Welcome back to the 2022 Paris - Nice! After yesterday's Queen stage, the riders won't be able to really relax today, as stage 7 is the longest one of the entire race! Almost 200 kilometers are to be covered today, most of them in rollercoaster-style - it's a steady up and down.
The race kicks off in Manosque, a commune with slightly more than 20k inhabitants. Its pear-shaped historic center is quite characteristic, and the old city gates - or their ruins - are one of the major sights. However, the riders will only use one of them to leave the venue.
However, despite some pretty sharp hills, we don't have any categorized climbs until after the first intermediate sprint in Flayosc, after 75km. But then follow the 60 most important kilometers for the KoM hunters, with a total of 44 points available - given that the current leader has 42, this is still anyone's jersey to win!
But without any doubt, today's main obstacle is the Col du Ferrier, culminating after 144 kilometers, and rewarding the first on top with 1st category points. However, the climb is actually divided into two sections - and the first rider after section one, the Côte de Cabris (133km), gets the same amount of points as well! So if one rider is really strong and can leave the others behind, he can score 32 KoM points within just a couple of kilometers!
And those are the final KoM sprints of the tour - with no points being awarded tomorrow, we'll know our King of the Mountains tonight. Still, this is not the end of the stage; after another intermediate sprint in Tourrettes-sur-Loup (178km) and a steep descent, the riders reach the easiest part of today's course, the flat run-in to Nice!
Nice doesn't need a lot of introduction - home to more than 300,000 people, it's situated on the Côte d'Azur. It's got a long history, with the Romans writing a major part of it. The ruins of the public baths are one of many witnesses of that era. But today and tomorrow, it's cycling that reigns in Nice - and we'll soon see who takes today's winner crown!
The bookies think that the stage is too hard for the sprinters, as none of them makes it to their Top10 list. Instead, they favor GC leader Formolo and runner-up Lecuisinier, alongside Bernal. Guerreiro, Barguil and Roglic are next, with Olivier, Dombrowski, Kirsch and Meintjes rounding off the list. Besides Guerreiro, those are all GC riders - and not even top puncheur Prevar makes it to the Top10 according to them!
However, with yesterday's tough final climb still in their legs, many riders might want to take it easy - today should be the best chance for a breakaway success! We'll see - let's get the race started!
As we're finally heading to Nice, we have the worst day of the week so far. No sun at all - but yeah, after all it's February, so we have to be glad there's no snow. Or maybe ther will be on the Cat. 1 climbs? Let's find out!
The first attack is launched by the KoM leader's team - but it's Narvaez' teammate Yechezkel who rides away! Georgian NC Nareklishvili chases him down, closely followed by Mager and Ringheim.
The next foursome follows, with Stojnic, Muhindo, Kamp and Bernard. The last one is the most interesting name actually, as the Frenchman already has a KoM points tally of 22 - only 20 less than the leader!
Neuman is 2nd in the KoM standings - but he doesn't attack himself, he rather follows Narvaez' example and sends a teammate up front. Hosek is leading the next wave of attacks, with M. Mugisha and Bovenhuis following.
Ah, Narvaez probably thinks that Bernard's move is too dangerous for him to keep chilling in the pack! He follows Rachid's attack, taking with him S. Mugisha - indeed, that's both of them in action!
However, Rickaert neutralizes this last attack! This probably means that we can expect an Isostar attack soon?!?
We don't know what their tactics is, but no, we get no more attacks. In the meantime, an 11-rider group has formed up front - and with 3 minutes advantage already, we can pretty safely claim that this is our breakaway of the day! Here are their names again:
Ringheim
Yechezkel
Mager
Bovenhuis
M. Mugisha
Bernard
Muhindo
Stojnic
Hosek
Nareklishvili
Kamp
Bernard is not only the one of them already having some KoM points - he also is the strongest climber of the group! Hosek as the 2nd best climber will surely try to steal as many points as possible, to make sure teammate Neuman keeps his 2nd place in the KoM standings - or even try to win the jersey himself? Yechezkel should have the same task, trying to defend Narvaez' KoM shirt - but he can't climb. At all. Wrong rider choice by the team!
Mager is the strongest puncheur of the group, while being very solid on longer climbs as well. Maybe a secret favorite for the KoM classification? Kamp and M. Mugisha are other punchy riders we want to keep an eye on, especially the former with his good acceleration might have a shot at quite some points, too. Bovenhuis is the last one who's decent on shorter climbs, but he'll suffer a lot on the long ascents.
