Tour de France 2026 Stage 7 Highlights

A nice relaxed feeling in the peloton, in the middle of it, as riders just make their way to Bordeaux, knowing that the racing over the weekend will become a little bit more difficult than today. Maybe more opportunities for breakaways over the coming days of racing. Baptiste Weisstraufer, who we got well known over his breakaway a couple of days ago, happy to be in this breakaway yet again. That one minute and 14 seconds with Oltruba. This is a bit of a drag race between these two. Who's going to take it? Oltruba wants to sprint. They're going to fight it out here. Oltruba and Weisstraufer go for the intermediate sprint. Weisstraufer trying to challenge on the outside. It's very, very close between these two riders. Weisstraufer takes the maximum points. Gemay gets ready on the wheel of Pedersen. Quinn Simmons moves up on the left-hand side. Tim Merlier is there, but Cantor is on the wheel. Pedersen decides he's going to go very early. Cantor needs to get ready. Pedersen kicks. Cantor kicks on the right-hand side. Mads Pedersen goes very early there. He got good instructions from the team car. Pedersen takes the points. Change the bus just for the top. Well, there goes an attack on the left. Or is it just moving up? Moving up, but I don't know. That wasn't good. Being a bit sneaky there. That was not good. And he's shouting at them as well. Yeah. That needs to be looked at. That was not right. No, no, no, no. There's one thing closing the road. There's one thing having a dangerous move like Paris-Roubaix just did there. Certainly, as we get an attack. Baptiste Weisstraufer goes on the move, trying now to break the wheel of Ortruba. He's trying now to stay away. Looks over his shoulder and sees the peloton in the background. 20 kilometers of racing to go. At this point, he's just like, look, I'm sorry. Thanks, mate, but the peloton's there. Fist bump from both of them. End of the breakaway. Everybody is ready in Bordeaux. There's a massive crowd here. And here we go. Another attack. Skarsgård decides to attack again. Asgreen gets immediately onto his wheel. Coming with him. And it looks like Uno-X do not want this to be a sprint in any way whatsoever. They've been mixing it up all day today. Just annoying the sprinter's teams. And so that quick step, really well organized there in the five riders. I see a two-door coming up to the front here on the left. He's looking behind. Just the position is a sprinter. There they are a little bit further back. Cofidis move up. They went with Milan-Fretted the other day, number 165. We'll see if they do the same today. But they've got the entire Cofidis team on the left-hand side of that roundabout. The right-hand side was an awful lot quicker though. So was this time. It's going to be a little bit narrow in a second. Ernst Reichardt is up there as well. Philipsen. And that's where it happened. You had to really squeeze from two lanes down into one. But everybody's safely through at the front of the race. Just on the right-hand side on the wheel of Philipsen. Moving up. One kilometre to go. Case Bowl now starts the sprint. On the wheel, Matteo Trentin involved in the mix. 900 metres of racing to go. In the blue are Alpecin-Premier Tech looking to try and give Jasper Philipsen another win into Bordeaux. Gaviria moves up on the right-hand side in the green and white. Bumps Merlier out the way. Gaviria wants to give Carural a massive victory. He's on the wheel of Jasper Philipsen. Gemay is there. Merlier is there. Varenschgold is there. 64k an hour. 250 metres to go. Philipsen leaves it late. Gaviria moves. Gaviria bumping Jasper Philipsen on the way. Valsor and Varenschgold. Tim Merlier. Big sprint of Tim Merlier. Is it going to be a win for Merlier? Tim Merlier wins the stage. Philipsen trying to go on the right-hand side but also the road goes to the right so it's not that he's trying to cut the line there and actually when Gaviria leans around him but look at Merlier going all the way out around Varenschgold. Brilliant sprint by the rider from UNO-X Mobility. He was close, wasn't he? Merlier from Varenschgold, from Gemay, from Kanta. And he's a big guy trying to make himself as low as possible. See the few times that I won, I never even thought about celebration. I just put my hand in the air with joy. Sprinters have it all planned out. They all have their senior to finish. Jasper Stuyven who did a great job to keep it in position up to about 300 metres to go.