2020 Tour de France Stage 7 Results & Recap
Stage 7 of the 2020 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Van Aert makes it two
Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) became the first rider to win two stages in the 107th Tour de France. It's also his second win in the Tarn department as he imposed himself in Albi last year. He outsprinted Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT) and Bryan Coquard (B&B) in Lavaur after a fierce battle that deprived the top sprinters of another opportunity while an acceleration by Ineos-Grenadier made Tadej Pogacar, Mikel Landa and Richie Porte lose some significant time.
"I'm really proud of this one," van Aert said. "We rode flat out straight from the gun. It was an impressive ride from Bora-Hansgrohe from the first KOM. They made sure all sprinters got dropped. Everyone could feel the crosswinds during the race. I put all my energy in protecting Primoz [Roglic]. We had a good day at the front while some GC favourites lost time. It was an incredible finish. I actually only focused on Primoz, but it would have been a shame to not try to win the stage as well in a smaller bunch sprint. I found a gap on right hand side and I timed my sprint perfectly. It's even more special than my win close to here last year because I didn't expect this morning that I'd be competing for the victory. It's more of a surprise today. Nobody expected such a hard race."
Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) kept the yellow jersey for another day. He's three seconds ahead of Roglic before the Tour heads to the Pyrenees this weekend. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) bumped up to third and Egan Bernal (Ineos) is fourth and the new best young rider.
“It’s been a very fast day," Bernal said. "We thought there would be some tension but we didn’t foresee this much. It hasn’t stopped all day. In the finale, we’ve seen the opportunity and we took advantage of it to split the bunch. I think it’s something good: the Tour de France is also won in stages like this one, you have to use all terrains. My team did a perfect job. Tomorrow and after tomorrow we have two complicated. We’ve just had two hard stages. Tomorrow, it’ll be a GC day for sure. We’ll have to be very focused, try and not lose any time, take the opportunity if there’s any, and if not, stay quiet.”
Bora-Hansgrohe made life hard from the start of stage 7, setting Sagan up to retake the green jersey from Sam Bennett. The pace almost immediately affected Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Elia Viviani (Cofidis), Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT) and Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) who were popped off early. Bennett put up a little fight, but also was dropped with a group of riders before the intermediate sprint at 58 kilometres.
Trentin outsprinted Sagan for the max points at the intermediate, which Sagan wasn't pleased with, but he still had enough points to take over the green jersey from Bennett, and at the end of the stage sits 9 points ahead.
The front group of 40 continued to push ahead with the Bennett group losing time as the kilometres ticked away. Thomas De Gendt decided to have a go off the front solo with 95km to go, but was reeled back in by Bora and B&B Hotels, who had high hopes for Bryan Coquard.
After spending 60km at the front, De Gendt was brought back when Ineos took over and cranked up the pace again. Then Groupama-FDJ, Astana and Jumbo-Visma came to the front to lead out their sprinters which saw van Aert win another stage. Sagan couldn't do better than 13th after a dropped chain during a crucial moment in the final kilometres.
"I’m disappointed," Sagan said. "We controlled the race today, with my teammates doing a super job. Everything seemed very good and then I had bad luck in the final. My chain just dropped and I didn’t earn as many points as I wanted… but that’s cycling. I’m proud of all my teammates. They fought very hard from the beginning until the end. I can win the green jersey on stages like today, although with a different finale. Everything was very nice but the end was..f*cking cycling."\n
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