2: THE SECOND FOR PEDERSEN
Second win at the Tour for Mads Pedersen after Saint-Etienne last year.
This is his 4th win of the season, the first after 58 days, the previous one being the Napoli stage at the Giro d’Italia.
…and it’s as well a win in his last 4 Grand Tours run after 3 stages in the Vuelta 2022, and the aforementioned wins at the Tour 2022 and Giro 2023, for a total of 6.
He needs to go to the Vuelta to match Alessandro Petacchi’s victories in five Grand Tours in a row from Vuelta 2002 until Giro 2004.

34: GOODBYE MARK!
Mark Cavendish leaves the Tour for the 7th time in 14 participations.
According to NTT Data, he crashed at 44.9 km/h with 63km to go. At 38 years old, the Manx missile announced he will retire at the end of the season. He will thus go down in history as the most successful sprinter in the Tour.
Since his first participation in 2007, Cavendish completed 206 Tour stages, won 34 of those (16.5%) and finished in the top-3 43 times (20.9%). He took his first stage win in Châteauroux (stage 5 of the Tour 2008) and the last one in Carcassonne (stage 13 of the Tour 2021).
This sadly happens on the eve of the anniversaries of his first (9th of July 2008) and last (9th of July 2021) wins at the Tour.

62+62: DENMARK GOES IN PAIRS
After today’s stage, Denmark counts 62 Grand Tour stage wins and 62 leaders’ jersey.
This is the breakdown of this curious pair:
• Stages: 26 at the Tour, 14 at the Giro, 22 at the Vuelta.
• Jerseys: 57 at the Tour, 5 at the Vuelta.

47: THE TOUR SPEEDS UP!
After passing the 45 km/h mark yesterday (45,013 km/h), the Tour today recorded 47,704 km/h.
Last year the Tour sped up in the 5th and 6th stages, with 48,661 km/h and 49,376 km/h, the latter being the highest value in road stages of the last edition.

15: AIMING AT THE TOP
15th stage podium at the Tour for Jasper Philipsen: 5 wins, 6 second places, 4 third places.
Since last year’s Gooikse Pijl, Philipsen has a remarkable record when finishing in the top-10: 11 wins, 6 second places and just one 4th place.

20: VAN AERT MAKES IT 20
20th stage podium for Wout van Aert at the Tour: 9 wins, 7 second places, 4 third places.
Going from 19 to 20 is no easy feat: among this Tour’s starters only two riders count more stage podiums: Peter Sagan (47) and retired Mark Cavendish (43).
No less than three riders are at 19: Alexander Kristoff, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Tadej Pogacar.

1266: TURGIS’ HIGHS AND LOWS
Before today, Anthony Turgis had conquered one KOM at the Tour de France: Col de Peyresourde (17th stage, 2021). He went on to tame three categorised climbs at much lower altitudes:

• Côte de Champs-Romain (303m)
• Côte de Masmont (353m)
• Côte de Condat-sur-Vienne (289m)

These three climbs together would amount to an altitude of 945m… That’s still 324m lower than Peyresourde.

6: (NOT) ALL IN
The Tour was heading for a low record of 4 abandons in the first 8 stages, until all-time joint record holder of stage wins, Mark Cavendish, crashed, becoming the 5th retirement this year, with Steff Cras being the 6th.
The all-time record low was set in 2016, when Michael Morkov was the first retirement, in stage 8.