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Tour de France Stage 12: Simon Yates wins from the break (+ video highlights)

Mitchelton-Scott rider wins three-up sprint to complete set of victories at all Grand Tours

Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott has won the first Pyrenean stage of this year's Tour de France, outsprinting Astana's Pello Bilbao and Gregor Muhlberger of Bora-Hansgrohe to win Stage 12 of the race in Bagneres-de-Bigorre to take his maiden stage at the race. There was nno change at the top of the overall standings, with Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick Step retaining an advantage of 1 minute 12 seconds over defending champion Geraint Thomas of Team Ineos ahead of tomorrow's individual time trial.

The trio had been members of a big breakaway group that formed an hour or so into the 209.5-kilometre stage from Toulouse, and Yates, who last year led the Giro d'Italia for a fortnight and went on to win the Vuelta, has now won stages at all three Grand Tours.

It was an hour into today’s 209.5-kilometre stage from Toulouse until a breakaway got clear and when it did, it was a huge group comprising more than 40 riders, the successful move initiated by EF Education First’s Simon Clarke.

Among the riders to make the break were Tim Wellens of Lotto-Soudal, wearing the polka-dot jersey and looking to increase his lead in the mountains classification, and Bora-Hansgrohe’s Peter Sagan, who accomplished his goal of securing maximum points at the intermediate sprint as he heads towards a record seventh green jersey.

Next came the first of the day’s two Category 1 climbs, the Col de Peyresourde, which saw the breakaway fall apart and Total-Direct Energie’s Lilian Calmejane, in the break for the second day in succession, launch a solo attack.

He was caught by Wellens just before the summit, however, as the Belgian increased his mountains points haul to 11, and after cresting the climb it was Clarke who attacked and led the race down towards the start of the final climb, the Horquette d’Ancizan.

On that ascent, leadership of the stage ebbed and flowed as attack after attack came from the remaining riders from the break, but it was Yates – here to work primarily as a super-domestique for twin brother Adam and with no overall ambitions of his own – who led Muhlberger over the top, with 30 kilometres still to ride, Bilbao latching onto them on the way down.

Back in the overall contenders’ group, which crossed the line almost 10 minutes behind the day’s winner, Deceuninck-Quick Step and, later on, Team Ineos, controlled the pace for much of the day, with the GC riders saving their legs for tomorrow’s individual time trial and, beyond that, Saturday’s summit finish on the Tourmalet.

Among riders abandoning today were the Team Dimension Data sprinter, Giacomo Nizzolo, who was struggling following a crash yesterday, and the Bahrain-Merida rider Rohan Dennis.

Mystery surrounded the reasons for Dennis abandoning the race and his team initially seemed unaware of his whereabouts, although it appears that he got off his bike at the feed zone and headed back to the team bus in a Bahrain-Merida car.

The Australian is world time trial champion and would have been one of the favourites for tomorrow’s stage against the clock which starts and finishes in Pau.

Stage winner Simon Yates

I’ve been saving energy all the way until we got here in the mountains and this is my first chance to try something. Normally I’ve been back in the peloton helping Adam, but today I had my own chance so I’ve grabbed it with both hands.

I wasn’t very confident of beating either of them [in the sprint], I didn’t really know how fast they were, I just knew from the directors in the car, they told I needed to be in the front coming around the last corner, so I made sure to do that and luckily I held on to win.

Really my main priority here is to help Adam and today was just one of the chances to get up the road, so we’ll see how we go in the next few days. We’re having a fantastic Tour and long may it continue.

Race leader Julian Alaphilippe

It’s difficult to explain what it means to hold the yellow jersey on its 100th birthday tomorrow. It means a lot and firstly, it makes me proud.

I’m very happy to lead the Tour de France. It’ll enable me to start the time trial last tomorrow.

It motivates me to hurt myself even more than usual. I’ll push my limits.

Points classification leader Peter Sagan

It wasn’t really fun today. I wanted to be in the break so I could get points on the intermediate sprint.

It was really hard to make it into the break, as it took 50 kilometres for it to be made.

Come the intermediate sprint, I’m happy Daniel Oss was with me because he helped me bring back Roger Kluge, who tried to anticipate us, and that enabled me to get maximum points.

From then on I took it easy, as I knew today was not my stage and there were many better climbers than me on the front group.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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4 comments

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handlebarcam | 4 years ago
1 like

Re: Rohan Dennis, perhaps he abandoned in the feed zone because they put a curly wurly in his musette when he was expecting a couple of Freddos?

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Rick_Rude | 4 years ago
2 likes

Road.c.c. Don't do spoiler free headlines. 

Why can't they just put ' tdf stage x results' for at least a little bit ?I

 

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RDG | 4 years ago
1 like

Spoiler Alert. I thought it was safe to look at road.cc before watching the TDF highlights later. Dammit. Happy for him though, glad he managed to heave those immense shades and lid up that hill. 

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Freddy56 | 4 years ago
0 likes

Super win and great agressive racing

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