Rui Costa got safely through today's stage 7 of the Tour de France and now goes into the first mountain stages in 11th overall. The world champion was pleased with his legs in the final climbs of the stage and is now ready for the first big GC battle.

Rui Costa is one of the select few GC riders who has come through the first 7 stages of the Tour de France without hitting the deck and today he again escaped a dangerous day unscathed. The world champion now heads into the first mountain stage in 11th overall and is ready to see how far he can go in the GC battle.

In today's finale, Costa got the chance to test his legs on the late climbs and he was pleased with the response.

"It was a very long stage but only the finale had some hard climbing," he said. "Fortunately, the first part was safe but the final kilometres were very intense, both because of the two climbs, the attacks and the crashes. However, I had good feedback from my legs and with my teammates I avoided all crashes."