Stage 7: profile with the excitement concentrated at the end
After the blow of losing Mark Cavendish on the first day of the Tour, Matteo Trentin secured some compensation for Omega Pharma - Quick-Step by just holding off Peter Sagan by a very narrow margin in the sprint for the line in Nancy.
The stage came to life in the last 20K or so with two Category 4 climbs. The first one quickly eliminated most of the pure sprinters. At the top of the second climb, just over five kilometres from the finish, Peter Sagan and Greg Van Avermaet held a slight advantage and for a while on the descent it looked as though they might manage to stay away. However, the greatly reduced pack of leading riders caught them with about 2k to go.
Sagan's Cannondale team led the peloton for much of the day preventing the escapees to ever build up a substantial lead. Sagan may have eventually paid for all the energy he expended on the final descent as he just failed to catch Trentin, who took his second Tour stage win having won in Saint-Pourçain last year. See here updated list of Tour de France stage winners – 1903-2014.
Vincenzo Nibali, who finished in the leading pack, holds on to Yellow and his advantage. There are slight changes in the overall leading rigers with Fabian Cancellara slipping down and overtaken by World Champion Rui da Costa and others. The big loser today was Tejay Van Garderen, who crashed within the last 15k. It looked to be his fault and he lost 1:03 to Nibali and is now 3:14 down.
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