Key events
153km to go: Samsic UK is a leading provider of trusted facilities management services working across a range of sectors, including healthcare, corporate and education.
Other trusted facilities management services are available.
154km to go: The Crédit Mutuel Arkéa group comprises Crédit Mutuel Bretagne, Crédit Mutuel du Sud-Ouest and nearly 40 specialised subsidiaries. With 4.9 million member-customers, Arkéa is a major player in banking and insurance in France.
Other banks and insurers are available.
“857km of climbing? Punchy,” emails Oliver. “How many of the climbs are HC and what time are they expected to roll in to the Sea of Tranquillity?”
Silly me! It is of course 857m. Thank you for pointing that out in stylish fashion.
157km to go: The Frenchman Guglielmi is 26, and was born in Chambery. He’s never won a race – GC or stage. If nothing else our lone escapee is going to bag plenty of TV time for Arkea-Samsic. Might be a good opportunity to find out who they are, and what they do.
158km to go: Guglielmi has resigned himself to his fate. Head down, hands planted on the handlebars, he’s built an advantage of 3min 32sec. Behind, the peloton has almost come to a standstill. Vingegaard rolls along at the back. He smiles, waves, and blows a kiss to the camera. A lovely day off for the peloton.
A break of four going, then one by one, three of them drifting back to the peloton, reminded me of being in the kitchen at some parties and gradually realising I was talking to myself about cycling.
— Edward Pickering (@EdwardPickering) July 7, 2023
160km to go: A one-man breakaway will mean a slower overall speed today. That will be music to the ears of the peloton, who are knackered after the Pyrenees and some flat-out racing there. It may not be such good news for the people watching on telly …
There is 857m of climbing in total today, says Rob Hatch on Eurosport. Flat as a pancake, more or less.
Up front, Guglielmi has 2min 40sec.
164km to go: Gary Naylor with some thoughts on Cavendish and his incredible brain:
So many top sports stars have that ability to recall a highly complex event like they’re watching a movie in slo-mo @LukeMcLaughlin.
To replay every point at which they could have done something different can’t be conducive to a good night’s sleep.
Different gravy though.
— Gary Naylor (@garynaylor999) July 7, 2023
165km to go: Something a bit odd happened with the neutralised start, too. Eurosport were on an advert break when the flag dropped. One minute, there was 3km to go in the neutralised section. The next minute, they were off and racing. Anyway, we’re off. Guglielmi is riding up front. He doesn’t look happy. The escape group went from four, to three, to two, and now one.
The last one-man break I can remember was by Jérôme Cousin, maybe two or three Tours ago? Not easy.
166km to go: This is a bit odd. Simon Guglielmi (Arkea-Samsic) is now on his own out front. He’s repeatedly on his radio, presumably asking his team if he can drop back, too. He’s not keen to stage a one-man breakaway … and who can blame him?
167km to go: There are three riders up front. Simon Guglielmi, Nelson Oliveira and Mathieu Burgeaudeau are in the lead. Jonas Abrahamsen was there but sat up. Scratch that, it’s now gone down from three to two … it looks like they might give up and drop back.
The flag drops!
And they’re off. Predictably there are attacks immediately with three or four riders up front ahead of the peloton on a long, straight road. They have 14sec at the moment.
On Eurosport, the on-bike reporter Philippe Gilbert says the wind in the area is steady, but not overly strong. He thinks it will be a tailwind rather than a crosswind for the most part.
The Pyrenees may be in the rearview mirror, but it’s not too late to read William Fotheringham’s piece about the huge tradition of bike racing in the Basque region:
Caleb Ewan of Lotto Dstny has a chat with Eurosport. He is asked about the point at 3km to go on today’s route, when the peloton will turn and head over a bridge. It’s being seen as a key point to be up front.
“You’ll see all the GC teams and sprint teams up there,” says Ewan. “After that it’s going to be pretty hard to move. That’s a real crucial point … I think the best thing for us will be to try to use the GC teams as much as possible … if we can use them and leave as many guys as possible for the last 3km then that will be perfect.
“I feel good. I think I got thr the mountains relatively easy. Definitely better than I was going last year, so that’s a big bonus I think.”
“Problem for Cav are his lead out team members,” emails Mike. “He clearly has no confidence in them, in the last bunch sprint finish he was leading the team to the front himself from 10km out. Shouldn’t be having to put in that much effort so far out.”
As you probably know, there were mixed emotions for Vingegaard on stage six, who moved into the yellow jersey, but lost the stage to Pogacar, and saw his GC lead over the Slovenian roughly halved. The tenacious Pogacar is 26sec behind in second place overall.
On Eurosport now, the pundits are remarking on the tactical mistakes that Jumbo-Visma made yesterday. Daniel Llloyd says the team should have changed the plan once they’d failed to drop Pogacar on the Tourmalet. Certainly, it was bizarre in a sense to see them effectively ride Pogacar into the position where he could launch a stage winning-attack.
