Sagan and Cavendish, first in action
All 198 participants of the 103rd Tour de France started stage 7, a first time in the history that no abandon was recorded in the first six stages. Twelve riders rode away from the peloton in the first kilometers of racing after leaving L'Isle-Jourdain: Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), Jarlinson Pantano (IAM Cycling), Ramunas Navardauskas (Cannondale-Drapac), Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data), Jérémy Roy (FDJ), Cesare Benedetti (Bora-Argon 18), Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida), Nicolas Edet and Geoffrey Soupe (Cofidis), Chris Anker Sørensen (Fortuneo-Vital Concept). Sagan and Cavendish obviously had in mind to contest the intermediate sprint located with only 25.5km to go just before the ascent to col d'Aspin but Belgian teams Etixx-Quick Step and Lotto-Soudal successively chased hard to bring them back. The bunch was packed again at km 43.
29 riders in the lead
Attacks kept going on. Fabian Cancellara (Trek-Segafredo) initiated a decisive one at km 46. Sagan didn't manage to make it across. The world champion was highly marked. Several offensives led to the formation of the 29-man leading group including the yellow jersey holder at km 53: Vassil Kiryienka (Sky), G. Izagirre (Movistar), Vincenzo Nibali and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Jan Bakelants and Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-La Mondiale), Paul Martens (LottoNL-Jumbo), Cancellara and Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo), Oliver Naesen (IAMCycling), Matti Breschel, Alex Howes and Sebastian Langeveld (Cannondale-Drapac), Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data), Simon Geschke (Giant-Alpecin), Paul Voss (Bora-Argon 18), Kristijan Durasek and Tsgabu Grmay (Lampre-Merida), Angel Vicioso (Katusha), Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto-Soudal), Sylvain Chavanel and Antoine Duchesne (Direct Energie), Tony Martin (Etixx-Quick Step), Dani Navarro, Borut Bozic and Luis Angel Maté (Cofidis), Daryl Impey (Orica-BikeExchange) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept). They reached a maximum advantage of 5.52 at 76km.
Cummings on his own with 27km to go
With 50km to go, the time difference was 4.25 as Team Sky and Movistar didn't want to enable Nibali to move back up on GC. The winner of the 2014 Tour de France took the only point up for grabs at côte de Capvern with 45.5km to go. Two kilometers further, the leading group split into several pieces. With 27km to go, Cummings rode away solo from. Nibali, Navarro, Van Avermaet and Impey chased him down up to the col d'Aspin. Van Avermaet couldn't hold the pace at half way into the 12-km long climb while Cummings kept increasing his lead in the uphill. Thibaut Pinot was the main rider dropped from the group of the favourites who crested the col d'Aspin 3.20 behind Cummings. The Englishman stayed away whereas Nibali wasn't able to follow Impey and Navarro who took second and third places. Thanks to his very smart ride, Van Avermaet increased his lead in the overall ranking to 6.36 over runner up Julian Alaphilippe ahead of the two grueling stages in the Pyrenees.
