, which would get the GC teams interested in echelons, but the potential sections are not long enough to cause carnage. 

This finish has a couple of challenges, fingers crossed it turns out to be much safer than Tuesday’s racetrack finish. With 3.6km to go, there’s right hand turn, which is quickly followed by another, this one is greater than 90 degrees, it comes with 3.2km to go. The bunch then hit a highway which they use to go over the river, then comes a tight right-hand bend with 2.2km to go, which is quickly followed by a left and another right. This brings the riders onto the finishing straight, which is 1.8km long. Just before the flamme rouge, they dip down and go through an underpass. The finish is 6m wide.

We’ll have to wait and see if anyone wants to try and cause echelons, this is the only section where it could be possible, it starts at km 122 and lasts 22km. For splits to happen, the wind needs to be stronger than predicted.

I think we’ll end up seeing a standard sprint stage. The first two have been chaotic, which is what we are used to seeing in the Tour de France, but they normally calm down as the race goes on. As Jakobsen looks sore from his crash, I’m not sure if Soudal – Quick Step will be getting involved in this one, one less team fighting to get to the front wouldn’t be a bad thing. 

The sprint teams will start the fight with around 20km to go, but it’s all about the final 5km. The technical section is from 4km-2km to go, a good position here is very important, but a long finishing straight does mean teams can afford to sit back a little and surge to the front. Whatever happens, I hope it’s a finish without crashes, we’ve seen enough of them.

Jasper Philipsen  – two stage wins already; can he take a third? His sprint train is the best in the race, even though van der Poel nearly blows his legs off before he launches his sprint. It’s been a while since we’ve had one sprinter dominate the race, but Philipsen can win many more stages over the next two weeks. He comes here with confidence, but these sprints always require luck, and that’s not something you can always rely on getting. He starts as the big favourite, it’s up to the rest to try and beat him.

Caleb Ewan  – he’s been the best of the rest in the two sprints, very close to winning on Tuesday. Lotto have done well in keeping Ewan at the head of the race in the final 5km, but without Guarnieri, they could find it harder to do so, especially as De Buyst is recovering from his own crash. If they are worried about being swamped, Caleb could sit on the wheel of someone like Philipsen and try to use him as a final lead out man. 

Dylan Groenewegen  – only having a couple of riders to help prepare the sprint isn’t working out very well for the Dutch sprinter. They’ve not carried much luck in the first two sprints, but they know that if they get him in a good position, he’s got the speed required to take the win. 

Phil Bauhaus  – he’s done much better than I thought he would do in the first two stages, 2 nd  and 3 rd  has been an excellent return for the German. He’s got Wright, Mohorič and Arndt working for him, all three of them have been doing an amazing job. Bauhaus likes a technical sprint; this one isn’t as good a fit compared to the first two sprints. 

Mark Cavendish  – 6 th  and 5 th  so far, he’s edging closer to his big win. Despite not having a recognised lead out, Astana are doing a nice job at getting Cav in a good spot for the sprints. If he continues to get in the right place, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him getting the win most of us what him to get by the end of the race. 

Mads Pedersen  – in terms of his sprint train, Tuesday was much better, but he didn’t have the legs. He’ll keep plugging away, he knows he’s got the speed to challenge for the win, if everything clicks.

Alexander Kristoff  – as the race goes on, he’ll get stronger as others begin to go the other way. I think he’ll be challenging for the top 5 in this stage.

Sam Welsford  – we’ve not seen him having a crack yet, but after two mountain stages, I’m not sure how good he’ll be in this stage. Remember, this isn’t just his first grand tour, it’s his first mountainous stage race. He’s sure to be suffering a bit, hopefully he’s still got enough in the legs to challenge in this stage.

Wout Van Aert – I keep saying he won’t sprint, and he sprints, the cheek of it. Now, after two big days out in breakaways, it’s time for Wout to put his feet up and have a rest. Remember, he’s also got his eyes on the Worlds, he can’t go deep in every stage.

Fabio Jakobsen – battered and bruised, I can’t see him challenging tomorrow.

Prediction Time

After knocking on the door a few times, I think it will open for him this time.

A win for  Caleb Ewan .

• Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Privacy overview, discover more from cycling mole.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Type your email…

Continue reading

You must be logged in to post a comment.