Tour de France 2023 stage 7 LIVE: Result and winner as Jasper Philipsen pips Mark Cavendish in Bordeaux

The 2023 Tour de France has all the ingredients of a classic: two leading protagonists ready to tear lumps out of each other in reigning champion Jonas Vingegaard and the deposed Tadej Pogacar; entertaining multi-talented stage hunters Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel, Julian Alaphilippe and Tom Pidcock; the great Mark Cavendish chasing a historic 35th stage win; all facing a brutal route with 56,000m of climbing and four summit finish.

The Tour began in the Spanish Basque country on Saturday 1 July, where Adam Yates edged twin brother Simon to win the opening stage, and these hilly routes will throw open the yellow jersey to a wide range of contenders. The race crosses the French border for some flat stages and an early jaunt into the high Pyrenees, where the Col du Tourmalet awaits. The peloton takes on the Puy de Dome volcano on its journey across France towards the Jura Mountains and the Alps, and it is in the mountains that this Tour will ultimately be decided. It all ends on the Champs-Elysees in Paris on Sunday 23 July.

Here is a stage-by-stage guide to how the race will unfold.

Mark Cavendish knows he will have to put sentiment to one side as he looks for one last hurrah in his final Tour de France.

The 38-year-old will start his 14th and last Tour in Bilbao on Saturday as he moves into the final months of a glittering career, having announced in May that he will retire at the end of the season.

Cavendish is a former world champion and an Olympic medallist, but for the Manxman nothing compares to the Tour, a race in which his 34 career stage wins stand level with Eddy Merckx for the most of all-time.

“I know I’ve still got a job to do,” said Mark Cavendish when ruminating over his last time competing in the Tour de France. “I know I’ll regret that, not living in the moment of enjoying things. The whole experience of the Tour de France, you can’t describe it. This race gives you the most incredible emotions.

“Unfortunately you don’t really analyse it and appreciate them until afterwards. It’s the same every year. I know it’s my last one but it’s the same, I’ve got a job to do and I can’t really afford those little moments of sentiment.

“But I can definitely appreciate them later.”

Mark Cavendish is searching for a 35th stage win at the Tour de France which would set a new record on the tour moving him clear of Eddy Merckx for the most of all-time.

Will today be the day he does so?

“I would not say it’s revenge but it feels sweet to win and to take some time back,” Pogacar said. “I feel a little bit relieved, I feel much better now.

“The display Jonas showed yesterday was incredible and I was thinking when they started to pull on the Tourmalet, I thought, ‘S***, if it’s going to happen like yesterday we can pack our bags and go home’, but luckily I had good legs today and I could follow on the Tourmalet.

“I felt quite comfortable and when I felt it was the right moment in the end I attacked and it was a big relief… I would say now it’s almost the perfect gap and it’s going to be a big battle until the last stage I think.”

The battle between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar is set to go on hold today as the sprinters take centre stage. Pogacar won stage 6 yesterday with a brilliant attack late one and is now just 24 seconds behind the reigning champion.

Vingegaard finished second with a big enough gap over Jai Hindley to take possession of the yellow jersey.

Tadej Pogacar raced clear of rival Jonas Vingegaard to take a solo win on stage six of the Tour de France as Jai Hindley’s spell in the yellow jersey proved short-lived.

A day earlier, Pogacar appeared to be suffering the effects of his long injury lay-off as he lost significant time to Vingegaard while Hindley raced into yellow, but it all changed on the second Pyrenean stage as Pogacar flipped the script once again.

After sticking to Vingegaard’s attack on the mighty Tourmalet, the two-time Tour winner put in an explosive dig to distance his rival with 2.7 kilometres of the final climb up to Cauterets-Cambasque remaining, winning the 145km stage from Tarbes by 24 seconds.

Stage seven is one of very few sprint opportunities left in the race, and that means that while the general classification contenders will be recuperating as much as possible, there will be plenty of stress among the sprint teams as they jostle to win the stage.

The 170km route from Mont-de-Marsan offers up an intermediate sprint after 88km – Jasper Philipsen is dominating the points classification and may be tempted to come forward and fight for more points here, unless a breakaway has escaped up the road and swept them all up.

There is a small category four climb before the finish – the Cote de Beguey (1.2km at 4.4%) – but it is not enough to disrupt the sprinters from their task. A breakaway is likely, but we can expect it to be reeled in come the finish to set up a showdown to the line.

The stage is set to begin at around 12.30pm BST and is expected to finish at around 4pm BST.

It is hard to look beyond Jasper Philipsen here due to the nature of the sprint finish but let’s be adventurous – Caleb Ewan looks sharp and ready to win a stage, and this time he can close the deal after losing a photo finish in Nogaro.