Tour de France Stage 7: Wout Van Aert wins as race blown apart (+ video highlights)

Wout Van Aert of Jumbo-Visma has won an astonishing Stage 7 of the Tour de France in which Bora-Hansgrohe forced the pace for much of the day in a successful effort to get Peter Sagan back in the lead of the points classification before crosswinds split the field.

Mitchelton-Scott’s Adam Yates was safely in the front group and keeps the overall leader’s yellow jersey following the 168km stage from Millau to Lavaur ahead of a big weekend in the Pyrenees.

It's Van Aert's second stage win so far in this year's race, and the third of his career having won a similarly wind-affected stage into Albi last year before he was forced out of the race by a crash during the individual time trial.

Picking up points at the intermediate sprint and with Deceuninck-Quick Step’s Sam Bennett distanced as the early pace Bora-Hangrohe set saw some sprint rivals including Lotto-Soudal’s Caleb Ewan distanced, victory for Sagan would capped a perfect day for the team today.

It was not to be as he suffered a mechanical during the sprint, at did Deceuninck-Quick Step’s Julian Alaphilippe, who had stayed the right side of a spilt in the main field caused by crosswinds around 35km out, with Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates the main overall contender to miss the move.

"That's fucking cycling," Sagan said afterwards.

Reaction

Wout Van Aert after winning his second stage of this year's race

I am very proud of this victory. I am also proud of how we rode as a team today. It was a very fast stage because Bora immediately went full throttle on the first climb. After that, it never stopped.

At the end there was still a lot of chaos and it was very hectic because of the crosswinds. Everyone feared them. T

he plan was to get Primoz [Roglic] and Tom [Dumoulin] through the stage without damage and time loss. That worked out well. The team was very strong again.

I never expected such a mess and such a battle. Due to the fact that many sprinters were dropped and we were left in front with only a small group, I went for my own chance again.

The guys started the sprint quite early and I was able to go along in the slipstream. When Boasson Hagen accelerated, I went along and timed my sprint perfectly. It took a lot of energy, but it was worth it. This is really amazing.

Race leader Adam Yates

There were only a few critical moments where you had to be in position. The wind wasn’t crazy strong, but it was just kind of enough to create a few splits.

"But the guys looked after me perfectly, even in the final I ended up on my own just because they put me in position and used a lot of energy to keep me up there.

"The next two days should be pretty tough, I think today everyone was expecting to have an easier day before the two big mountain stages, but BORA-hansgrohe had other ideas and we rode pretty much full gas from start to finish. It was a hard day for everybody.

Peter Sagan, back in the green jersey

I'm disappointed [at missing the stage win] because we controlled all the race today and everything seem like it was very good, but in the end, I had bad luck in the final, and my chain dropped off.

I missed a lot of points today, but that's cycling. I'm very proud of all the guys because they did a very nice job; they pulled hard from the start until the crosswinds. In the end, we were in the front with Emanuel Buchmann, and everything was really nice … and that's fucking cycling.