Stage 7 over in Vietnam and it was one that more closely resembled a European style flat stage, with a break established of relatively unthreatening names in the GC, hoovering up the intermediate sprint bonuses and putting up with wet roads and headwinds, even if it was somewhat larger than we might ordinarily see in a stage race sprint stage. However, a classic feature of the HTV Cup is the use of wide inter-urban roads, rather than those courses we're used to in the Netherlands and Belgium where the course designer plans the route by throwing a plate of spaghetti at a relief map of the area, so getting out of sight and out of mind is a lot more difficult. In addition to this, we have a new leader in the race in Quàng Văn Cường, and his Lộc Trời team are much keener to take this to a sprint than Vinama had been, seeing as they have three different stage winners from sprints on their team and it is where they hope to make their GC gains.
Nguyễn Trúc Xinh of NewGroup was probably the most threatening name in the group, but there were a few riders within a minute still, so TLT were holding the group at arm's length to ensure they could bring them back later. In another parallel to European racing, there was a brief skirmish over who got to be the last one taken back, with Phan Thanh Tấn Tài of the 620 Châu Thới-Vĩnh Long team (the ones in knock-off Groupama-FDJ jerseys) winning that battle but being taken back with 4km remaining. In the end, however, 22-year-old baroudeur of two years ago turned sprint threat of today, Trần Tuấn Kiệt, went for a long one and hit the front with almost 300m to go, but just kept on holding his pace and nobody could get around him; in the end he took the stage win, the first for either of the Đồng Tháp teams (Domesco Đồng Tháp aka DDT, and Dopagan) this edition. Sprint specialist Lê Nguyệt Minh took 2nd, and Quàng Văn Cường put a bit more daylight between himself and his GC rivals with 3rd place, taking four bonus seconds with him.
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