What a big fight: German cyclist Lennard Kämna just missed out on winning the stage of the Tour de France. The 25-year-old led for a long time, but was conceded by Tadej Pogacar a few meters before the finish at the top of the mountain in the Vosges.
What a fight, unfortunately unsuccessful: Lennard Kämna missed victory at the first mountain finish of the 109th Tour de France by a hair’s breadth. On Friday, the 25-year-old professional cyclist was caught by the top stars about 100 meters from the finish on the seventh section over 176.4 kilometers from Tomblaine to La Super Planche des Belles Filles and finished fourth. Last year’s Slovenian winner Tadej Pogacar won ahead of the Dane Jonas Vingegaard. Pogacar also successfully defended the yellow jersey.
For Kämna it would have been the second Tour stage win after 2020 when he triumphed in Villard-de-Lans. In May of this year he had already won the mountain finish on Mount Etna at the Giro d’Italia.
On the final climb, Kämna pulls away alone
Kämna belonged to a breakaway group around Bora-hansgrohe team-mate Maximilian Schachmann and Simon Geschke, who broke away after a good 50 kilometers. On the final climb with an incline of up to 24 percent, Kämna pulled away alone before the favorites passed them just before the finish line.
On Saturday, the tour continues with the eighth stage over 186.3 kilometers from Dole to Lausanne. The last kilometer has sections with gradients of up to 13 percent. The favorites have to be correspondingly vigilant.
