Key events
151km to go: Carlos Rodriguez of Ineos is the biggest GC threat in the front group of 50-odd. He is 12th overall, 5min 44sec down.
Then Martin is the next closest (10min 44sec down), O’Connor (11min 50sec) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), 12min 45sec.
153km to go: It’s 1min 30sec for the big break now.
“Have they just split into faster vs slower riders or is there something else going on?” asks Dave on email.
I’m not sure I quite understand the question … certainly the peloton behind are not there by choice. They’ve been caught out by an attack and presumably it was aided by some crosswinds or headwind.
Benoot, Schachmann, Barré, Lenny Martinez, Vlasov, Theuns, Madouas, Alaphilippe, Hirschi, Michael Woods are all in this massive front group. They’ve got 1min 10sec. It looks highly likely that the stage winner will come from this group.
“This is going to get complicated,” says Sean Kelly on commentary.
155km to go: Half the Ineos team is in the front group. Ben O’Connor and some teammates is also there. The front group now has a minute and growing … could this move have a profound effect on the overall? It has the potential.
159km to go: It’s a group of 50, or 47, depending on whose data you trust. Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) is in there. Mathieu van der Poel, too, and Guillame Martin, who is more than capable of winning the stage as William Fotheringham wrote pre-race.
They have 51sec.
160.5km to go: The front group has 41sec.
Huge split in the bunch
162km to go: The peloton has cracked in two, and the group ahead has 29sec.
The front group has 40-50 riders. Team directors, and live bloggers, will frantically be trying to work out who is in the front group. They have 35sec.
162km to go: Why not send me an email?
166km to go: Victor Campenaerts (Visma–Lease a Bike) has a crack off the front. He is pretty quickly swept up by a peloton that speeds up in response.
168km to go: The pace is hot, overall, but has again slowed slightly with no one attacking right now. “A lot of teams interested,” says one of the Ineos sports directors on team radio. You can say that again. But there is no definitive breakaway yet. Plenty of riders in the bunch will be praying it goes soon so they can have a nice little rest.
170km to go: Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) is prominent at the front. Now Ben O’Connor (Jayco–AlUla) comes past the Welshman and attacks. Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor Pro Cycling) is also up there.
There was one race withdrawal this morning: Cees Bol (WorldTeam XDS Astana) has abandoned due to illness. Commiserations if you had him in your Velogames team.
172km to go: Oh, and I should mention that the first categorised climb comes before today’s intermediate. The Côte de Labatmale (1.3km, 6.3% average gradient) summits after 91.4km of racing, then the sprint point is at 95.1km, a little over halfway through the stage.
174km to go: Alexey Lutsenko (Israel-PremierTech) has clipped off the front of the bunch. The front of the bunch is now strung out after what appeared to be a momentary ceasefire in the fight for the breakaway.
176km to go: There are a few uncategorised lumps on the way to the intermediate sprint: Tarasteix is 350m tall, at 66.3km, while Ger is 390m, coming after 74.1km. Nothing that will intimidate Milan or his fellow green jersey hopefuls.
179km to go: Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) is visible up near the front, hoping to get in the break and win the intermediate sprint at Bénéjacq after 91km before the climbers come to the fore.
Interestingly the first attack came from yesterday’s stage winner, Jonas Abrahamsen, of Uno-X Mobility. Milan is right up front, and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) is marking him.
The race is on!
Christian Prudhomme waves his flag and the race has begun.
The riders are out on the road behind the race director’s car. The flag is about to drop. If predictions are correct there is going to be a huge fight for the break …
“Looking forward to today since the tour started,” emails Fergal. “I pedalled up the Hautacam last week while on a cycling trip with my girlfriend. It is indeed a very tough climb, especially in the heat – even at the 10km/h we averaged, half the speed of the pros. Also did Col du Solour, which is not so punishing. Would love to see Jonas and Tadej hit the slopes of the Hautacam together today. Praying for a not-so-one-sided race this year.”
“I’m OK. Nothing too bad,” Pogacar tells Matt Stephens after his crash yesterday. “My whole left arm is open, burned off skin. And I hit my hip a little bit and my shoulder, but luckily I was back on the bike quite fast. Today is another day. It’s not the first time I crashed and continued the race. It’s more important the legs than my arm. I have a super-strong team around me. I am so grateful I can rely on them, even if I have a hard day today, but I hope not.
“It’s really sad to lose another young talent,” Pogacar says of Samuele Privitera’s death at the Giro della Valle d’Aosta yesterday. “It’s devastating. It’s one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Sometimes the risks we are taking are too far. I’m really sad for all his family. May he rest in peace … he deserves to “not be bothered” now. It’s a sad loss.”