Ringheim, Muhindo, Stojnic and Nareklishvili are basically here to gain some experience, none of them being suited to this kind of stage.
So quite some good uphill riders in the group; if they make it to the finish line, we could see a great fight among them!
In the peloton, quite some teams are sharing the workload. We have Mraouni, Kalf, Kortsidakis, Riabushenko, Misbah, Rickaert and Rodenberg taking turns - and that's a very interesting mixture!
While we could argue that most teams are working for their climbers/puncheurs, this is clearly not the case for ELCO - ABEA and Isostar - they seem to put much more faith in their sprinters than the bookies did!
And then we have most other teams - ISA - Hexacta, Huski, Team Popo4Ever and De Stijl Cycling - who have a GC rider AND a sprinter, so they could play either card depending on how the race goes. While that's good for them, it's definitely not good news for the breakaway that even the pure sprinter teams are contributing to the chase here!
Not much happened on the last 50km, so we directly jump to the first intermediate sprint. M. Mugisha takes maximum points, and while 2nd clearly goes to Yechezkel, 3rd place is very close. We get the following result:
1. M. Mugisha - 6 (6)
2. Yechezkel - 4 (4)
3. Bernard - 2 (6)
The pack is 3 minutes down, with the gap having previously reached a maximum of 4 minutes. Interestingly, only Rickaert, Mraouni and Kortsidakis are chasing - the sprinter teams apparently want to reduce the gap as much as possible, so the pack doesn't need to climb too fast and their sprinters could keep up. At least that's one theory...
The escapees hit the foot of the Côte des Tuilières ascent soon after. The peloton has reduced the breakaway's advantage to less than 3 minutes by now.
Ringheim isn't really a good puncheur, but the pace was rather slow throughout the climb, so his sprinter capabilities were pretty handy to win the first KoM sprint of the day!
This means that Bernard is now tied for 3rd with Nych in the KoM standings - and is now the only rider from the breakaway who could still dethrone Narvaez!
We still have "gruppo compatto" in the pack, no rider lost yet. However, the pace set by Kortsidakis, Rickaert and Mraouni is horrendous, as the gap is down to just 2'20" now!
Should there even be some hope for the KoM leaders to bridge the gap and score some points?
The escapees are now tackling the long two-stage climb, with the first part leading up to Côte de Cabris. The steepest slopes are the first ones; we'll see if there are already some weaker climbers dropping there.
Their advantage on the peloton has now stabilized around 2'20", and if it's the sprinter teams continuing to set the pace, the breakaway could extend that gap again.
Indeed, we still have the same riders leading the pack. But we can also see most of the GC favorites in the first positions now; what are their plans for today?
Well, nothing happens until the final meters of the climb. Hosek then manages to narrowly fend off Mager for maximum points, while Bernard gets really close to the virtual KoM lead:
Two points are missing for Bernard to tie Narvaez for the KoM lead, so the latter really has to hope for the pack to set a horrendous pace on the second part of the climb!
By the way, the first rider to be dropped from the breakaway is Kamp - he actually did quite some work while his teammate was saving energy, not sure if they set the right priorities there.
The peloton is accelerating over the top, but they lost about 50" on this climb, making the gap jump up to 3'08" again! Bad news for Narvaez...
The remaining 10 escapees tackle the final categorized climb of the race soon after, with the Col du Ferrier also having its steepest slopes in the first third of the ascent. The peloton has reduced the deficit to 2'43", let's see if the GC riders now step into action and actually bring back the escapees!
Not much happens in the first kilometers, except for the pace being too high now for Yechezkel to follow. His team's strategy definitely remains mysterious today!
Bovenhuis and Muhindo are dropped soon after, reducing the leading group count to 7 - remember, KoM points are awarded to the Top7 at the summit...
And with Stojnic dropped now, Bernard can be sure to take at least 4 points - which will be enough to make him the exclusive leader, and hence winner, in the KoM standings!
But the Frenchman doesn't content himself by doing just the minimum, so he attacks to at least win one of the four KoM sprints today! Only Mager and Hosek are able to keep up for now.
However, it wasn't to be. Like on the previous climb, it's Hosek beating him for maximum points, but Bernard clearly did enough today by taking 3 times 2nd and once 3rd, being the only rider to score in all sprints!
This means that Bernard wins the KoM jersey by a 10-point margin over Narvaez, congratulations! Hosek moves up to 4th, just 4 points short of his teammate Neuman - they might still regret their rider choice for today's breakaway, though.
Bovenhuis and Muhindo are caught right before the KoM line, and given that it's Osorio setting the pace now, we can imagine that the peloton's speed has gone up on this climb!
