STA, 2 July 2021 - Slovenia's Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) won stage 7 of the Tour de France from La Vierzon to Le Creusot on Friday and took the polka dot jersey for the best climber. Defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) lost some ground.
Mohorič won the longest stage of this year's tour, at 259 kilometres, in a getaway group of 29 riders and now places fourth in the overall rankings, 3:09 minutes behind the Dutch race leader Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin Fenix).
"I knew yesterday that today could be a good day... Until the final moment I could not believe what I have achieved," Mohorič said after earning his third stage win in the Grand Tour races (he also has wins in Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana).
Pogačar is now fifth, 3:43 minutes behind, but the climbing specialist is counting on the upcoming hilly section of the race to make his move.
"This was really a difficult stage. Very difficult... The next two days will be hard as well, but we can still be optimistic about the next two weeks," the defending champion told TV Slovenija.
Last year's runner-up Primož Roglič, badly bruised in a crash in the first stage, lost a lot of ground and is now outside the top 30 with a gap of more than nine minutes.
