Discussion Tour de France Stage 7 | A bitter win for Pogacar? Are Visma's tactics effective?

Stage 7 of the Tour de France featured another hilly day, with a final ascent to the Mûr-de-Bretagne, the climb where Mathieu van der Poel obtained an impressive win back in 2021, in a stage where Pogacar came in second position. Not much has changed since then, as the two stars were coming as the main favourites again. The Dutchman was looking to defend his yellow jersey, as only one second distanced him from the World Champion Pogacar.

The day began at a rapid pace, marking one of the fastest start times in recent memory, as the riders achieved an average speed of 53.7 km/h during the first hour of competition. The fight for the breakaway was intense, with teams like Visma | Lease a Bike consistently launching attacks to secure a spot in the front group.

However, just 5 riders managed to make it to the breakaway, those being Ewen Costiou, Iván García Cortina, Marco Haller, Alex Baudin, and Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas.

The peloton controlled the gap very well and didn’t let the front group obtain a lead of over 2 minutes. Alpecin and UAE were the two teams pulling in the peloton during the whole stage.

Van der Poel was dropped on the final climb to the Mûr, unable to follow UAE’s fierce tempo, losing the yellow jersey to Pogacar, the winner of a head-to-head sprint against Vingegaard.

The sad news of the day was a hard crash in the peloton happening just 6 km from the finish line. Joao Almeida, Enric Mas, Santiago Buitrago, and Jack Haig were among the riders affected.

Once the stage finished, we asked some of our writers to share their thoughts and main takeaways about what happened today.

It was overall a day in which what was expected to happen, happened. There was quite an interesting breakaway fight actually which I didn't expect to see as much, but ultimately, UAE was completely focused on not letting it go and just chasing all day long to get the stage win. It made sense for the team not to push, not chase the yellow jersey and so avoid chasing duties (and podium ceremonies/interviews) that in the long term can be costly.

But there was no such reasoning. Despite giving away the yellow jersey yesterday they burned themselves today all day long to chase the breakaway, have seen João Almeida crash and fall out of GC contention... So they won the stage but they don't actually need it, neither did they need the 4 seconds gained on Jonas Vingegaard.

I could call the end of the stage a 'nothing burger'. It was quite interesting to see Visma pace very hard in the 1st climb up the Mur-de-Bretagne, and then UAE enter the final ascent with a gruelling pace - at least we didn't have just a regular leadout for Pogacar all the way to the finish - but it was obvious that Pogacar would sprint to victory ahead of Vingegaard; and it also looked quite obvious from early in the penultimate climb that van der Poel would crack. Elsewhere, all was as expected.

Tadej Pogacar was expected to win and regain the yellow jersey and he did. The worst news for him and UAE Team Emirates XRG was the crash of João Almeida at the finish.

The finish was indeed too hard for Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Vingegaard was again the one who held off Pogacar the most but he doesn't have that kind of speed in finishes like that. Nevertheless, great attitude of the Dane and Visma - Lease a Bike, and very good performance also by Remco Evenepoel.

As for the Spaniards and Movistar Team, Enric Mas was involved in the crash, but luckily he got up very quickly and only lost 50 seconds at the finish. On the contrary, Colombian Santiago Buitrago, who has been one of the worst losers and says goodbye to any dream of achieving a great result in the final general classification.

Well, about the profile itself. I keep hating this stages with plenty of flat sections until the first uphill sections. Quite hard to make a breakaway, and i'm surprised today we actually had one. Apart from that I think race went as expected with the main group fighting for the win at the finish.

There is an elephant in the room though, which is the crash. João Almeida was considered to be a serious podium contender but now it seems his hopes faded with the crash, hard to accept but hopefully he'll be able to continue the race and still be helpfull to his team leader.

This does change the complexity of the race, and even more if he eventually DNS's tomorrow. Visma will have the tendency to gain the numbers advantage over Emirates as João was the ace on Pogacar's sleeve. Losing João could definitely be a game changing moment on the race.

Considering the clear interest Pogacar showed in avoiding wearing any jersey leader these past days, it was honestly quite surprising to see UAE controlling the race for him. He didn’t have the need to do that, but for some reason, the team decided to go for it.

Once it was clear UAE wanted the victory, the final outcome was very predictable. Pogacar was the huge favourite in a finish like that and he delivered with ease. It was a good sign seeing Vingegaard holding to his wheel, even if he was never close to overcoming Tadej. His team tried something today once again, with Simon Yates pacing hard in the first pass to the Mûr. Visma’s tactics have been refreshing, they have been showing a much more offensive mentality compared to the previous years.

The breakaway formation was particularly interesting. We saw Victor Campenaerts and Wout van Aert actively pushing to be part of it, but UAE was clearly showing no intention to let any of them escape. Yesterday, it was Simon Yates the one to be in the breakaway, and we even saw Jorgenson trying to attack at the beginning of the stage. They know they need a different approach if they want to have a chance, especially because Pogacar looks completely untouchable, and I believe they are making the right decision.

Almeida’s crash will have a huge impact on the race, even if he doesn’t end up abandoning. UAE and Visma started the Tour with a very similar team potential, so losing the Portuguese should lean the balance in favour of Visma as a team. Almeida is Pogacar’s strongest domestique in the mountains. We saw it on stage 4, where he closed all the gaps after Evenepoel’s attack.

The first week of the race hasn’t featured any truly mountainous stages. But once the real climbs arrive, UAE could find themselves short-handed. João Almeida has been crucial so far, and there doesn’t seem to be another teammate capable of stepping up in the same way. Adam Yates doesn’t appear to be at his best, which could put Visma in a stronger position. With both Jorgenson and Vingegaard in good shape, they might have a tactical advantage when the high mountains come into play. Everyone remembers how Vingegaard’s first Tour was won, so Visma should aim to repeat that tactic; they already know how to execute it.

The Bora duo keeps showing they are not in top shape yet. I didn’t expect Roglic to be at Pogacar's or Vingegaard’s level, but I definitely expected more from him during the first week of the race, as the high mountains have not come yet.

I am particularly disappointed at Roglic for one reason: these are the kind of stages that have typically suited him the best. He has always been so good at this sort of explosive, short climbs. I am sure if the 2020 Tour de France had had this profile, he wouldn’t have lost that Tour in the last stage to Pogacar. But yes, these are all speculations.

Finally, if you had asked me a couple of weeks ago, Kévin Vauquelin and Oscar Onley were not two of the riders I was expecting to see that high in the leaderboard at this point in the race. Great job by both of them, they are showing us that their performance at the Tour de Suisse was not just luck.