It probably has only on the last part of the ascent, though, as they only gained 4" since the previous KoM sprint.
However, the climb wasn't over at the KoM line; instead, we had an ascending false flat, interrupted in the middle by a short downhill. And that section made it clear that the remaining energy is pretty inequitably divided between the pack and the breakaway!
As the peloton dives into the fog, their deficit is down to 1'56" - and we still have more than 60km to go!
Furthermore, quite some damage was done in the pack, given that most sprinters couldn't keep up! We're missing Lo Cicero, Moser, Abdul Halil, Einhorn, Stallaert, Swift and Kemboi!
On the other hand, all GC riders and the three top sprinters Gaviria, Coquard and Ewan are still there - their teams might actually have found a winning strategy here with their day-long chasing!
The long downhill's over, now we're on a gentle hill leading to the final intermediate sprint. The teams of the puncheurs are gone, now it's pretty clear who will be the favorites for today's stage win!
And the peloton can already see all of the remaining escapees up front! Hosek has a 26" gap to Bernard, Mager and Nareklishvili, with Ringheim and M. Mugisha another 23" back. The pack is 1'36" off the race lead with 46km to the finish.
Hosek has given up on his solo adventure, letting the chasing trio catch him. This quartet is likely to get the sprint points in Tourrettes-sur-Loup in 5km, but it doesn't look great for them to go any further.
The pack has clawed back another 20 seconds, trailing by 1'14" now. Ringheim has left behind M. Mugisha, who is about to be caught by the peloton.
No sprint for the points, the escapees just want to squeeze out every second they can to try to realize the (almost) impossible!
The pack is still 1'12" behind, so no more time loss on the previous two kilometers for the breakaway! However, there are still 40km to go...
The well-known games among the escapees already start with 35km to go - not a good idea if they want to hold onto their tiny chance for a stage win...
Ringheim is caught as well now, as Sendeku is leading the peloton on the last couple of downhill meters. The pack's deficit is down to 53", 30 kilometers are left.
Split alert! Isostar, ELCO - ABEA and ISA - Hexacta are setting a horrendous pace, and many riders haven't been attentive! Their lead sprinters are obviously there, as are Carthy, Morton, Lecuisinier, Chiarello, Meintjes and yellow jersey Formolo - but many GC riders are missing!
However, Zwiehoff brings it all back together with a huge effort. Phew!
The escapees clearly won't surrender that easily, as they still hold onto a 46" advantage with 20km to go! In each case, it will be the longest lasting break of the race - not only in terms of distance covered, but also in terms of distance to finish!
Only 10 kilometers left, and they're still leading! However, it's unlikely that this 20" gap will be enough - you never know, though!
Right now, it's surprisingly Roglic leading the pack, ahead of Sosa - does the youngster have some crazy plans for the final kilometers?
Two kilometers later, it's game over for the breakaway. They did a great job - and for Bernard it was definitely worth every drop of sweat!
It's still King Power setting the pace - surprisingly with Hsu in 2nd position already!
Roglic still leads under the 5km banner - and the rest of the pack is quite a big mess! No visible organization of sprint trains whatsoever, let's see what that looks like two kilometers later...
Aaah, we just had to ask for it. Isostar have built up their famous sprint train - however, with Rickaert having done a lot of work earlier in the stage, the train is now Sweeny - Peak - Gaviria.
Van der Kooij and Hsu are well placed, while Coquard and Ewan are quite a bit further back - and are all alone! On the other hand, Team Popo4Ever have a grouped shot, including both Riabushenko and Aniolkowski.
Sosa alert! Everyone expected him to do something, but he still seems to have surprised everyone, getting a small gap with 2km to go! Gaviria has to leave his tired leadouts behind, trying to catch up with his fellow countryman, while Coquard and Ewan are set for a very long sprint if they want to compete for the win today!
The two Colombians have a nice gap now, and Gaviria is in a fantastic position for getting another stage win! Ewan has now taken the lead in the pack, followed by Coquard and Van der Kooij. Hsu has lost the latter's wheel and is trying to get back, while Lecuisinier is looking strong as well and might even get some more sprint points!
Ewan looks to be closing the gap while Sosa and Gaviria have already reached the Flamme Rouge! Coquard already looks to be sitting up, while Van der Kooij is somewhat stuck behind Peak. Hsu is back in his wheel, though.
All in all, it's a big mess, with sprinters being intermingled with GC riders, puncheurs and domestiques!
