"I'm like 'whoa what is going on here?" - Lance Armstrong on chaotic Tour de France Femmes' Alps stage and chaos ahead of queen stage

Stage 8 of the Tour de France Femmes will likely be the decisive day of the race; however, on Stage 7, the riders had a proper introduction to the Alps in the stage to Chambéry. Whilst a few riders rode within their limits, we saw some interesting tactics, unexpected attacks, a surprise winner, and some daredevil descents. Lance Armstrong has commented on the stage.

"You touched on Kim Le Court when she... first of all, the stage was just, there was a lot going on. There were groups everywhere. Maeva Squiban goes from kilometre zero. She goes with 17 people that snatches up all the green points. There was no change in green jersey," Armstrong commented on The Move podcast. "There were climbs, the favourites look good, Kim Le Court gets dropped... She comes back like this was exciting, exciting. There's riders all over the road. It's hard to keep track of it at some points too".

"And so I was just listening and I'm, it's weird to be not necessarily watching, but listening. I'm like 'whoa what is going on here?' And it took me like 10 minutes to just do all the inventory of who is where. And it was incredible".

The race had some early gaps in Bretagne but because they were not too large, most of the main favourites in the race have kept their powder dry and not exposed themselves too much, perhap in a bit of a psychological war. Stage 7 featured the Col du Granier which could've seen some serious attacks on the climb, but the likes of Demi Vollering, Katarzyna Niewiadoma and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot stayed in the reduced GC group at the pace mostly of Pauliena Rooijakkers.

This lack of aggression however saw the riders failing to distance meaningfully the struggling Sarah Gigante who's been so far strong on the climbs but very modest everytime the road tilts down, and also saw the yellow jersey Kim Le Court soar back into the group.

"Kim Le Court just kind of, she rode a super tough race. She was distanced on that final climb. Personally I thought 'wow, that's it.' Your, your, your days of in yellow are done. But she rode a heck of a race and, and, and fought back and came back and kept the yellow jersey". This doesn't turn the rider from Mauritius into the woman to beat at the French race, but she is going into the penultimate stage still in the race lead.

"I don't think that necessarily bodes well for tomorrow but if you think about now we're talking about, and now I'm a little iffy on Anna van der Breggen, but if you think of [Katarzyna] Niewiadoma], Pauline [Ferrand-Prévot] and Demi Vollering, you didn't see any signs of suffering or any cracks there. They all look good".

The American believes there was a bit of a stand-off between the main favourites for the yellow jersey who decided not to take too many risks ahead of today's queen stage into the Col de la Madeleine. And this allowed for a second consecutive breakaway victory for the revelation of the race.

"We've all seen, I don't know, hundreds, if not thousands of attacks in the mountains, right? 99.99% of them are done a certain way. And that is from behind, you surprise somebody... She just went straight from the front out of that corner, looked back and was gone," he said of Maeva Squiban.

"She looks so good on a bike. We went, we had to go back and do some forensics on, on her overall. She lost six minutes in stage one, almost two minutes in stage two. It must have been caught up in some crashes. But if you, if you just watch her, the way she climbs, the way she pedals, you're like, how is, it feels like she could be in the front group. I'm super curious too on, on times of that final climb, just how her time compared".

Today we could see a direct comparison between the French rider and the other climbers in the race, on an ascent that will take well over an hour even for the best. "And of course we'll see, we'll see tomorrow. I mean, if you're her, right, you're riding the momentum of two stage ones in a row. She's clearly feeling good. She looks good".

Armstrong argues that not only can the final ascent make the difference, but the one starting off the day will also. "112 kilometres. 3,500 metres of climbing. So let's call that almost 11,000 feet. And look at the start. The first 13 kilometers, this is what I was alluding to... Everybody in the race tomorrow is going to be attacking from kilometre zero because you're going to have to. I mean, it's 13 kilometres right out of the gate".