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Key events
Philip Terry is the first to respond to my question on booing riders. He says: “I don’t recall Cavendish ever being booed. Perhaps, even though he was a prolific winner, he always had to compete for every win?”
It’s a good point, but Cavendish was also a sprinter, which I think is a bit different. Any more for any more? Email link at the top of the page.
102km to go Veistroffer takes the single mountains point on offer as the break pass go over the top of the category four Côte de Lanty. I’m not sure he’ll be catching Tadej Pogacar at the top the polkadot standings in, the race leader has 42 points, 15 clear of Jonas Vingegaard in second.
113km to go As we have a little lull in the racing, here’s a question for you the readers, what do you make of the roadside booing of Pogacar? It reminds me of the animosity Chris Froome used to get when Sky were dominating. Should we be a bit kinder to our cycling greats?
119km to go The speculation on TNT is Pedersen will be demoted for his swerve to the right in the intermediate sprint. No confirmation either way, yet.
121km to go Veistroffer’s company has arrived, so the breakaway is four-strong.
123km to go That trio has nearly caught Veistroffer, but more interestingly Pedersen is chatting to the race officials. Is there a problem with the sprint perhaps?
127km to go That mini sprint has cut Veistroffer’s lead down to less than a minute and a number of teams trying to get a bigger break going. Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious), Ewn Costiou (Groupama-FDJ) and Matteo Vercher (TotalEnergies) are currently off in pursuit of the man up the road.
132km to go Veistroffer does go first under the intermediate sprint banner but behind him thare was a nice battle for the rest of the points. Lidl-Trek put in a place a tidy lead out train for Mads Pedersen, who duly delivered ahead of Philipsen. There was a sharp shift to the left from Pedersen towards the barriers that boxed out Philipsen, but there was a shake of hands after, so all good between those two. Girmay was the real loser there, he could only finish sixth for 10 piints, losing further ground to Pedersen, who bagged 20.
141km to go Veistroffer has eeked out a lead of 1min 50secs on the peloton. He looks likely to take the 25 points on offer for winning the intermediate sprint.
147km to go The pace has really dropped in the peloton and plenty of riders are taking ‘comfort breaks’. Tricky camera work from TNT to avoid indecent exposure pre-watershed.
151km to go Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto Intermarche has gone off on his own, he’s got the most significant gap so far, nearly 50 seconds. He’s been agitating since the flag drop.
155km to go They are still working away at the front of the peloton as the intermediate sprint starts to enter the riders’ minds. We may well not see a break until we’re through that now.
165km to go Michael Hessman (Movistar), Thibault Guernalec (TotalEnergies), Mike Teunissen (XDS Astana) and Xabier Azparren Irurzun (Pinarello-Q36.5) did manage to establish a small gap, but they’ve now been reeled back in.
170km to go Tudor’s Michael Storer has had an early technichal and is racing back solo to get back into the bunch. No break as of yet.
174km to go The bunch is still together as the teams feel eachother out. Currently the peloton is strung out after a sharp left into a roundabout and then a big sweeping right turn.
Kilometre zero
Rollout complete, let the racing begin.
And we are off!
The peloton is doing a couple of laps of Magny-Cours circuit, before Christian Prudhomme drops the flag and the stage begins proper.
You can watch the start of the rollout on the Tour’s X account, it’s always quite a fun mixture of baffling sponsor presentations and local dignitaries, narrated by an enthusiastic man speaking in French. I have no idea what’s going on, but everyone looks like they’re having a nice time.
Have any thoughts you want to share on today’s stage or the Tour in general? Feel free to drop me an email via the link the at the top of the page.
I hope you are planning to stick with the blog all day, but in case you’re not here are the key timings:
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12.30pm (BST) rollout
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12.40pm (BST) kilometre zero
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4.30pm (BST) finish
William Fotheringham
William Fotheringham’s stage guide
Nevers/Magny Cours to Chalon-sur-Saône, 179.1km
The penultimate sprint stage, with nearly half the race left. Today may have a little twist in it however; the three ranked ascents are fourth category, but team managers with sprinters who can climb a bit will look closely at the lumpy roads between 141 and 162km. The obvious tactic would be to pile on the pressure at this point and see if Merlier, Pedersen and Philipsen can be dislodged or discomfited so at least they burn up some matches before the finish – Girmay’s NSN are the best candidates depending on what reserves they have left.
Read the full stage-by-stage guide to this year’s race:
Here’s a quick look at today’s stage:
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Preamble
A farewell to the fast men. It’s stage 12 and there is every chance some of the sprinters knock it on the head after flogging themselves for a final time in Chalon-sur-Saône. From tomorrow it’s all about the climbers and the rouleurs, which means this is the final opportunity for the likes of NSN’s Biniam Girmay and Jasper Philipsen, who was bailed out by his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Mathieu van der Poel in Ussel on Sunday, to break their ducks at this year’s tour. Nothing in the route map should particularly worry the sprinters, even if there is 1800m of climbing in the back-end of this stage. Should they be succsessfully delivered to the final kilometre then it will be all about who has the speed in their legs after yesterday’s effort and 11 days of draining riding in the heat. Tim Merlier has looked the best of them so far and is the favourite, according to the bookies.
The breakaway will be another talking point, UAE Team Emirates have not won any friends with the level of control they have exerted on the race. Tadej Pogacar’s approval ratings are slipping as his dominance becomes boring, especially with the French public on the roadside. There is an unwritten code to cycling which his team seems to care little for. Having a rider who is so clearly better than everyone else, yet still insisting that the team do not afford the break any kind of threatening time gap is a fast way to lose friends in the peloton. Kévin Vauquelin of Netcompany Ineos said it well to Jeremy Whittle: “We too would also like to play at bike racing.” Let us hope they get a bit of playtime today.
