{"id":44738,"date":"2026-07-11T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/tour-de-france-2026-tim-merlier-powers-to-stage-seven-win-tadej-pogacar-keeps-yellow-jersey\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T11:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:52:10","slug":"tour-de-france-2026-tim-merlier-powers-to-stage-seven-win-tadej-pogacar-keeps-yellow-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/tour-de-france-2026-tim-merlier-powers-to-stage-seven-win-tadej-pogacar-keeps-yellow-jersey\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour de France 2026: Tim Merlier powers to stage seven win, Tadej Pogacar keeps yellow jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Tim Merlier powered to victory in a bunch sprint finish on stage seven of the Tour de France as Tadej Pogacar retained the overall lead.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Norway&#8217;s Soren Waerenskjold crossed the line in second with Eritrea&#8217;s Biniam Girmay in third at the end of the flat 175.1km route from Hagetmau to Bordeaux.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Belgium&#8217;s Merlier judged his effort to perfection in the final 100 metres, reeling in compatriot Jasper Philipsen and then simply having too much pace for his rivals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It was a mess to be in position, but I made it thanks to the team,&#8221; Merlier said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We were the only team with Alpecin who were riding to take the breakaway back, so I&#8217;m happy it&#8217;s not another team who win. It&#8217;s only my third Tour de France.  In every participation, I take a win, it makes me proud.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Merlier&#8217;s three previous stage wins in cycling&#8217;s greatest race arrived in 2021 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In both years, Slovenia&#8217;s Pogacar ended winning the general classification and again he remains the man to beat this time around.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Having delivered a masterclass on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cycling\/articles\/c20y7112wn4o\" class=\"ssrcss-1fqyhkk-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">Col du Tourmalet on Thursday<\/a>, there was very little to bother Pogacar on Friday as he held on to his advantage of two minutes and 38 seconds over Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Pogacar&#8217;s UAE Team Emirates-XRG team-mate Isaac del Toro sits a further 45 seconds back in third.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Norway&#8217;s Torstein Traeen pulled out of the Tour on Thursday as a result of the heavy crash he suffered while in the yellow jersey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Saturday, the race travels 180.4km from Perigueux to Bergerac on another day that is designed for a sprint finish.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/cycling\/articles\/cjrgw4nd9r2o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim Merlier powered to victory in a bunch sprint finish on stage seven of the Tour de France as Tadej Pogacar retained the overall lead. Norway&#8217;s Soren Waerenskjold crossed the line in second with Eritrea&#8217;s Biniam Girmay in third at the end of the flat 175.1km route from Hagetmau to Bordeaux. Belgium&#8217;s Merlier judged his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44740,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44738\/revisions\/44740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}