Today's stage was all about the Puy de Dome making its triumphant spectacular return to the Tour de France after 35 years. After the long week of intense racing the stage split into two races inside the race. There was the race for the stage win involving several North American racers, and the yellow jersey race.
Route Description: The
seventh stage was from Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat to the Puy de Dome over a distance of 182.4 km. The stage was run thru the Massif Central region of rolling terrain that includes extinct volcanoes, like the Puy de Dome. The route first climbed to the Lac de Vassiiviere, known for having held a Tour de France time trial in the 80's, where the mid-stage sprint was held. The rest of the stage was over rolling terrain that included two category 4 climbs and a category 3 climb prior to the Puy de Dome. One key feature of the course today was the unrated climb prior to the descent into Clermont-Ferrand. In Clermont Ferrand the road started to climb towards the Puy de Dome. The finish line was at the top of the Puy de Dome where the last three kilometers are extremely steep, and would be without fans cheering the riders on.
Race Summary and Analysis: The stage started as most stages do with a breakaway forming that would be never seen by the Peloton. The breakaway that formed comprised 14 riders including Matteo Jorgenson of Movistar, Neilson Powless of EF Education First-EasyPost, and Michael Woods of Israel-PremiereTech. At the sprint point Jasper Philipsen would jump out of the peloton to grab the one remaining point for crossing in 15th place. The peloton would let the breakaway gain at first five minutes, and then ten minutes of a lead. By the mid point of the stage the breakaway had gotten a 15 minute lead on the peloton, which was not concerned with any of the riders in the breakaway due to their time deficit to the yellow jersey. Neilson Powless would make sure that he took the maximum points over the first three climbs in his bid for the polka dot jersey. With about 30 kilometers to go Matteo Jorgenson attacked the breakaway and managed to gain time on the rest of the group. A furious chase would start with various groups of riders attacking to try and bridge up to Jorgenson. Matej Mahoric and Mathieu Burgaudeau would break away from the rest of the pursuers. Several riders attempted to bridge up to Mahoric and Burgaudeau. Neilson Powless attacked the remaining pursuers right after one of the attacks had been caught. Powless was followed by David De La Cruz of Astana and their attack would stick. It would take a few kilometers for them to bridge up with Mahoric and Burgaudeau. The four riders would start to pull away from the remnants of the original breakaway. De La Cruz would eventually get dropped in the climb prior to the descent to Clermont-Ferrand. Jorgenson did the descent into the city and started the climb of the Puy de Dome with over a minute and a half lead on the first chase group containing Powless. He would eventually get about two minutes on Michael Woods. The two chase groups would start to shrink the gap to Jorgenson as they continued to climb up the Puy de Dome. The lower slopes were packed with an enthusiastic crowd of fans cheering the riders on. In the final five kilometers the fans were blocked from going up the road. This meant that the racers could hear the crickets and the birds chirping. The only people they would see on the side of the road are police officers and the odd television camera operator. Michael Woods attacked the group he was with once the crowds disappeared. He started to cut into the lead of the first chase group and Jorgenson. Powless could not keep the pace with Mahoric on the Puy de Dome slopes. Jorgenson still in the lead was slowing down and paying for his earlier efforts on the punishing final three kilometers of the climb. With about 1.5 kilometers to go Woods caught Mahoric who tried to keep pace with him. Unfortunately he could not keep up after Woods picked up his pace again. By this time his time gap to Jorgenson is approximately 30 seconds. Woods would catch up with an exhausted and out of gas Jorgenson with 500 meters to the line. Michael Woods dropped him to win the stage. Powless finished in sixth to score some more points in the King of the Mountain competition. If he continues to ride like today, he may be able to snatch the jersey from the top GC riders. Jorgenson's long distance attack nearly worked, but he simply ran out of gas at the moment where the pitch is its steepest. He could have waited till the Puy de Dome, but he would have probably been dropped by Woods. His attack actually forced the shake up that dropped the weaker and less gifted climbers from the front of the race.
As I mentioned in the intro the yellow jersey race was going to occur behind the race for the stage win. The Peloton arrived on the lower slopes of the final climb with over 14 minutes behind the breakaway. The Jumbo-Visma team started to set a pace that was dropping riders. Eventually the group reduced down to Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Jai Hindley, Carlos Rodriguez, and Tom Pidcock along with their helper teammates. Hindley, Rodriguez, and Pidcock would be dropped. Pogacar attacked once the ramps got steep to isolate he and Vingegaard. at about 1.1 km from the top Pogacar made the attack that gave him some separation from Vingegaard, Vingegaard rode as hard as he could to try and catch up. In the end Pogacar would gain eight seconds on Vingegaard at the line, but there were no time bonus that were also available. Pogacar has looked good in the explosive short climbing finishes, but Vingegaard has looked good on the longer steeper climbing sections of stages. This duel between these two cyclists will go on over the next two weeks.
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