Tour de France Power Rankings- Stage 7

Congratulations if you managed to stay awake through that one. If you didn't here's what the outcome was for the teams on the stage.

Peter Sagan, BORA-hansgrohe, Tour de France 2018, Stage 7

Peter Sagan has seven green jersey wins to his name Source: Getty Images

It's often a tough task to tell at a glance which teams are doing well at the Tour de France, there are 22 of them going around France, each with their own objectives and strengths. 

So borrowing a tool from other sports, Cycling Central will run a Power Rankings during this Tour de France. It's a quick guide from stage to stage of which teams are excelling and which are unlucky or faring poorly.

1. Quick-Step Floors (no change)

Again it was a superb leadout by Maximilian Richeze, who is really one of the riders whose had the biggest impact on this Tour. Richeze dropped off Gaviria at 250 metres to go, maybe a touch early, but it ensured the advantage of picking the fastest line around the corner.

Gaviria launched impressively and the only one who really made up ground on the Colombian was the stage winner, Dylan Groenewegen. With the result and the intermediate sprint, Gaviria has shaved Sagan's advantage in the sprint classification to 31 points.

Best Results: 1st (Stages 1+4), 2nd (Stage 7) Fernando Gaviria, 3rd - Philippe Gilbert - Stage 5, 3rd Team Time Trial, 1 day in Yellow.

2. BORA-hansgrohe (no change)

A solid day for Sagan, he took third and is still in control of the maillot vert jersey. He didn't sound his normal confident self after the sprint however, which might be more of a red flag than his uncharacteristically poor showing in the team time trial.

"I was lucky I was on Fernando’s wheel," said Sagan, "because that helped me reaching the finish line in third position. I didn’t have the legs to be first or second, and third is better than fourth.'

Best Results: 1st (Stages 2+5), 2nd (Stages 1+4), 3rd (Stage 7), 1 day in Yellow, Green Jersey - Peter Sagan

3. BMC (no change)

Three more bonus seconds for Greg van Avermaet as his stint in the Yellow Jersey stretches to five stages. The talk around giving the jersey up is a bit silly, BMC aren't doing much extra work at the moment, and van Avermaet was always going to be allowed to have a free role in the squad with his abilities and profile.

Best Results: 1st - Team Time Trial, Yellow Jersey - Greg van Avermaet, 3rd GC - Tejay van Garderen

4. Team Sky (no change)

No news is good news.

Best Results: 2nd - Team Time Trial, 3rd GC - Geraint Thomas, 14th GC - Chris Froome

5. Lotto NL-Jumbo (up fourteen positions)

What a difference a stage makes. Yesterday the Dutch squad were looking down the barrel of losing massive GC time for Roglic, today they're celebrating a win off the back of a strong all-around ride.

Arguably the most crucial moment of the race came when a strong group of ten attacked early and tried to get away. If that group had gone it would have stayed away to the finish, but Lotto NL-Jumbo clawed it back.

The final sprint was the first time Dylan Groenewegen has had a decent run at the line, no really thanks to his team but Alexander Kristoff. Groenewegen was given the perfect leadout and added to that speed with his own sprint to pull off a dominant win.

Together with their GC riders being in decent spots, they've earned their current position.

Best Results: 1st (Stage 7) Dylan Groenewegen, 18th GC - Primoz Roglic, 20th GC - Steven Kruisjwijk

6. Bahrain Merida (down one position)

Sonny Colbrelli hasn't been a factor in the flat stage sprints, and that continued here, as the Italian placed 12th on the day. 

He just doesn't have the leadout at his disposal and probably needs a bit of an incline to the finishing line to match it with the fastest.

Best Results: 2nd (Stages 2+5) - Sonny Colbrelli, 17th GC - Vincenzo Nibali

7. UAE Team Emirates (down one position)

Alexander Kristoff radically mistimed his sprint here, maybe he thought the corner was a bit shorter, but all he really accomplished was helping out Groenewegen. Credit to the big Norwegian for keeping the bike upright when Mark Cavendish chopped his front wheel in the final 100 metres.

The team were also caught on the hop when AG2R La Mondiale pushed the pace mid-stage. They managed to bring it back together before it became an issue, but they'll want to avoid that sort of problem in the future.

Best Results: 1st (Stage 6), 21st GC - Dan Martin 

8. Mitchelton-Scott (down one position)

Daryl Impey was given free reign in the stage finish to do what he could and he showed some impressive form. Finishing seventh is no mean feat without a leadout train and the South African might be one to pop up on some more selective finishes.

