Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
John Brewin

Tour de France 2020: Wout van Aert wins stage seven after wind havoc – as it happened

Wout van Aert does it again.
Wout van Aert does it again. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

Here’s Jeremy Whittle stage seven report.

Here’s those tense and somewhat wobbly closing last few hundred metres.

A reminder that Sagan takes the green jersey from Sam Bennett while Egan Bernal gets the white jersey after Tadej Pogacar’s struggle with the echelons.

GC top ten:

1. Adam Yates: 30h 36’ 0”
2. Primoz Roglic +3”
3. Guillaume Martin +9
4: Egan Bernal +13
5: Tom Dumoulin +13
6. Nairo Quintana +13”
7. Romain Bardet + 13”
8. Miguel Angel Lopez + 13”
9. Thibaut Pinot +13”
10. Rigoberto Uran +13”

Updated

Today’s top ten:

1. Wout Van Aert 3h 3’ 03”
2. Edvald Boasson Hagen +0”
3. Bryan Coquard +0”
4. Christophe Laporte +0”
5. Jasper Stuyven +0”
6. Clement Venturini +0”
7. Hugo Hofstetter +0”
8. Egan Bernal +0”
9. Adam Yates +0”
10. Alejandro Valverde+0”

Updated

Wout Van Aert speaks

I’m really proud of this one. Straight from the gun it was hard. It was impressive from Bora-Hansgrohe. They made sure a lot of sprinters were dropped for the final sprint. I was up all the way with Primoz [Roglic]. It was a good day and a good finish, some GC contenders lost time. It would be a shame not to give it a try in a small bunch sprint. I was able to get some slipstream. I didn’t expect [to win] it this morning.

Adam Yates a big winner there in staying up the front. Dumoulin, Bernal, Alaphilippe, Roglic all present and correct. Pogacar is the day’s biggest loser. He was caught out by the winds. Will he hold on to his yellow jersey?

Van Aert awesome again for his second stage win of the Tour. He’s the strongest man in the sprints, chain or no chain for Sagan. Sam Bennett is limping in with the group dropped by that Bora drive early in the stage but he may be soothed by the news that Sagan failed to capitalise in that last sprint.

The second group lose 1’20” on those in the front. The main story was Sagan, who was on the scene only to lose his chain. That almost led to disaster as Alaphilippe wobbled. The Frenchman also raised an objection to Coquard. It was chaotic. Sagan didn’t finish in the top ten so will not get any points to add to his reclaimed green jersey.

Wout Van Aert wins stage 7!

They bide their time, they round a bend. Then they go. Van Aert goes for it and then comes Alaphilppe, and then there’s a wobble. Sagan was in close but his chain comes off. And Van Aert takes it.

Updated

1km to go: Bernal staying out of trouble as the sprinters start to gear up. There will be no lead-outs. Sagan is sat off Van Aert.

2km to go: Yates is sat on the tail of Alaphilippe, watching his man intently.

3km to go: They are flying along, energised by that break in the field. Dumoulin is in the group and may play lead-out man for Wout Van Aert. Adam Yates stays to the left of the group.

4km to go: About now is when those who fancy the stage win will start to devise their plans. The GC contenders may be happy to stay safe, while there are some classic-style riders who will be waiting to strike. Carapaz has dropped into the second, post-echelon group. Jumbo-Visma continue to push on.

6km to go: Alaphilippe, without teammates around him, has his eyes on the prize of a stage win, as does the evergreen Alejandro Valverde. It’s all to play for.

8km to go: Bernal and Yates are sat well, their task to stay within this elite group and pray that nothing daft is happening. Sagan is sat well too. Might he fancy a stage win to augment his reclamation of the green jersey?

10km to go: Bryan Coquard is who the French TV directors are focusing, and he’s a serial second-placer. He’s within an elite group at the front which is now fighting for space on what seems a tight road. Rigoberto Uran is sat well, too.

12km to go: Carapaz has lost 35 seconds, the Pogacar/Landa/Porte group is 1’10” or so down. The wind remains a factor as the front group speeds towards the last 10km.

14km to go: Roland Marshall has got in touch: “I’m surprised by all the talk of yesterday’s stage being described as turgid (even by the commentators on the usually ‘find a positive in a negative’ France Télévision coverage). After all, following complaints about no breakaway on stage 5, yesterday saw one make it all the way. Despite the trickiness of the Col de Lusette, it was unlikely that the GC contenders were going to show their cards so near to the Pyrenees, all the more so on a shortish, sharpish climb. The real snoozefest was stage 5 – Apart from the sprint, absolutely sweet FA happened. The Alaphilippe bottle incident provided an exciting aftermath, but as a stage goes, number 5 was a real eye-shutter.”