It conjured up memories of 2020, when Jumbo-Visma arguably wasted a lot of energy in riding on the front needlessly for days on end, only to see Pogacar smash Primoz Roglic in that famous final time trial.
Green jersey-wise, Jasper Philipsen has 150pts and a very healthy 46-point lead at the top of the table. The Alpecin-Deceuninck sprinter leads Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), who has 104pts, and Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), with 92pts.
Here’s a shot of the Astana Qazaqstan Team fighting through the Pyrenees on the team’s official Twitter. Cav was certainly fighting on the climbs, anyway.
“If I had anything else left to cross for Cav I would be crossing it now,” emails Jeremy. “I am so nervous already and will be in bits if he’s in the mix at the point end of the stage – there will be tears in this house if he does it. He’s going to do it today isn’t he? Go on Cav!!!”
And finally, here’s Cavendish post-stage in 2010, speaking to journalists after snaffling another Tour stage victory, while sporting that now iconic HTC-Columbia kit.
Richard Williams’ stage report from that day is here:
Let’s rewind to 2010, the last time the Tour visited Bordeaux, when Cavendish won the stage and I happened to be in town as a fan.
I took this (bad) photo of the final sprint. Cavendish was so fast I failed to get him wholly in the shot. Look how much faster he was than everyone else!! Utter dominance.
More of the same later?
One of the many things that’s always been impressive about Cavendish is his ability to remember the tiny details of sprint finishes he has contested – thus collecting the kind of knowledge that has cumulatively built up to make him, surely, the most tactically brilliant sprinter that has ever graced a carbon bicycle. His meticulousness and preparation is also second to none.
In my mind he’s reminiscent of Ayrton Senna, who frequently astonished his pit team with a forensic ability to analyse laps, races, and details of his car and engine.
Tactically and strategically, and of course in terms of experience, Cavendish is the best sprinter in this race. The question lingers over whether he has the genuine pace to beat the likes of Philipsen in a straight-up sprint. He did clock the highest speed of all the fast men in one of the flat-stage finishes a few days ago, so that would strongly suggest that if he is correctly positioned, he does have the gas.
Jeremy Whittle’s report of yesterday’s thrilling stage six – Pogacar strikes back – can be found here:
If you like sport, July really is the month for you.
There is the Ashes:
There is Wimbledon:
And there’s the Tour de France, which can be found here.
Today’s stage does have a certain amount of potential to be uneventful, at least up until the flat-out approach to Bordeaux and the sprint finish.
With that in mind, you can email me or tweet @LukeMcLaughlin with any thoughts on the race.
As William Fotheringham has pointed out on Twitter, however, crosswinds may spice things up considerably. We may yet see another battle royale in the GC.
Guess it’s fair to say that in terms of Pog and Vingegaard taking chunks out of each other, first 6 days of the Tour didn’t disappoint. Let’s hope there’s no crosswind on the way to Bordeaux
— William Fotheringham (@willfoth) July 7, 2023
Preamble
Today will conclude the Tour de France’s first week, and what a week it’s been. Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar have rocked the cycling world to its foundations by actually trying to put some time into each other and win the Tour de France. Why is everyone so surprised? This is, after all, the age Bazball (Basqueball?) where tradition counts for nothing and all-out attack is the name of the game.
Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma team isolated Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) on Wednesday, and the reigning champion succeeding in distancing his rival and establishing a 53sec GC lead that prompted some to opine the overall race was effectively done. Not so fast: yesterday, Jumbo-Visma again rode to pile pressure on Pogacar as the peloton toiled over the Col du Tourmalet among other Pyrenean climbs. But in the end, all they achieved was setting up the Slovenian for a devastating, trademark attack on the final climb to Cauterets-Cambasque. Vingegaard had no answer and Pogacar almost halved his time deficit. The 2020 and 2021 champion now lurks 23sec behind his Danish rival and one of the classic GC duels now appears to be in store.
With a draining trip through the Pyrenees in their legs, then, the GC riders and the peloton in general will hope for a relatively relaxed time on the way to Bordeaux this afternoon. The headline, especially for British cycling fans, is that stage seven brings a fresh chance for the Manxman, Mark Cavendish, to win his 35th Tour stage and overtake the iconic Eddy Merckx. Surprisingly perhaps, the race has not visited Bordeaux since 2010, when Cavendish scored an emphatic victory for HTC-Columbia. At that time Cavendish enjoyed the support of one of the legendary lead-out trains but reading Richard Williams’ report, it was apparently more of a freelancing job for “Cav” on that occasion.
Things are different now and young, thrusting sprinters such as Jasper Philipsen are hoovering up stage wins that would surely have been Cavendish’s a few years ago. But the 38-year-old possesses the intelligence, experience and, importantly, the speed to beat the best in the world. Could Cavendish make history today and become the leading Tour stage winner? We are about to find out.
Stage start time: 12.30pm UK / 13.30 CET
