2020 Tour de France: Stage 7 Results

Stage 7 of the 2020 Tour de France saw Wout Van Aert notching his second win of the race and the third stage win for his Jumbo-Visma squad.

Van Aert outsprinted Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT) and Bryan Coquard (B&B) in Lavaur after a fierce battle that deprived the top sprinters of another opportunity. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) retained the yellow jersey.

Polka dot jersey holder Benoît Cosnefroy of the AG2R LA MONDIALE team attacked from the gun to add to his KOM points on the côte de Luzençon, located just 9km after the start. Lilian Calmejane and Michael Schär both made attempts to bridge the  gap but had little success.

Peter Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe raised the pressure early in the stage to try and gap some of his sprint competition. The strategy was somewhat successful as Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Elia Viviani (Cofidis), Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT) and Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) got dropped early. The strategy also put some distance between Sagan and green jersey holder Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quick Step) who found himself in a chasing group.

Bora-Hansgrohe caught Cosnefroy just before the summit of the first climb but allowed the Frenchman to take 2 KOM points. With Bennett gapped, it was Matteo Trentin (CCC) taking the first sprint points ahead of Sagan. Previous stage winners Alexander Kristoff and Caleb Ewan were much further behind along with Italian top sprinters Elia Viviani and Giacomo Nizzolo.

Thomas De Gendt’s Lotto-Soudal team gave him a pass for the day and he rode away from the peloton with 95km to go. he enjoyed 60km of racing off the front before the Bora-Hansgrohe, B&B Hotels-Vital Concept and Ineos-Grenadier brought the peloton back together with 35km to go. The acceleration pushed two former Team Sky riders, Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo) and Mikel Landa (Bahrain-McLaren) off the back. White jersey holder Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) was another victim of the acceleration.

The pace remained high till the end with Groupama-FDJ, Astana and Jumbo-Visma taking over from Ineos-Grenadier at the head of the peloton. Van Aert won the sprint of 40 riders while hot favourite Sagan couldn’t do better than thirteenth.

“We were expecting an easy day today but Bora had other ideas. We rode full gas from start to finish, it was a hard day for everybody,” said race leader Yates.

“I wasn’t too anxious really, just a few moments where you had to be in position because of the wind. It was not too crazy but enough to split the bunch, so you had to be in position.”

Nonetheless, BORA’s strategy to distance the sprint competition paid off, as Sagan moved back into the green jersey lead. He leads Bennett by nine points and Van Aert by 32, but the Belgian said he had no interest in the green jersey.

“The important thing is to take all the points that you can from the start but it costs a lot of energy and it’s just not possible to do my work for the team and focus on the intermediate sprints and bunch sprints,” said Van Aert.

Stage 7 Brief Results:

1. Wout van Aert (Team Jumbo-Visma) at 03h32’03”
2. Edvald Boasson Hagen (NTT Pro Cycling) s.t.
3. Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels – Vital Concept) s.t.
4. Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) s.t.
5. Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) s.t.

General Classification After Stage 7:

1. Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott-SCOTT)
2. Primoz Roglic (Team Jumbo-Visma) at 3″
3. Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) at 9″
4. Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers) at 13″
5. Tom Dumoulin (Team Jumbo-Visma) s.t.

Sprint Competition:

1. Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe) 138 PTS
2. Sam Bennett (Deceuninck – Quick-Step) 129 PTS
3. Wout Van Aert (Team Jumbo-Visma) 106 PTS