Stage 7 kicked off with a fierce fight for the breakaway. After an hour, the race averaged a blistering 29mph. Finally, a five-rider breakaway established itself and was allowed a maximum gap of just under 2 minutes with UAE Team Emirates and Alpecin-Deceuninck intent on keeping the gap small enough for their leaders,

Just 24 hours later, the 26-year-old was not present on the podium for any of those three jerseys, with Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) back in the race lead, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) in green, and Pogačar's team-mate Tim Wellens in the polka dots.

Tadej Pogačar rode to the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team bus beyond the finish line, unsure if he had kept or lost the Tour de France leader's yellow jersey but convinced that Visma-Lease a Bike had tried to keep him in yellow and play tactical mind games yet again.