Best Results: 5th - Team Time Trial, 13th GC - Adam Yates

9. Trek-Segafredo (down one position)

Another day in the polka dots for Tom Skuijns after a pancake flat day with no categorised climbs. He actually can't lose the jersey until Stage 10, as long as he finishes the stages.

Best Results: KOM jersey - Tom Skuijns, 19th GC - Bauke Mollema

10. Movistar (down one position)

Nothing to see here.

Best Results: 3rd (Stage 6), 8th GC - Alejandro Valverde, 12th GC - Mikel Landa, 27th GC- Nairo Quintana 

11. Groupama- FDJ (up five positions)

The squad pulled out all the stops for Demare on the stage and coming into the final 500 metres it looked like the Frenchman would have the box seat for the sprint. The Quick-Step train came and foiled a perfect launchpad and then Demare had to come around some traffic, so fourth-place wasn't a poor result.

Both he and the squad will be keen to the Bastille Day stage next up, but he'll have a lot of pressure on his shoulders to do so.

Best Result: 3rd - Arnaud Demare - Stage 2

12. Wanty-Groupe Gobert (down two positions)

It looked like solo escapee Yoann Offredo was keen on going back to the peloton as he sat out front by himself and slogged away into the headwind. The answer was 'no'.

Best Results: 3 days in KOM jersey - Dion Smith

13. EF Education First-Drapac (down two positions)

Rigoberto Uran was kept safe.

Best Result: 7th GC - Rigoberto Uran

14. Team Sunweb (down two positions)

They'll be happy that it was a quieter stage than yesterday's mini-disaster. Nikias Arndt had a little run at the sprint, but he doesn't have the support to win here.

Best Results: 7th (Stage 1) - Michael Matthews, 15th GC - Tom Dumoulin 

15. Astana (down two positions)

Nothing wrong with Jakob Fuglsang's GC bid so far.

Best Result: 10th GC - Jakob Fuglsang 

16. AG2R-La Mondiale (down two positions)

Romain Bardet and AG2R La Mondiale are starting to feel the heat from the French press, who were expecting more out of their great French hope. To be fair, Bardet's time loss has either been expected (the team time trial) or unavoidable (destroying a wheel towards the end of Stage 6).

Best Results: 2nd (Stage 6) - Pierre Latour, 23rd GC - Romain Bardet

17. Katusha-Alpecin (down two positions)

Awful stage for Katusha-Alpecin as the leadout and Marcel Kittel are clearly not on the same book, let alone the same page. Kittel was doing his own positioning for Stage 7, perhaps why he finished 118th. 

Normal lead-out man Rick Zabel decided to sprint for himself, finishing 11th. 

Best Results: 3rd - Marcel Kittel - Stage 1, 25th GC Ilnur Zakarin

18. Lotto Soudal (down one position)

The Belgian squad were at the forefront of the race throughout the stage, but couldn't improve upon Andre Greipel's third in Stage 4. 

The leadout didn't help much at all, Greipel had no clear running in the final kilometre and was far too far back to make any impact on the sprint.

Best Result: 3rd - Andre Greipel - Stage 4

19. Cofidis (up one position)

Another credible result for Christophe Laporte and the Cofidis team did a decent job in getting the Frenchman to the front in the final kilometre. It was a bit too early, and Laporte had to drift back. He tried nudging Sagan off Gaviria's wheel but that wasn't going to happen.
He produced an impressive sprint, passing quite a few more decorated riders to finish fifth.

Best Results: 5th (Stages 1+7) Christophe Laporte

20. Direct Energie (down two positions)

Direct Energie did not want a bar of being anywhere near the breakaway on this stage. 

Best Result: 12th - Lilian Calmejane - Stage 4

21. Fortuneo-Samsic (no change)

Good to see Laurent Pichon take on the role of the sacrificial lamb. Sure it's not much fun for the lamb, but someone has to be sacrificed on the altar of the breakaway god. 

Best Result: 1 day in KOM jersey - Kevan Ledanois 

22. Dimension Data (no change)

This was actually Cavendish's best performance so far this Tour, he had some momentum in the sprint and might have finished fourth of fifth if he hadn't chopped Alexander Kristoff's wheel in the finale.

10th is nothing to write home about for the 30-time stage winner.

Best Result: 10th (Stage 7) - Mark Cavendish

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8 min read
Published 14 July 2018 9:07am
Updated 14 July 2018 9:33am
By Cycling Central
Source: Cycling Central


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