Cycling: Mountain men's day

For the past week, the Tour de France's fans have had their fill of bunch sprints, crashes and bizarre victory salutes such as Peter Sagan's hat-trick celebrations as he won a third stage yesterday.

Finally, though, on today's first summit finish of La Planche des Belles Filles, the overall contenders should come to the fore.

Just 6km long, this climb in the Vosges national park in eastern France is "a tough finish, but it's not exceptionally hard," Sky team manager Dave Brailsford said. "Our aim is not to lose time and if possible to be on the front foot."

Despite Brailsford's studied vagueness and attempts to play down La Planche's potential consequences, Sky's entire squad have been to check out the climb, never used before in the race. And others feel it could be the first time the Tour really opens up.

"Normally the Tour's first mountains are a good first indicator of who's climbing well and therefore who will be there in the other mountains," added 2011 winner Cadel Evans.

"But" - and given Evans' penchant for blasting away on ultra-steep slopes, this can be taken as a warning to rivals like Bradley Wiggins - "it's also an opportunity to make some time."

Wiggins is not a climber. Lying second overall, seven seconds down on Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack-Nissan) of Switzerland, what Wiggins can do on such a difficult ascent is just one unknown.

The yellow jersey remains close for the Londoner and it will be intriguing to see if Sky start to make the running as they did in Paris-Nice last year.

Wiggins has come through the crash-fraught first week of the Tour with flying colours.

After seven days' racing in 2012, the last fans saw of the Briton was Wiggins sitting in the back of an ambulance, nursing a broken collarbone. This time round he is uninjured, in good shape and ready to strike.

Yesterday's flat stage saw yet another litany of pile-ups with the biggest one in the Tour so far, 22km from the finish, involving several of the key outsiders for the overall classification.

Only 70 riders of the 190 managed to stay completely clear of the pile-up, among them Wiggins and Evans. Frank Schleck, though, was not so fortunate, with initial TV shots showing the 2011 Tour podium finisher wandering around dazedly, looking for his bike - wrenched from underneath him by the impact of the crash.

Following a furious pursuit, Schleck lost 2m 09s.

This leaves him down in the general classification battle, but not out before the mountains.

The versatile Sagan, on the other hand, was able to rack up his third stage win of the Tour in six days.

Sagan edged out Andre Greipel (Germany).

New Zealand's Greg Henderson, Greipel's Lotto Bellisol team-mate, was sixth in the same time. Henderson lies in 47th position, 3m 57s behind Cancellara.

Briton Mark Cavendish, caught up in the crash and six minutes down, if uninjured, has an 80-point deficit should he want to overtake the flying 22-year-old Slovak Sagan for the green jersey as best sprinter.

And with every victory Sagan racks up (and he has 18 this season alone), "funny" victory salutes notwithstanding, he also looks set to become Cavendish's most serious rival in the Olympic road race in London, too.

Stage seven review, Sky Sport Highlights, today, 12.30pm, 2.30pm, 5pm, 9pm.

- Independent