15km to go: The gap to that Sam Bennett group is nine minutes, while the second group of the peloton is gaining seconds though not nearly enough of them. FDJ-Groupama and Jumbo-Visma are pushing along the leading group. Adam Yates is comfortably within them, sitting off Bernal, though the nerves may be jangling. Ricardo Carapaz has been dropped by the main group too.

James Cavell sends in a guide to crosswinds: “A strong team goes to the front and rides in a diagonal line then rotate their riders so that only one rider is fully in the wind at any one time. Riders behind tend to panic and end up in single file in the gutter with no protection from the wind. As riders in that line fail to hold the required speed new echelons form, with gaps between them. There is only enough room for riders to be in an echelon as the road is wide. If you don’t get into the rotation you’ll get blown out the back.”

20km to go: That second echelon group has lost almost 60 seconds. They can be deadly to GC contenders caught napping. This stage has caught light, and with Ineos and Thibaut Pinot’s Groupama–FDJ team working at the front, there is an effort in place to distance the likes of Landa, Richie Porte and Pogacar. Bernal, Yates, Alaphilippe, Roglic are in the foremost group.

Updated

30km to go: There’s panic as Adam Yates is at the back of the pack as Alaphilippe pushes on. He needs to be in the front ten with the main GC contenders and uses a small climb to push himself to the front. That was expert riding. The main group has been fileted into three sections by the wind. Two big-name casualties: Mikel Landa and Tadej Pogačar have been dropped to the second group.

Updated

35km to go: Jumbo-Visma have taken up the work from a clearly tired Bora team and eat into De Gendt’s lead. The peloton is on his shoulder. Now, will Jumbo-Visma attempt to drop Adam Yates? He’s lacking in allies amid that main group. And De Gendt is in the process of being gobbled up by the peloton. Here comes the wind, too. The gaps are opening in that main group.

Into the final 40km

40km to go: Malicious gets in touch: “I think De Gendt’s coolness when he decides he has had enough and leaves the peloton to embark on a frolic of his own is wonderful. Pinot’s in the front group, he looks more solid each day. Looking forward to a great finish today, but not the one we expected.”

De Gendt and whether he stays away is the story of the day. He’s 35 seconds clear. That’s bridgeable but do any of the teams have the appetite to properly chase him down?

Updated

45km to go: The excitement does seem to have ebbed a little. It’s a hot day out there and there’s a lull before that wind weaves its magic. De Gendt is 45 seconds clear, while Adam Yates is sat pretty within that reduced peloton as Castre’s outskirts come into view.

50 km to go: David Hindle gets in touch: “Well, this is a huge improvement over the turgid, snooze-fest of yesterday. That was a simply dreadful stage. Funny how it goes. You’d not have guessed this was coming from the stage profile, but that’s so often the case. Hope De Gendt can hold on! If anyone can, it’ll be him. That story about his weight sounds a bit tall. More likely, a decision had been made that he wasn’t going to be a GC rider because he was going to waste much greater talent for classics, and the lucky sod got to go on one enormous, pork out, probably including any number of Belgian delicacies that will soon be banned in Britain (thank heavens I live in Germany). Who’d you rather be? A skeleton on a bike with a dodgy sponsor, or the Trappiste-powered, Belgian force of nature?”

The gap to the Bennett group nears six minutes. They’ve given up the ghost on the green jersey. Still, it was fun while it lasted.

Updated

55 km to go: This stage from now on is largely one long descent but the crosswind/tailwind that will come when the course turns at a minor incline at Castre may end up being the element that shakes things up further. De Gendt is 40 seconds clear, and looking relaxed. The peloton have done little to chase him down and there is a possibility of a full escape if the echelons come into play.

60km to go: De Gendt’s runaway train taking him up to around 40 seconds of an advantage. Perhaps he fancies the combatif award at the end of the stage if a stage win doesn’t happen. Previously, the Bora team would have been sharing that.

70km to go: De Gendt briefly got up to 30 seconds but has dropped to 20 seconds. He took a mountain point on the Cote de Paulhe climb.He’s having a high old time. Sam Bennett is now leading out that second main group, reflecting his not-so quiet desperation that he has lost the green jersey. To emulate Sean Kelly and win the green jersey he has a long battle on his hands and Sagan has a team working for him. His best hopes lie in this being not the Sagan of old. Or perhaps, that it’s an old Sagan.

