Stage 7 wrap up: McEwen does it again

Robbie McEwen (Davitamon-Lotto) has taken his second stage win in three days, beating Magnus Bäckstedt (Liquigas-Bianchi) in a wild bunch sprint in Karlsruhe. After being brought towards the front by his teammate Fred Rodriguez, McEwen took the option of a long sprint on the right hand side, overtaking Baden Cooke (FDJ) who had gone from 300m out and powering away to win. Third place went to a fast finishing Bernhard Eisel (Francaise des Jeux), who managed to find a way through the other side of the bunch.

There was a crash with 200m to go when Allan Davis (Liberty Seguros) changed his line and Isaac Galvez (Illes Balears) and Angelo Furlan (Domina Vacanze) both hit the deck. Davis was relegated to last position in the bunch as a result. The general classification riders all got through unscathed and there were no changes to the top 10.

Today's stage travelled 228 km from Lunéville to Karlsruhe, in Germany, and was marked by a long, solo breakaway from Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner). Wegmann attacked to take the points on the first climb the day after 45 km, then just continued - for a while with Robbie McEwen, who dropped back - then on his own. He reached a maximum lead of 8'30 before the sprinters teams got together and pulled him back with just over 20 km to go.