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2023 Tour de France: Stage 13 Results

  • Ron 

Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) survived the breakaway to win Stage 13 of the 2023 Tour de France atop the Col du Grand Colombier on Bastille Day. He’d been out front since km 23 and took the win on a day that initially looked to be a GC battle between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard. Maxim Van Gils, also part of the break settled for second while Tadej Pogacar made a successful push out of the yellow jersey group to gain some precious seconds over Jonas Vingegaard.

Being Bastille Day, the roads were packed with fans as Stage 13 rolled out on the way to the Col du Grand Colombier. Grand Colombier is the second Hors Category finish in this Tour after the Puy de Dôme.  Typically, you’d see a French rider going for it today, but the bookies and experts were looking for a battle between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. The Grand Colombier is a stage finish for the second time after stage 15 in 2020, when Pogacar won before his countryman Primoz Roglic, overall race leader.

167 riders rolled out today with the official flag dropping at 13:55. The first 25km of the race was punctuated by attacks that were brought back,  but finally, a group of 19 made a successful escape at km 35: Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), Alberto Bettiol, James Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step), Matej Mohoric, Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Adrien Petit, Mike Teunissen, Georg Zimmerman (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), Hugo Houle (Israel-PremierTech), Luca Mozzato (Arkéa-Samsic), Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny), Cees Bol, Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan), Anthon Charmig (Uno-X), Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) are away at km 35. The peloton, led by UAE Team Emirates, was at 1’25”.

The pace was incredibly high with the leaders covering 52km in the first hour of the stage.

With 73km to go, however, the gap was just 1’50”.

As the leaders approach the start of the climb to Hauteville-Lompnes, their lead had opened to 2’23”. The break started to break a little bit, with Petit and Bols not able to hold the pace. UAE Emirates and Jumbo-Visma continued to dominate the front of the peloton.

40km remaining and the leaders enjoyed a 3’05” gap back to the leaders. Pierre LaThere’s more climbing on the slate for this weekend, so the GC contenders might be saving their powder a little, but the push may come late. Through the valley, the remaining 16 in the break are out to a little over 4 minutes over the peloton. Off the back,  Caleb Ewan has abandoned the race.

16km remaining and the leaders were on the climb to Grand Colombier. Quentin Pacher has made a solo attack and the lead group has already shedded six riders. Back at the peloton, UAE Team Emirates, Jumbo-Visma, Ineos Grenadiers and AG2R-Citroën are jostling for position and starting to make their moves.

The chasing group was down to just seven riders as Pacher continued to storm up the climb. At the back, Puy de Dôme winner Michael Woods, polka dot jersey Neilson Powless, and Wout van Aert looked to be struggling or saving themselves for tomorrow.

Pacher popped and Tejada, Van Gils and Shaw took over at the front. Kwiatkowski and Teunissen were riding with Pacher. 12 km to go and the leaders were still 3’37” up on the GC leaders.

Kwiatkowski went on the attack for a little solo dig ahead of the rest of the leaders. With 8km to go, he had a 51 second advantage over the remnants of the break and 3’13” back to the peloton.

Could Pogacar and Vingegaard make up a 2’40” deficit in 6km of climbing? It was looking less likely. In the yellow jersey group was Tadej Pogacar, Felix Grossschartner, Adam Yates, Rafal Majka (UAE Team Emirates), Jonas Vingegaard, Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Carlos Rodriguez, Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious), Simon Yates, Chris Harper (Jayco-AlUla), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Felix Gall (Ag2r-Citröen).

3km remaining and Kwiatkowski was still 2’13” over the GC group. He takes the combativity prize today as he crossed the line in commanding fashion.

Tadej Pogacar

Tadej Pogačar succeeded in sprinting with an impressive acceleration and speed in the final 400 meters. “Kwiatkowski was amazing today, but in the end the day was successful for us as well and we took a bunch of seconds, so it was a good stage with a brilliant team performance,” said Pogacar. “Everybody in the team can take a lot of confidence and extra motivation from today. The Tour is still long, this situation is good for us, now we will go day by day and try to chip away at the seconds.”

Jai Hindley

Jai Hindley crossed the line in 6thplace to gain a few seconds on his direct rivals in the hunt for the GC podium. “The boys positioned me very well before the final climb.” Hindley said at the finish. “It was another hot day and Nils and Emu supported me well with bottles and ice in the beginning. I felt quite good but rode defensively because it was clear that Pogacar will make a move in the end. I couldn’t quite react fully when he attacked but didn’t lose a lot. I was able to gain some seconds on some of the other guys, which is promising. But this was just the first of three hard days and every day will be crucial.”

Maxim Van Gils made an impressive showing in his Tour debut, finishing second. “When I eventually got away in that sizeable front group, I tried to save as much energy as possible for the ascent of the Grand Colombier,” he said. “Once on the climb, it was an ‘all out’ effort until the top. Soon, only the strong climbers remained at the front and when Kwiatkowski accelerated, I was forced to ride my own pace. When I heard that the GC guys were nearing, I realised it would be a difficult task. Luckily I had some energy left and could hold on to second place.”

2023 Tour de France: Stage 13 Brief Results

  1. Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) @ 3h17’33’
  2. Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny)
  3. Tadej Pogacar (EF Education-EasyPost)
  4. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)
  5. Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers)

General Classification After Stage 13:

  1. Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) @ 53h48’50”
  2. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) @ 9″- B : 26″
  3. Jai Hindley (Bora Hansgrohe) @ 2’51” – B : 18”
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