Mathieu van der Poel has said he didn’t realise, to start with, that two riders remained ahead of him when he attacked clear of the chasing bunch on yesterday’s stage.
“Already all week with the radio communication, there’s so much communication in the Tour that sometimes there’s no connection for us,” Van der Poel told TNT Sports
“So I thought at a certain point that the attack was to win the race, but then I saw quite quickly that there were some riders still in front of me, so I just tried to ride as fast as possible to the finish line.”
“It’s a very long climb,” Vingegaard tells Matt Stephens on TNT Sports. “It will take between 30 and 40 minutes [to climb the Hautacam]. In general, today will be a very hard day.”
Will he be marking Pogacar or attacking? “It depends on the legs. If you don’t have the legs it’s more about following. I guess we’ll see, on the last climb, how the legs will be … It’s never a bad thing to have a guy in the break.”
Tomorrow is a hard uphill individual time trial. Will he keep that in mind today? “No, there is no hiding today. You have to go full-gas today, tomorrow, and also the day after.”
Before the Tour I spoke to Gary Imlach, ITV4’s brilliant long-time anchorman, and Brian and James Venner from VSquaredTV, who have been producing the live and highlights coverage since 1986.
This is the final year of ITV’s contract, who acquired the rights after Channel 4 gave them up a quarter of a century ago. Have a read:
“Today is the day when we’re going to see cards being shown,” says Adam Blythe on TNT Sports. “And it’s an exciting day because there’s a lot of flat before it [the big climbs]. There’s stuff that could go perfectly (for GC teams) but there’s a lot that could go wrong too.”
William Fotheringham
There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France’s first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year’s race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It’s a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour’s opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive.
Pogacar spoke to media after yesterday’s crash: “I’m a bit beaten up, but we’ve been through worse days. I think everybody was a bit à bloc. There were attacks from Matteo [Jorgenson] and Jonas Vingegaard, they really put everybody on the limit. Unfortunately one rider decided to follow from left to right side of the road. He didn’t see me and he just completely cut me off, my front wheel.
“Luckily, I just have a little bit of skin off. I was scared when I saw the sidewalk that I was going [to hit] my head directly to the sidewalk, but luckily my skin is tough and stopped me before the sidewalk.”
Regarding today’s stage, Pogacar said: “Tomorrow is a big day. We’ll see how I recover. Normally the day after a crash you’re never at the best, but I will give my best and we’ll see. I think we’re ready as a team for Hautacam.”
Those quotes from Jeremy Whittle’s report, which you can enjoy here:
William Fotheringham
First proper mountain stage up the grim ascent above Lourdes where Miguel Indurain destroyed the field in 1994. There’s a long preamble to the Col du Soulor, the first category-one pass of the race, so expect a massive break targeting the stage win. If the favourites give the break leeway, the winner will be someone who can climb but won’t win overall, so why not the Frenchman Guillaume Martin?
There are four categorised climbs on today’s route. The appetiser is the category-four Côte de Labatmale (1.3km, 6.3% average gradient), the summit coming after 91.4km. The Col du Soulour, the first category-one ascent of the Tour, will test the riders’ legs even further, cresting after 134.1km (11.8km, 7.3%). The category-two Col des Bordères is a comparatively friendly 3.1km long at 7.7% average gradient, with the summit arriving 141.4km into the stage. Then it’s the Hautacam to finish – 13.5km long, with an average gradient of 7.8%. Ouch!
There is also one intermediate sprint, at Bénéjacq, after 95.1km.
Preamble
The first 11 stages have, as usual, been punishing and endlessly challenging for riders and fascinating and rewardingly complex for fans. But with the first category-one and HC (hors catégorie/beyond categorisation) climbs of this year’s Tour, today’s stage 12 is in a sense where the race really starts.
Will it be a breakaway day, a GC day, or a bit of both on the 181km ride from Auch to Hautacam, finishing at the summit where Jonas Vingegaard scored a decisive victory on stage 18 in 2022? Who are the ambitious riders who have been targeting this stage for victory since the route was announced, duly saving their energy, where possible, in recent days? Can Ben Healy delight Irish fans by somehow defending the yellow jersey for EF Education–EasyPost?
The defending champion Tadej Pogacar – who suffered a late crash yesterday, prompting Healy and others to slow the pace in the style of old-fashioned peloton patrons – will be man-marking Vingegaard on the way up the mountain, and vice-versa. But there is a big question over how Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates will fare in the high peaks, particularly in view of the loss of key climbing lieutenant João Almeida.
It’s going to be a fascinating stage, and there are almost certainly surprises and copious amounts of high drama in store. Allez!
Stage stage time: 12.25 UK
