TOUR DE FRANCE 2023 – STAGE 7
MONT-DE-MARSAN – BORDEAUX

3X7: A WINNER’S WEEK
Jasper Philipsen is the first Belgian who wins 3 stages in the first 7 days of a Tour since 1976: Freddy Maertens (prologue, Angers, Le Touquet); plus, Maertens made it four winning on the 8th day, in Mulhouse. Those were 2 time trials and 2 road stages.
The last Belgian with 3 road wins in the first 7 days was Eric Leman in 1971 (2 half-stages, stage 7).
Excluding half-stages and time trials, no Belgian had ever achieved Philipsen’s feat in the Tour de France.
Louis Mottiat won 4 of the first 7 stages in 1921 but across a timespan of 12 days.

74,7: CAV’ MEANS SPEED
Mark Cavendish hit the highest top speed in Bordeaux with a kick at 74.7km/h with 300 metres to go. The Manx missile was already the fastest in the finale of stage 3, when he did 73.3km/h in Bayonne (6th).

5&4: NAILING THE WINS
This was the 5th win at the Tour for Jasper Philipsen, but, considering only the Bunch sprints, it was his 4th in a row.

3: THE SPRINTER’S WEEK
Winning 3 Sprints in the first week is something that wasn’t recorded since 2017. These are the last riders who managed this feat before Jasper Philipsen:
• Alessandro Petacchi (2003)
• Robbie McEwen (2006)
• Peter Sagan (2012)
• Marcel Kittel (2014, 2017)
• Mark Cavendish (2016)
The last rider with four wins in the first week is Mario Cipollini in 1999.

3: A PODIUM FOR ERITREA
Biniam Girmay is the first athlete from Eritrea that scores a podium placement in a Tour stage. Up to now the best Eritrean result had been a 7th place by Daniel Teklehaimanot (Gap 2015, Chalet Reynard 2016).

43: CAVENDISH JOINS KELLY
43rd stage podium for Mark Cavendish: 34 wins, 4 second places, 5 third places. Matches Sean Kelly at the 7th all-time spot. The record belongs to Eddy Merckx: 63 stage podiums.
This is the first stage podium for Cavendish since his 3rd place in Paris, back in 2021.

13: TOP-50 FOR VINGEGAARD
13th stage in the lead at the Tour for Jonas Vingegaard, the same of Tour winners René Pottier, Gustave Garrigou and Goerges Speicher. Among these, only the last one wore the Maillot Jaune, the others were leaders, and winners, before the jersey was introduced (1906, 1911).
Vingegaard now enters the all-time top-50, placing at the 49th spot in this statistic. All-time leader is Eddy Merckx with 111 stages in the lead.

45,013: THE FASTEST ONE
At 45,013 kph this has been the fastest stage in this Tour, and the fastest, among road stages, since Cahors 2022, run at 48,684 kph.
And there’s more: after covering the first 20 kms at 33,1 kph, the riders made up for that riding the last 20 kms at the astonishing speed of 58,8 kph!

40: A NOBLE FEAT FOR GUGLIELMI
Simon Guglielmi covered 97km at 40.8 kph before he was joined by Nans Peters and Pierre Latour at the front of the race. He rapidly opened a maximum gap of 7’16“, at km 18, but the sprint teams reacted to control his 2nd breakaway attempt in the Tour 2023.

148: THE REST OF THE WARRIOR
After his two days on the move in the Pyrenees, Wout van Aert finished 148th in Bordeaux. He finished further behind in the standings on two occasions only in the Tour de France (82 stages completed): 164th of stage 12 in 2019 and 168th of stage 3 in 2020.