Rome, 11 July (LaPresse) – ‘We did everything almost perfectly. I hope Almeida is okay, this victory is for him.’ These were the words of Tadej Pogacar, winner of the seventh stage of the Tour de France, which allowed him to regain the yellow jersey. His teammate Almeida was involved in a massive crash a few kilometres from the finish line at the tail end of the first group when the pace was close to 60 km/h. Haig, Barré, Dunbar, Costiou and Buitrago also paid the price. "Both Mathieu (van der Poel, ed.) and I knew this finish well, we both wanted the same thing, the victory. This iconic climb perhaps took too much energy out of Mathieu yesterday and he didn't recover in time, but today went as we had planned. It's fantastic, the whole team and my teammates were perfect, we spent a lot of energy just cooling down, it was a very hot day. The team guided me to the foot of the climb, Narvaez came in at the right moment to control the situation. I'm back in yellow, and let's hope for two quiet days," he concluded.
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