Updated

75km to go: Toon Helsen has been in touch: “Just wanted to shed some light on De Gendt, as a fellow Belgian. He’s unequivocally the best rider the world has ever seen and will ever see. He also just does not give a sh*te. He frequently doesn’t warm up in the morning ‘cause he cannot be arsed. When I do the same at my job, I get an official written warning. This lad gets a bonus. Tell me what’s fair.”

Matt Rendall on ITV was just telling the story of De Gendt putting on ten kilos after his wedding and honeymoon and never being able to get back to his previous fighting weight, thus killing his career as GC contender. The man himself has 21 seconds at the moment and is flying along.

80km to go: De Gendt doubles his advantage to 20 seconds and seems to be enjoying himself out front. He’s that type of rider....there’s been a crash, as two at the back of the pack ran out of space and hit a fence. Hugo Hofstetter is one them, as is Marc Soler. That was a barbed wire fence they smashed into but it is not anywhere near as bad as this one even if Hofstetter has blood running down his arm.

Juan Antonio Flecha and Johnny Hoogeland.

90km to go: De Gendt is going for this - and why not? He builds up 11” on the peloton, which is easily extinguishable but he’s being allowed to stay away. He’s won two stages before - in 2016 and last year at Saint-Étienne.

Thomas De Gendt hits the front.
Thomas De Gendt hits the front. Photograph: Stéphane Mahé/Reuters

Updated

95km to go: The summit of the climb arrives, and it’s been dealt with easily by this Bora-propelled peloton. The green jersey group has descended to 3’43” back. Sam Bennett probably needs to win the stage to win back green but that looks a most distant hope at the moment. Thomas De Gendt takes the points for the Cat 3 climb and then decides to stage a breakaway.

Here’s a suggestion of what may lay ahead.

97km to go: Hold your horses, there was no Adam Yates drama. Julian Alaphilippe dropped back too for what looked a minor mechanical but seems calm enough.

Updated

100km to go: A big climb on this supposedly flat stage, 14.5km of the Col de Peyronnenc. Bora continue to drag that reduced peloton up past a monastery and some patchy, dried-up grass. The gap to the second group nears 2’ 30”. The average speed has been 47km an hour. Whether they can last the pace is the leading question. Looks like someone in yellow has had a mechanical; was that Adam Yates?

110km to go: Here comes the sprint and Sagan doesn’t have it all his own way. Trentin actually takes the maximum 20 points and Sagan gets 17. He is in virtual green now but there have to be questions over his sprinting. Trentin caught him unawares and looked to have much the better legs.

120km to go: Kieran McHugh has been in touch. “I might have missed the boat with this but for the sake of it I once organised a cycle trip specifically to visit the viaduct at Millau. It is quite stunning. It shouldn’t have done but it did come as a great surprise to me that the whole area is considerably hillier than you might imagine. It was hard work but very much worthwhile. Some years later I drove across it with the wife. She decided halfway across to take a photo. On opening the window her glasses flew off, into the Tarn valley below never to be seen again. I have history with the Millau viaduct. “

Bennett’s Quickstep team is working hard to get their man back up there while most of Adam Yates’ Mitchelton-Scott team are back in the second pack. That Bora blast up a small hill has also thrown the likes of Luke Rowe and Tony Martin off the front of the pack. The gap between the groups is up to 1’ 40”.

Crosswinds causing big splits

125 km to go: This has been punishing. And still some crosswinds to go towards the end, though the first objective for Bora is Sagan claiming all the intermediate points at 58km in. Van Aert is in the leading group, and he showed his mettle in winning the stage on Wednesday after that long grind of a stage. It’s a small peloton, with Adam Yates and the rest of the GC contenders bar Danny Martinez, who was already a few seconds down after losing time on Sunday’s stage. The gap to that second group containing the green and polka-dot jerseys is up to 1’10”.

Updated

135km to go: Bora still burning things up, the Sam Bennett group trying its best to pull themselves back into the peloton. Bennett has three teammates alongside him but they are having to push things along while others idle. This is being set up for a Sagan win.

The gap is 37” to that green jersey group and 2’ 14” to the group featuring Caleb Ewan.

Updated

145km to go: There is a definite split with Bora setting a hefty pace. The damage has been done; this will not be an easy day for anyone. Of the sprinters, Caleb Ewan and Elia Viviani have been dropped into a third group which is 1’45” back. The leading group is descending fast from an uncategorised climb.

