Queen stage action shakes up the GC’s in France and Italy. Let’s get down to it.

Paris-Nice Stage 7: Nice to Valdeblore La Colmiane, 175km

A real battle of guts and attrition for the Queen stage. With race leader Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana) dropped and in trouble, Simon Yates (Mitchelton Scott) attacked out of the group of favourites with Bahrain-Merida’s Ion Izaguirre hot on his heels. Another acceleration gave Yates the gap, the stage victory and the race lead. Dylan Teuns (BMC) pipped Izaguirre for second. Yates holds the lead by no more than 13secs over the brothers Izaguirre and Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal). Stage 7 is going to be a thriller – 110km and 6 categorised climbs!

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It was a brutal day in the saddle. Watching riders through the fog, waiting for the long climb at the end. It had a sense of dread about it.

The thousand yard stare…

Luis Leon Sanchez lost over 4 mins on the stage and has tumbled out of the top 10. No matter how questionable Astana’s tactics were, that’s hard to take.

Julian Alaphilippe‘s performance was pure grinta.

Our hearts were in our mouths when we saw two members of the breakaway crash on a descent. Jarlinson Pantano (Trek-Segafredo) was quickly up, but BMC’s Alessandro de Marchi had disappeared over the barriers and down into a ravine. Thankfully he was able to clamber out and both riders went on to complete the stage.

Full race report at Cycling News

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Tirreno-Adriatico Stage 4: Foligno to Sarnano Sassotetto, 219km

Fans were treated to a five-way, summit finish shoot out between Fabio Aru (UAE Emirates), George Bennett (LottoNL-Jumbo), Mikel Landa (Movistar), Ben Hermans (Israel Cycling Academy and Rafal Majka (BORA-hansgrohe). Each one took it in turns to attack but it was a cool-as-ice Landa who powered with precision around the last corner to take the queen stage honours – two arms aloft as tribute to the late Michele Scarponi. Majka outsprinted Bennett for second. Sky’s Geraint Thomas suffered an unlucky mechanical in the finale and lost 40secs seeing him slide to 5th overall. The maglia azzurra passes back to BMC’s Damiano Caruso with Michal Kwiatkowski poised at +1sec. Stage 5 is going to be a seat of the pants affair for the BMC boys.

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Mikel Landa had a lot to say to say post race after his first win for new team Movistar. Speaking warmly of Scarponi and about aMovistar ‘marginal gain’: “This team is closer to who I am. The way we do things [at Movistar] are different, even the way we eat and the way we joke around.” He also spoke warmly of Scarponi and his wish to

Geraint just has no luck in Italy

Team Sunweb’s torrid time with injuries and illness in both races continues with  Tom Dumoulin abandoning the race after a crash. #GetWellTom

Last Haribo to Bernie Eisel

Full race report at Cycling News

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Header image: Mikel Landa on the attack –   Tim de Waele/Getty Images