Tour de France 2023 - 7th stage | Friday, 7 July | Mont-de-Marsan- Bordeaux | 169.9 kilometres
Rolf Aldag's assessment of stage 7 of the 2023 Tour de France: A flat section for sprinters
The wine metropolis of Bordeaux will host the Tour de France riders for the 81st time this year. Above all, the city in the south-west of the country is known as a favourite destination for sprinters, with Eddy Merckx holding the record for four victories at a Tour stage in Bordeaux. However, the Belgian only won one stage there in the sprint, the other three in the time trial.
Stage 7 of the Tour de France 2023 sets the stage for the sprinter teams after the mountain spectacle of the previous day. This stage has less than 1000 metres of elevation gain, making it the flattest stage of the tour. I don't envy my fellow commentators on TV today, because the action will be concentrated in just a few moments. From Montde-Marsan, the route heads towards the finish in the east of the large Landes de Gascogne nature park. The build-up to the decision is free of surprises today, the finishing straight runs for two kilometres along the Garonne river promenade.
I myself was there twice when Erik Zabel won stages of the Tour in Bordeaux. I still remember the 1995 victory well because I had to start very far before the finish and for a very long time in order to catch a few riders who had got away. Interestingly, I have no memory of the 1997 victory.
Schedule, TV coverage & live stream of stage 7 of the Tour de France 2023
- Neutral start: 13:15, sharp start 13:30
- Estimated arrival time: between 17:07 and 17:27
- TV broadcast: ARD - from 16:05, Eurosport - from 13:05
- Live stream: ARD one, sportschau.de, GCN+, Discovery+, Eurosport
Our expert Rolf Aldag
As a professional cyclist, our expert Rolf Aldag rode the Tour de France ten times up to 2004; as manager and sporting director, he has led various top teams through France and will once again be in charge of the German team Bora-Hansgrohe as sporting director at the Tour de France this year. There are few people who can tell so vividly what can happen on the stages of a grand tour and within the peloton. For TOUR, the 54-year-old sports manager has once again scrutinised the elevation profiles and march tables of this year's Tour de France.
In his predictions, he names the teams and riders he sees at the front on each day, assesses the difficulties of the routes and says where he expects attacks from whom. Will there be a bunch sprint? Will a breakaway group make it to the finish? Aldag also assesses for TOUR what role each stage plays for the classification jerseys: The more coloured jerseys our expert assigns to a stage, the greater their significance for the respective classification. The yellow jersey symbolises the weight of the stage in the overall classification, the green jersey stands for the importance of the best sprinter in the points classification and the red dotted jersey for the mountain classification, i.e. for the best climber. With these first-hand predictions, you can follow the TV broadcasts well informed and with profit!
