For the second year in a row, Matteo Trentin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) has taken a stage win in the Tour de France after he beat Peter Sagan (Cannondale) in a very close photo finish in Nancy. Having survived the tough climbs in the finale, the Italian was given the perfect lead-out by Michal Kwiatkowski and Sagan just ran out of metres in his quest to pass the Italian. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) avoided the many crashes in the finishing straight and defended his overall lead.

 

One year ago Matteo Trentin proved how fast he is at the end of a hard day when he emerged as the fastest from a breakaway to win a stage in his debut Tour de France. A few weeks ago he took another victory in the Tour de Suisse and today he repeated the feat in the world’s biggest bike race.

 

Today’s victory was almost a copy of the one he took in Switzerland. Again a reduced peloton powered towards the finish after late climbs had whittled down the group and Peter Sagan had been on the attack in the finale and again he had perfect support from a teammate.

 

In Switzerland, Tony Martin gave the Italian the perfect lead-out and today it was Michal Kwiatkowski who did a fantastic work. The Pole strung out the peloton inside the final kilometre and delivered Trentin in a perfect position.

 

The Italian powered down the finishing straight but got under pressure when Sagan tried to pass him on the right-hand side. The Slovakian constantly edged closer and when the pair crossed the line, no one was able to make the call.

 

The photo finish showed that Trentin had taken the win by the tiniest margin and so saved Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s Tour de France after Mark Cavendish abandoned the race less than a week ago. For Sagan, it was another near-miss as the Slovakian has finished in the top 5 in all stages but still hasn’t taken his stage win.

 

Unfortunately, the sprint was marred by several crashes. First, the likes of Jurgen van den Broeck (Lotto Belisol) and Mathias Frank (IAM) hit the deck just as they had turned onto the finishing straight and a few metres before the line, Andrew Talansky (Garmin-Sharp) went down. All managed to cross the line but especially the latter seemed to be in a bad condition.

 

For Tejay van Garderen (BMC), the stage ended as a small disaster as he crashed on the descent from the penultimate climb. Despite being joined by three teammates, he never made the junction and the American ended up losing 1.01 to his main rivals.

 

Vincenzo Nibali avoided the many tumbles and finished safely in the peloton to defend his 2-second lead over teammate Jakob Fuglsang. He now goes into the first big test in the Vosges as the 8th stage offers the first serious climbing of the race. After a flat start, the riders will go up three climbs in the finale, with the final one being a steep 10% ramp to the finish.

 

A hilly finale

After yesterday’s sprint stage, the Tour de France continued with one of its longest stages as the riders travelled over 234.5km from Epernay to Nancy. The route was mostly flat but inside the final 20km, the riders went up two category 4 climbs, the final one summiting just 5km from the line. From there, it was a technical descent and a flat stretch to the finish in Nancy.

 

For the third day in a row, the 189 remaning riders in this year's Tour de France took the start under cloudy conditions as they rolled through the neutral zone to start the second longest stage of this year's Tour. All riders who finished yesterday's stage, signed in, including Marcus Burghardt who had been a possible non-starter after he was involved in a crash yesterday.

 

The break takes off

Many riders saw this stage as a good opportunity for a breakaway and so there was a bit of attacking before the breakaway was allowed to go clear. After 5km of racing, things were still together but moments later the elastic snapped.

 

Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp) and Martin Elmiger (IAM) made an attack and at the 8km mark they were 8 seconds ahead of a chase quartet made up of Alexandre Pichot (Europcar), Anthony Delaplace (Bretagne), Matthew Busche (Trek) and Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) and 35 seconds ahead of the pelotn. 1.5km further up the road, the two front groups merged to form a six-rider breakaway.

 

Clement abandons

While FDJ set a moderate pace in the peloton, the gap started to grow and it reached a maximum of 4.15 after around 20km of racing. That's when Cannondale showed their intentions by moving to the front and while Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) fought his way back from a mechanical, the Italian team started to bring down their deficit.

 

Unfortunately, Stef Clement (Belkin) went down in a crash and the TT specialist has been forced to abandon the race. Meanwhile, Cannondale rode pretty hard on the front and at the 67km mark, the escapees were only 2.25 ahead. Cannondale then slowed down a bit and allowed it to grow back up to 3.05 before they again tightened the screws.

