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The train rolls: It started off normal and became spectacular. At the beginning of the seventh stage, Benoît Cosnefroy stood out as an outlier, the wearer of the points jersey. With a lot of effort he still scored mountain points in the first qualifying, but by then the Bora-hansgrohe team had long been sitting in front of the field. Seven pilots of the team were in the lead and formed the locomotive of the peloton for about 130 kilometers. In the first hour the field reached an average speed of 46 kilometers per hour. It shouldn’t slow down to the end.
The result: Wout van Aert achieved his second victory of the day and the third for the Jumbo-Visma team on the 168-kilometer seventh stage from Millau to Lavaur. The Dutch team has dominated this year’s Tour de France so far. The yellow jersey is still worn by Briton Adam Yates of Mitchelton-Scott. Read the stage report here.
What is the Bora locomotive for? “Today the plan was to leave the sprinters behind,” Bora captain Emanuel Buchmann said after the race at ARD: “Then we take the sprinters behind on the mountain and then we move on.” It can be that easy. The team’s second captain, Peter Sagan, was supposed to be sent to a breakaway group to retrieve Sam Bennett’s green jersey. But due to Bora-hansgrohe’s high speed, only Thomas de Gendt dared to try to escape. And so the locomotive went on.
Half happy ending: The German team invested a lot of effort in two goals: the green jersey and the stage victory for Sagan. In the intermediate sprint, the Slovakian scored enough points to take over the dress. But the final sprint failed: after a duel with Hugo Hofstetter, Sagan lost his balance, could no longer accelerate and was only 13th, a bad ending for Sagan’s claims. “I’m disappointed because we checked the whole race,” Sagan said: “Everything looked pretty good, but then I lost some points in the final. But now: that’s cycling.” In the points standings, he now has a nine-point lead over Bennett. The battle for green has yet to be decided.
Der doppelte van Aert: Possibly the best cyclist of the year. Wout van Aert has already won the classics Strade Bianche and Milan-Sanremo this year. Now there are two stage victories in the Tour de France. The Belgian, who actually comes from the cross sector, can maintain a high pace for a long time and at the same time has a fast start. So it’s made for both getaway attempts and sprints. Basically, he is a similar type of rider to Sagan, who has already won the green jersey seven times in the Tour de France. You can currently see who could be Sagan’s successor.
No TV show: Before the stage, Marc Madiot, coach of the French team Groupama-FDJ, had to justify himself for the previously less spectacular Tour de France. Madiot, known as an eccentric, reacted with little satisfaction. “To those who watch the Tour de France and think it is a show, I tell them that it is primarily a sporting event. And there are ups and downs in a sporting event,” says Madiot: “When it’s a show If you want, you can watch a program on reality TV. Then you may be less disappointed. “
And action: You didn’t have to turn on “Big Brother” to entertain yourself. At the end of the stage, other important teams such as Ineos got involved in the management work. The team surrounding last year’s winner Egan Bernal speculated that some drivers would lose contact with the crosswind and high speed. The peloton didn’t really deserve its name, only 40 out of 172 runners were able to keep up. Even the top ten drivers like Mikel Landa had to let it go. After the bike’s flaws, Tadej Pogacar, to date the best young rider, and Bernal’s noble assistant Richard Carapaz also backed down. As a result, Bernal now drives with the best young rider’s white jersey; soon you would like to drive in yellow.
Towards the Pyrenees: The fact that some of the best drivers have wasted time gives hope that attacks will take place in the Pyrenees during the weekend. There are two difficult mountain stages ahead, on Saturday the tour has to face an increase in the harder mountain category for the first time this year. “The bike race will really start there,” said Bora captain Buchmann: “I think the two stages in the Pyrenees are much more difficult than what we have raced so far.”
