After a long, rolling stage, Biniam Girmay (Intermarche – Wanty) had the legs to take his third win in the 2024 Tour de France, edging out Wout van Aert, Arnaud Démare, Pascal Ackerman and Mark Cavendish in the final meters of Stage 12. Girmay cements his hold on the green jersey, with a 111 point lead over Jasper Philipsen.
A late crash hampered Primoz Roglic, leading to a small change in the order for the GC battle.
The peloton rolled out of Aurillac this morning one man short, as Mark Cavendish’s leadout man Michael Markov abandoned due to testing positive for Covid. It was expected that today’s stage would be a battle between breakaway groups and sprinters, so it remains to be seen if the Manx Missile will get another go at it today.
The route today was one of those ‘flat’ stages that still offers up plenty a climbing over its 203.6 kilometers. The second part of the stage is more suited to the sprinters’ teams that are set on chasing the break down.
As the peloton rolled out, the attacks started almost immediately. Kevin Geniets jumped in the first kilometer and was very quickly joined by Thomas Gachignard at km 2. They were 10” ahead of the peloton. At the front of the peloton, teams such as Jasper Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck, Biniam Girmay’s Intermarche-Wanty and Mark Cavendish’s Astana Qazaqstan were attacking and counterattacking each other to try and put someone in the break. Their objective was probably to put someone in the break… so that they don’t have to pull the peloton all afternoon.
Louis Meintjes of Intermarche-Wanty bridged to the attackers, but his effort was for naught as the break was caught soon after and the peloton was back together.
At km 18, about 30 riders were able to open a gap, among them Costa, Abrahamsen, Campenaerts, Romo and Küng. Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) tried to break clear of the group, but in the end, it was Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X), Anthony Turgis (Uno-X), Quentin Pacher and Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) with a 2’15” lead over the peloton at km 28.5.
At the back, Fabio Jakobsen, who had been struggling all day, abandons the race.
With 155km to go, the breakaway group’s lead was 3’19”.
Alpecin – Deceuninck, Astana, and Intermarche-Wanty traded control of the peloton as the gap to the leaders slowly dropped.
With 75km to go, the lead dropped to under a minute.
Turgis soon dropped back to the peloton, leaving a trio at the front. Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X), Quentin Pacher and Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) had just a 20” advantage with 44km to go and were caught soon after.
20km and the pace was high to discourage attackers.
A crash! A seemingly unmarked central reservation takes down a number of riders with about 11km to go. Among those down was Primoz Roglic. He was up and his team came back to pace him back up to the peloton. Matthieu Van Der Poel was another that suffered. There is little chance they’d be able to reconnect as the speed in the peloton had ramped up to over 40 mph.
Cavendish is in 4th position going into the final kilometers. Girmay is making his way to the front as well.
2km to go and its KOM leader Abrahamsen in the lead working for Kristoff.
Girmay had the legs today and Cavendish did not as the Eritrean rider comes through for win number 3!
Stage 12 Brief Results:
- Biniam Girmay (Intermarche – Wanty) @ 4h 17’15”
- Wout van Aert (Visma – Lease a Bike) s.t.
- Arnaud Démare (Arkea – B&B Hotels) s.t.
- Pascal Ackerman (Israel Premier Tech) s.t.
- Mark Cavendish (Astana) s.t.
General Classification After Stage 12
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) +1’06”
- Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1’14”
- Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +4’20”
- Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) +4’40”
- Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +4’42”
- Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step) +5’38”
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