SLOVENIA’S MATEJ MOHORIC won stage seven of the Tour de France on Friday as Mathieu van der Poel kept the yellow jersey after leading a breakaway on an epic 249km run from Vierzon to Le Creusot.
Defending champion Tadej Pogacar limited his losses while Ineos’s best-placed rider Richard Carapaz wasted energy with a doomed late breakaway before being caught on the line.
“It hasn’t sunk in,” said a visibly thrilled Mohoric. “This completes my set as I won at the Giro and the Vuelta,” he said.
“But this is something else, this is the biggest race in the world.”
Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic was the big loser of the day and was dropped with 15km to go. The 2020 runner-up fell badly on stage three and now appears to be out of the running after losing 3min 50sec on Roglic and Carapaz.
With its hills, forests and sheer length, stage seven had a whiff of an Ardennes one-day classic, and Belgium’s Wout Van Aert and Van der Poel of the Netherlands were key protagonists in forcing a hesitant peloton into a dramatic charge for the line.
Ireland’s Dan Martin finished 66th on today’s stage.
