Critérium du Dauphiné 2025 Stage 7

June 14, 2025 It's hard to imagine how it's possible to pack in over 4,800M in elevation over just 132KM but the organizers managed to do so. There is hardly a meter of flat road in the entire stage. Right out of the gate from Grand-Algueblanche, the riders take on the mighty Col de la Madeleine (24.7KM at 6.1%). After the descent into La Chambre, the road goes right back up with the ascent of the Col de la Croix de Fer (22.4KM at 7%). Once over the top, there is a 28KM descent into Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. A long, dragging valley road takes the riders into Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne where the final climb commences, the first half of which is part of the famous Col du Télégraphe. The second half splits off to head towards Valmeinier 1800. In total, the final climb is 16.2KM long at just under 7% and could be the opportunity for someone to hit out and clinch the overall. It is such a hard, unrelenting day that the best rider should win the stage. It was perfect racing conditions for going up to 2,000M in elevation, beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures reaching 25C (77F). With the start being so hard, only the strongest climbers were able to get away in break. With 62KM to go, near the top of the Col de la Croix de Fer, nine riders were at the front including Sepp Kuss of Visma-Lease a Bike, Santiago Buitrago and Torstein Træen of Bahrain Victorious, Sergio Higuita of XDS-Astana, Guillaume Martin of Groupama-FDJ, Ben Healy of EF-Education First EasyPost, Alexey Lutsenko of Israel-Premier Tech, and Romain Bardet and Guillermo Juan Martinez of Picnic-PostNL. The peloton was significantly reduced at this point and were just 15 seconds behind the break. Matteo Jorgenson of Visma-Lease a Bike was setting the pace and the group was down to around 15 riders. Over the top of the Col de la Croix de Fer, the break was swept up by the favorites group with the exception of Bardet who descended well and extended the gap out to almost 1 minute with 38KM to go. The peloton swelled to around 25 riders and in the process, teammates for many of the favorites returned. Pavel Sivakov of UAE-XRG was one and immediately went to the front on the valley road to set the pace for race leader Tadej Pogačar. Bardet went through the Intermediate Sprint in Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne with 17KM to go and a gap of just 38 seconds. Sivakov continued to set the pace in the bunch until 15.5KM to go when Decathlon AG2R took over with Bruno Armirail for his leader, Paul Seixas who started the day in eighth place overall. Second by second, Bardet was reeled in and finally caught with 13KM to go in what might be his final attack as a professional rider. The bike race carried on and as soon as Bardet was caught, Kuss tried to get away. He managed to get 10 seconds but Sivakov came back to the front and did one final pull to bring Kuss within reach. When Sivakov pulled over with 12KM to go, Pogačar struck out of the group and was immediately followed by Jonas Vingegaard. Just like yesterday however, Vingegaard held the wheel for about 200M and had to pull the pin and set his own pace. Florian Lipowitz of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe came across to Vingegaard but was dropped again after about 2KM. Vingegaard recovered and got within 6 seconds of Pogačar but with 9KM to go, the gap started to go the other way, out to 15 seconds. The rest of the climb became an individual pursuit between Pogačar and Vingegaard. The gap stabilized at around 20 seconds and when Pogačar crossed the line to take his third stage win of the week, he had added 18 seconds to his overall advantage on Vingegaard who limited his loses very well. Lipowitz took third place on the stage at 1 minute 21 seconds behind Pogačar. The overall looks a lot like it did this morning but the gaps are now wider. Pogačar leads Vingegaard by 1 minute 1 second and 2 minutes 21 seconds to Lipowitz. Remco Evenepoel of Soudal Quickstep lost quite a bit of time today but still holds fourth place, now at 4 minutes 11 seconds with just one day remaining.