Le Tour Stage 7: The Perception of Control Collapses

A marathon transition stage serves up nearly non-stop action while giving clues to things to come

The seventh stage of the 2021 Tour de France was a marathon 250-kilometer slog over flat-to-rolling terrain, which is almost always a recipe for an absolute snooze-fest of a race.

But lucky for us, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert can’t sit still and decided to turn the race on its head by ripping a 29-rider breakaway off the front of the peloton …