Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took his first Tour de France stage victory today, winning the bunch sprint into Carcassonne ahead of points classification leader Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma) and Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo).
Pedersen led it out and when Van Aert was passing him on the inside the Danish rider drifted to his right in a manner that slowed himself and Van Aert slightly. Philipsen came through late on Pedersen's left to take what was a clear win in the end.
The big drama of the day involved the Jumbo Visma team of race leader Jonas Vingegaard. They began the stage by confirming Primož Roglič would not start the stage. As many were still wondered if it was wise to take him out of the race, despite his lingering stage 5 crash injuries, Steven Kruijswijk crashed with about 60km completed.
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The Dutch rider, who has been such an important rider for Vingegaard, dislocated his shoulder and was forced out of the race. Just 7km later - and after a small environmental protest slowed, but did not stop, the two-man breakaway - Jumbo Visma were hit by another crash.
This time both Vingegaard and Tiesj Benoot crashed in the same incident; the race leader trying to scramble back onto his bike but needing a new one and Benoot looking very shook. Vingegaard regained the main field and finished with it but Benoot was 148th today and lost 20 minutes.
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It was a nervous day for the team and only time will tell how it will impact them in the final week, which Vingegaard goes into with an advantage of 2:22 over Tadej Pogačar, whose UAE Team Emirates has lost riders to Covid-19. Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) is 3rd at 2:43.
In a blistering 202.5km today in the saddle, in terms of both heat and speed, Van Aert had early in the stage gone up the road in a three-man move that also contained Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mikkel Honoré (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl).
While they quickly gained a gap of over 1:30, Van Aert was soon told to drop back by his team - after about 30km. And while Politt and Honoré pressed on, they were caught with about 50km to go. Once they were back in the fold, Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis) and Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM) went on the attack.
The two French riders looked like they were riding very close to the race motorbikes and managed to pull out a gap of 40 seconds despite the likes of Trek-Segafredo and Alpecin-Deceuninck working on the front and some of the general classification teams ramping up the pace.
However, while Thomas survived out front solo until the final kilometre, it always looked inevitable that he would not make it all the way, with Philipsen then stepping up for a perfectly timed final burst to take victory from a bunch that was down to just 70 riders.