 

Cannondale in control

The early work was done by Jean-Marc Marino, Ted King, Kristijan Koren and Elia Viviani who swapped turns on the front, trying to keep the break under control. With 120km to go, they had brought it down to just 1.40 and the escapees seemed to have no chance.

 

Yesterday the peloton was extremely nervous but in the early part of the stage, things were a lot calmer. With 100km to go, however, the riders entered a section with crosswinds and all the big teams amassed on the front. A few riders were briefly tailed off and the gap went down to 1.20 but when the peloton slowed down, all riders managed to rejoin the group.

 

Points for Sagan

Elmiger and Delaplace sprinted for the points in the intermediate sprint, with the former emerging as the fastest. One minute later Cannondale tried to lead Sagan out for the sprint and the Slovakian finished third behind Bryan Coquard (Europcar) and Mark Renshaw (OPQS) to score more points for the green jersey.

 

Cannondale went back to work and the tense atmosphere loosened a bit. At this point Danny Van Poppel (Trek) abandoned the race due to knee pain.

 

Elmiger and Huzarski escape

With 64km to go, Edet decided to attack as the gap was down to 50 seconds but he was soon brought back. MeanwhilE, the fight for position again intensified and several teams were now riding next to the Cannondale riders on the front.

 

With 45km to go, the gap was only 35 seconds and this prompted Elmiger to attack. Onlu Huzarski could match his speed while Edet tried to join them on his own. The Cofidis rider failed and fell back to the three chasers and soon after they were all back in the peloton.

 

Eisel hits the front

Elmiger and Huzarski reopened their gap to 1.35 before Cannondale again upped the pace. With 30km to go, Maciej Bodnar and Fabio Sabatini took over for the Italian team and the gap was now down to 35 seconds.

 

With 25km to go, Bernhard Eisel hit the front for Sky while the first riders started to get dropped. Approaching the penultimate climb, Sky, Tinkoff-Saxo and Orica-GreenEDGE were riding next to each other but as they hit the ascent, it was the latter team that upped the pace, first with Simon Clarke, then with Luke Durbridge and finally with Simon Yates.

 

Voeckler attacks

Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) launched an attack while Marcel Kittel and André Greipel fell off the pace. As Yates set a brutal pace, Voeckler was brought back, and the Brit led the peloton over the summit.

 

On the descent, van Garderen and Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) hit the deck and the American got onto the his teammate Peter Velits’ bike. Peter Stetina, Amael Moinard and Michael Schär dropped back to assist their leader who was 45 seconds behind and ended up losing a minute.

 

Atapuma abandons

Tinkoff-Saxo took over the pace-setting with Matteo Tosatto and Michael Rogers while it came out that Darwin Atapuma (BMC) had abandoned the race. As they finished the descent, Geraint Thomas took over for Sky before Rogers again took a turn.

 

Jens Voigt (Trek) took the next turn, trying to set up Fabian Cancellara for the win but the Swiss was taken out by a mechanical. As they it the final climb, Jan Bakelants set the pace before Alessandro De Marchi took over for Cannondale.

 

Gautier attacks

Bakelants was back on the front as Cyril Gautier (Europcar) launched the next attack. When Nicolas Roche (Tinkoff) accelerated, however, the Frenchman was brought back and as the Irishman continued to set the pace, the peloton exploded.

 

Daniel Oss and Peter Sagan briefly got a gap before Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) launched an attack. Sagan responded and the pair crested the summit with a nice gap as Kwiatkowski led the chase.

 

No cooperation

Van Avermaet refused to cooperate on the descent while Arnold Jeannesson took over the chase for FDJ. As they finished the descent, the front due started to work together while Michael Albasini started to chase hard.

 

Just before the flamme rouge, the leading pair was almost brought back and when Albasini blew up, Richie Porte launched an attack. The Australian brought Sagan and Van Avermaet back but as they entered the final kilometre, all was back together.

 

Kwiatkowski hit the front for OPQS while the first crash brought down Frank and van den Broeck. The Pole continued his hard pace until Trentin took off, narrowly holding off Sagan in a close battle for the win.