With Tadej Pogacar in yellow for the first summit finish of this year’s Tour de France, stage 7 had a certain air of inevitability as to the outcome. And while the results will name Pog as the stage winner, what it doesn’t say is that the final one hundred metres on La Super Planche des Belles Filles was the location of some of the most exciting racing we’ve seen this year.
The first mountain stage of 2022 Giro d’Italia and it was an uphill finish on a volcano. What’s not to love? Appearing so early in the race, the ride up Mt Etna was never going to be a GC fight, but we did see a few big names rule themselves out of the GC running. While big name riders were making their way to the gruppetto, the day’s breakaway broke up with Bora’s Lennard Kämna battling the finish out with Trek Segafredo’s Juan Pedro Lopez. In the end, Kämna took the stage, while Lopez slipped on the maglia rosa. The GC top ten was shaken and stirred.
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Stage 16 of the Tour de France saw the GC guys take the day off. There was plenty to keep an eye on though, the polka dot jersey competition came to life and a breakaway packed with potential was allowed up the road. Lennard Kämna of Bora won by over a minute from Ineos’s Richard Carapaz. The peloton came in nearly 17 minutes after Kämna and gave us some excitement over the final 2km. However, it all ended with no major change in the overall classification.