Updated

150km to go: The field has split into two, with Bora Hansgrohe trying to put the pressure on and put Peter Sagan in place to perhaps reclaim the green jersey from Sam Bennett, whose Quick-Step team have sent riders back to propel him over the gap.

155km to go: Cosnefoy didn’t stay away too long but is allowed to collect the mountain points. He is passed as Sam Bennett in the green jersey has been spat out the back by that surge of power from the peloton. Long way to go but the sprinters will not be getting an armchair ride today.

160km to go: Cosnefoy stays ahead of the pack but he has chasers who want to form a break with him. Michael Schär pulls up alongside him and they build a scant lead of 16 seconds before Schär is dropped. Wout Poels is leading the peloton. And there’s a split in the field, with the climb catching everyone a little unawares. Caleb Ewan and Mads Pedersen have been dropped off the back. Cosnefoy goes over the brow and then starts descending.

The Millau Viaduct looks resplendent, designed as it was Stockport’s very own Norman Foster.

Updated

168km to go: Prudhomme waves his flag as they head across the bridge. They begin the first climb of three climbs in the first 25 clicks. Here goes Benoît Cosnefroy in the polka dot jersey, who’s staged a solo break. The first climb has no mountain points on offer, the second is 9km on.

The word is that today is going to be windy. That could make for some splits in the peloton, your echelons and so on. It will make for some nerves for those teams looking to get their sprinter in place.

Ahead of the départ fictif, the riders line up as they prepare to get underway. Adam Yates looks relaxed enough in yellow.

A reminder of the top ten on GC:

1. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) 27 hr 03’57”
2. Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) +3”
3. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) +3”
4. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis Solutions Crédits) +9”
5. Egan Bernal (Team Ineos) +13”
6. Tom Dumoulin (Jumbo-Visma) (all same time)
7. Esteban Chaves (Mitchelton-Scott)
8. Nairo Quintana (Team Arkea-Samsic)
9. Romain Bardet (AG2R la Mondiale)
10. Miguel Angel Lopez Moreno (Astana)

The way we were.

A breathtaking feat of engineering will start us off.

Christian Prudhomme, the race director, describe’s today’s stage thus:

In the areas of Aveyron and Tarn where one doesn’t quite know what “flat” means, the roads are never easy. Other than the hilly course, before visiting Castres, the plans of the sprinters’ teams could be troubled by the wind that can be very strong in the region.

Preamble

The Massif Central is a road less well trod than the Alps and the Pyrenees, in an area of France that is even less populated than the rest of L’Hexagone. Friday’s purportedly flat stage is one in which a hefty climb comes in the middle and it will be a battle for the sprinters’ teams to pull everything back together for a the finish. Just like on Thursday, there is a chance of a breakaway going clear. Adam Yates negotiated his first day in yellow with some comfort though with the help of the Ineos team he is set to join for next season. There is a sense that the GC contenders will wish to keep their powder dry ahead of a weekend traversing the Pyrenees but like the rest of the stages, aside from Wednesday’s 170km freewheel, this will not be easy.

Stage 7 is a relatively flat stage.
Stage 7 is a relatively flat stage. Photograph: Aditi Bhandari, Prasanta Kumar D/Reuters
Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Queer Eye star reveals he lost major film role to Stanley Tucci
‘Thanks for ruining my career,’ Carson Kressley joked
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s son Maddox drops ‘Pitt’ from name in credits of his mother’s new film
The 24 year-old worked as an assistant director on ‘Couture’
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Seth Meyers Called Out Ben Marshall Over How Often He's Shirtless On SNL, And He Had An A+ Response
Who is to blame?
Cinemablend
Cinemablend
Woman reveals how she manipulated algorithms in the 2000s to become a MySpace emo queen with 48,000 followers: ‘The birth of a marketing genius’
If you grew up during the peak of the 2000s internet, you probably remember “Emo Queens” with neon hair and dramatic side-swept bangs. They seemed to dominate every corner of Myspace even when calling yourself emo was a no-no. 
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
A genetic analysis reveals new details on ancient couplings between humans and Neanderthals
Ancient linkups may have happened more frequently between female humans and male Neanderthals, according to an new genetic analysis
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
LA girl wins the internet after admitting to her ‘pick me’ tales of using her friend’s Snapchat to ‘poll’ guys for validation: ‘You’re so brave’
We all have skeletons in our digital closets. But this Los Angeles woman is winning the internet for her bravery in airing out her humiliating “pick-me” teenage phase. 
The Mary Sue
The Mary Sue
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.
Download on the AppStore Get it on Google Play