Stage 7, Friday 28

150 km, D+ 3600m*

I am not sure how to name this stage. There is quite some elevation, but the vast majority of slopes are smooth. Probably a day for breakaways, coming after an UAE stage.

It was indeed for a breakaway. As everybody wanted in, it was one of those days where there is a long struggle since the start of the race. However it was a km-0 breakaway who won. It sounds contradictory, but it means that today the long struggle concerned counter-attacks.

At some point, a group of 3 broke away from the large-ish counter-attack group and managed to join the first 2 riders who where Van Aert (🇧🇪 UAE) and Leknessund (🇳🇴 Uno-X). The large-ish counter-attack group nevr rode very well, before or after that; nor did it ride very bad; it was really an in-between where on average they were at the same pace as the first group.

In the final climb, Leknessund🇳🇴 left the group of 5. Van Aert🇧🇪, who was in trouble for a little while, rode behind him but never managed to catch him, and was ultimately countered by the other Uno-X, T. Johannessen🇳🇴, who came second and scored a double Norwegian–Uno-X victory.

It is used to be very common a few years ago, but it's much rarer now with the new way of riding: we had competition at the front of the race for stage victory, and later in the peloton for GC.

Decathlon took the place of UAE in the final climb and started pushing harder (Riccitello🇺🇸 made himself useful in that respect, perhaps for the first time this year(?)). Riders dropped and dropped at the back. There were not many left when Gall🇦🇹 attacked. Only Pogatchar (🇸🇮 UAE) and E. Mas (🇪🇸 Movistar) resisted him. Naturally, when they were 2 km from the line, with 1 hard then 1 easy km to go, the Slovenian countered, then Mas🇪🇸 was dropped and Gall🇦🇹 hanged in between.

Widar (🇧🇪 Lotto) was dropped early again.

No big gaps were created (just many small ones), therefore no big changes appear in GC. Gall🇦🇹 gets closer to Roglitch's (🇸🇮 Bora) podium position. Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) is going down, he is still 7^th^ and among a small pack of 3 riders at a about 6 minutes (that's barely more than 1 minute behind the podium).