The Grand Colombier Awaits: Stage 7 Gives The GC Favourites One Last Chance To Strike Back
If Friday's stage to Crest-Voland cracked the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes open, Saturday's seventh stage threatens to break it apart entirely. The race heads from La Bridoire to a summit finish on the fearsome Grand Colombier, the longest and most uncompromising climb of the week, and the GC men who let a breakaway ride away with the yellow jersey now have nowhere left to hide.
The day begins deceptively, with a hilly opening across the Bugey before the road tips up for good. But everything on Stage 7 is a prelude to the Grand Colombier, a Tour de France-grade ascent of roughly 17 kilometres whose middle slopes bite well into double figures. It is precisely the kind of long, relentless effort on which the pure climbers can finally express the advantage their legs have promised all week.
The tactical situation is stark. Luke Tuckwell wears the leader's jersey having gained more than three minutes in the Crest-Voland breakaway, but he sits there on borrowed time. Behind him, the genuine contenders are bunched together and hungry: Paul Seixas at 3:06, Juan Ayuso at 3:15, and both Isaac del Toro and Jorgen Nordhagen at 3:22. The maths is simple — to win the race overall, one of them must turn that deficit inside out on the Grand Colombier and the time trial that follows.
Seixas arrives as the rider in form and the man the home crowd will push up every hairpin. His acceleration at Crest-Voland was the most convincing GC move of the race, and a repeat on a longer, steadier climb would suit his diesel engine perfectly. But UAE Team Emirates-XRG hold the numbers, with Ayuso and Del Toro able to take turns probing the young Frenchman until something gives.
The wildcard is whether Tuckwell can defend any of his buffer. Breakaway leaders have salvaged surprising slices of time on summit finishes before, riding within themselves while the favourites mark each other, and a cagey, hesitant chase behind could yet leave the Briton in yellow heading into the finale. Decathlon, UAE and the rest cannot afford to wait for one another.
With the Tour de France now just weeks away, every contender here is racing for two prizes at once — the overall classification in front of them and the form and confidence they will carry to the Grande Boucle. On a climb as exacting as the Grand Colombier, there will be nowhere to fake it.