Greig Leach

I'm not really sure why Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost) went into the break away today, after all there weren't any King of the Mountain points on offer. It may have just been force of habit. He has been in the break for every road stage of the Tour thus far. Today he had five others off the front with him, including his teammate, the American, Neilson Powless. Having been back to the car for a water bottle, he passed another over to Powless, one of the advantages having a teammate up the road with you. Just ahead of the EF duo was Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels-KTM) and then Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies). Leading the group but not really visible is Taco Van Der Hoorn (Intermache-Wanty Gobert-Materiaux). The sextet build up just shy of seven minutes on the following peloton. I suppose those behind thought the cobbles would slow them down enough so they could be caught.