Riding a wave of home support, French rider Maëva Squiban shocked the peloton for the second successive day with a perfectly-timed solo attack, surging up Col du Granier and descending down to the finish line to take stage seven.
Squiban’s feat is all the more remarkable, given her team, UAE Team ADQ, only have three riders left in the race, having had four withdrawals. After her victory, Squiban spoke to reporters, describing the stage as “incredible” and that she was “proud of what we did today”.
After Annemiek van Vleuten, Charlotte Kool and Lorena Wiebes, Squiban becomes the fourth rider to win two consecutive Tour de France Femmes stages after her success on stage six which she succeeded on a 32km breakaway through the forest climbs of the Livradois-Forez national park to Ambert.
It was again another French one-two as Cédrine Kerbaol (EF Education-Oatly) beat Ruth Edwards (Human Powered Health) for second place, whilst Shirin van Anrooij (Lidl–Trek) and Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ) completed the top five.
Kim Le Court, wearing the yellow jersey, was dropped by Squiban and the rest of her general classification rivals up the final climb but limited her losses with a strong descent. In the GC standings, the Mauritian has a 26-second lead over second-placed Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, while defending champion Katarzyna Niewiadoma is a further four seconds back in third.
“I wasn’t feeling so good since the start of the stage – it’s been a few days [that] I’ve been going through some stuff,” said Le Court after saving the yellow jersey. “My body just shut off but I never gave up. I had to do the best descent of my life. With my team working so hard this week, it’s really, really hard to give up. I don’t want to disappoint them and the people who’ve come out.”
Saturday is the queen stage, and another mountainous ride will play a huge part in deciding this year’s winner, as the riders navigate the 111.9km journey from Chambéry to Saint François Longchamp – Col de la Madeleine.