OK, the picture gets clearer at least concerning the front positions. Ewan has indeed caught up with Sosa and Gaviria, with the latter leaving the U25 leader's slipstream. And Coquard has found some motivation and energy again, competing for his 3rd stage win!
Gaviria has taken the lead with 500m to go, while Sosa looks to be out of it! Ewan and Coquard are moving fastest right now - and finally, on day number 7, we have the fight between the Top3 sprinters we actually expected on other stages!
300m to the line - and it's still Gaviria leading, but with a really small margin now!
Sosa is caught by the big group, where Van der Kooij looks really strong ahead of Hsu - and Lecuisinier is delivering a great sprint, too!
Only 200 meters left, and Gaviria still has that tiny advantage over Ewan! Coquard is still 3rd but could win this with a late surge as well!
Gaviria seems to be fading as the line is right in front of them, with Ewan now being slightly in the lead! Coquard looks great to take 2nd - who's got the most energy left?
It's Caleb Ewan! The Australian takes the win after having finished 3rd, 3rd and 4th on the sprint stages - meaning all three top sprinters have at least one stage win to their name in the 2022 Paris - Nice!
World Champion Fernando Gaviria is awarded 2nd place by the officials - it was hard to see, but the call is probably right. Bryan Coquard has to settle for his worst sprint result in this race, being the only one of them standing on the stage podium 4 times now! What a fantastic consistency!
Bas Van der Kooij had a good finish and is "best of the rest" today! Behind him, Hsuan Ping Hsu narrowly edges out Aliaksandr Riabushenko, while Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier sprints to 7th place! Youngster Andrea Bagioli delivers a great result getting 8th place, with Ruben Guerreiro and Louis Meintjes rounding off the Top10.
In terms of GC riders, we didn't have any important casualties today, with mostly sprinters and domestiques being gapped. However, many people - and especially the bookmakers - will be surprised that we actually just saw a fight of the three top sprinters for the stage win on a hilly-rated stage including two category 1 climbs!
After having missed out on the win on the three flat stages, Caleb Ewan took the last opportunity to get one - although probably not many thought he'd make it over the mountains up front today! He didn't get nervous when he was quite far behind with 2km to go, and he timed his sprint to perfection to get this stage win. Congratulations!
Fernando Gaviria is today's runner-up, and he'll probably have mixed feelings about it. He was in a great position when following Sosa's late attack and getting a gap, but then probably launched his sprint a tad late. Or maybe just in time, as he'd have badly cracked otherwise?
Bryan Coquard, just like Ewan, wasn't in a great position with 2km to go, and actually almost started sprinting then. Getting 3rd place might be disappointing, but it's still a great achievement - 4 podium spots in 7 stages is a fantastic outcome!
Davide Formolo never was in danger of losing his leader jersey today; the toughest climbs were just too far away from the finish line for an attack. So he's still on top of the GC, leading with a 29" gap to Pierre-Henri Lecuisinier, who will be eager to strike back in tomorrow's closing MTT! Louis Meintjes is 3rd with a 33" deficit.
Despite getting his worst sprint result today, Bryan Coquard has all but locked up the green jersey by taking 3rd place! In fact, only Caleb Ewan - runner up with a 19 points gap - still has theoretical chances of overtaking him. But we all know that this won't happen - not in this life. Fernando Gaviria is 3rd, but definitely is in danger of being overtaken by some GC riders.
Congratulations to Julien Bernard for winning the KoM jersey! He chose the right stages for this undertaking, attacking both yesterday and today, and picking up a total of 52 points! Runner-up and previous jersey wearer Jhonatan Narvaez tried to attack today as well, but was denied - and finishes 10 points down. Dominik Neuman ends up 3rd with 38 points.
Ivan Sosa definitely is the most active rider in this race, even trying to win today's stage with a late attack after having been very aggressive in the mountains already. For now, that's worth the white jersey - and he has a nice 1'27" gap to Egan Bernal. With the latter being a better climber and much stronger TTer, let's see if we still get some tension for the U25 win tomorrow!
What will surely be tense is the fight for 3rd, as Petr Rikunov has a tiny 4" lead over Joao Almeida. Both won't be able to compete for the first two positions, so only one of them can take that podium spot!
And last but not least, Team Popo4Ever are still leading the team standings - and it's hard to see any other team attacking them tomorrow. They have a 3'13" gap to cycleYorkshire, while Gazelle are already 4'04" down.
So, now you know everything you need about today's stage, and a lot already about the GC situation going into tomorrow's closing MTT. See you then for the great finale!
Paris - Nice 
