Tim Merlier of the Soudal-Quick Step team won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a classic sprinter's finish on the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux.
Stage 7: A Sprint Finish After Mountain Battles
As the Tour headed away from the Pyrenees, through Gascony towards the Atlantic coast, a lull settled over a shell-shocked peloton as it came to terms with the demonstration of domination from Tadej Pogacar in Thursday's mountain stage to Gavarnie-Gèdre.
“What now?” was the question on most lips as the convoy gathered the morning after Pogacar's Tourmalet masterclass, which took him into a seemingly unassailable lead on perennial rival, Jonas Vingegaard, the winner of this year's Giro d'Italia.
Pogacar's Dominance Shifts Focus to Podium Places
The consensus is that, unless the defending champion crashes or gets ill, victory is already assured. It's a measure of his superiority that with only six stages of 21 raced so far, the conversation has already moved on to the fight for second and third place.
