Primoz Roglic lost more than two minutes to his rival Tour de France contenders after crashing near the finish where Biniam Girmay won a third stage on Thursday.
Roglic hit the tarmac with some 12 kilometres left after a rider in front of him hit road furniture and lost control of his bike. Roglic could not avoid the crash and went down with several others.
It was the second accident in 24 hours for Roglic, a four-time Grand Tour champion. He got back on his bike but struggled at the back and was helped to the stage finish by his Bora-Hansgrohe teammates. He crossed 2min 27sec after the winner according to provisional results and dropped to sixth place overall.
Girmay, who became the first black rider to ever win a Tour stage this month, edged Wout van Aert and Arnaud Démare to extend his lead at the top of the rankings for the green jersey.
Two-time Tour champion Tadej Pogacar kept the yellow jersey. Pogacar has a lead of 1min 6sec over Remco Evenepoel, with two-time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard in third place, 1min 14sec off the pace.
The crash disturbed preparations for the final sprint, with Mathieu Van der Poel also missing from the main group and unable to lead out team-mate Jasper Philipsen.
Stage 12 took riders on a 204-kilometre (126-mile) route from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwestern France without major difficulty.
There was an early breakaway but Jonas Abrahamsen, Quentin Pacher and Valentin Madouas were caught after 162 kilometres.
Stage 12: Birmay wins as Roglic crashes – as it happened
05:06 PM BST
Teams classification
05:01 PM BST
Young rider classification
04:47 PM BST
Updated mountains classification
04:37 PM BST
Updated points classification
04:28 PM BST
Updated general classification after 12 stages
04:20 PM BST
A tough day for poor old Roglic
He’s had a few of them in his career.
He has now dropped down to sixth in the general classification and is 4min 42sec behind his compatriot and race leader Tadej Pogacar and nearly 3min 30sec behind the final podium spot, Jonas Vingegaard.
04:16 PM BST
Watch: Girmay wins stage 12
04:10 PM BST
Pain for Roglic
Another angle shows that the Slovenian has some of his jersey missing on his right shoulder and is going to lose a significant chunk of time today, through no real fault of his own.
Cavendish shakes his head as he crosses the line. He’s still seeking that 36th stage victory. He crossed the line in fifth, I think.
04:09 PM BST
STAGE 12 – RESULT
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Biniam Girmay (Intemarche-Wanty)
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Wout Van Aert (Team Visma-Lease A Bike)
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Arnaud Demare (Arkea-B&B Hotels)
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Pascal Ackermann (Israel-PremierTech)
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Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan)
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Jasper Phillipsen (Aplecin Deceunick)
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Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny)
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Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility)
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Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious)
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Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)
04:07 PM BST
GIRMAY WINS STAGE 12
The sprint gets going… Demare begins the sprint. Wout Van Aert is in there somewhere, Cavendish on Girmay’s wheel somewhere… it’s very close but Biniam Girmay, the green jersey has the power at the death to win a third Tour de France stage… and not by a great deal!
04:06 PM BST
1.1km to go
Abrahamsen finally moves to the side as we enter the final kilometre…
It is well poised.
04:05 PM BST
1.8km to go
Cavendish on Girmay’s wheel. Abrahamsen still on the front, still… still. What staying power he has.
04:04 PM BST
3km to go
Roglic, in fourth in the general classification, is now 1min42sec behind the leaders… losing more time.
Alexander Kristoff and Phillipsen are there, Cavendish too as Abrahamsen does a turn on the front.
04:02 PM BST
5km to go
Here we go… the pace is heating up. Pogacar behind Marc Soler on the front. Cavendish is up there, somewhere. Abrahamsen is there, he was in the breakaway earlier.
04:00 PM BST
7.3km to go
A few scrapes on Roglic’s left leg on closer inspection. Will likely be the injuries we cannot see that will ail him the most.
03:59 PM BST
8.8km to go
In fact it was five riders who went down: Jarrad Drizners and Brent van Moer from Lotto Destny, Harold Tejada and Lutsenko from Astana Qazaqstan and Primoz Roglic who is 1min23sec behind the peloton and falling further behind.
03:57 PM BST
12.1km to go – Crash in the pack…
And there’s a crash in the peloton. It was Astana Qazaqstan’s Lutsenko who drifted right over the central reservation and went down, causing a kerfuffle behind him. Probably 10 or so riders went down in the end, but a lot of those were just going over stationary, clipped in unawares.
Roglic was caught up in it and now his Bora Hansgrohe team have to work to get him back in the peloton. He looks to be fairly unscathed and is moving well enough.
03:52 PM BST
The pace has eased off a little
14.5km to go…
Can Cavendish make it a 36th stage victory?
03:43 PM BST
Into the final 20km or so
And, yes, we are just waiting for the sprint finish, really. Hot day out there, though as the riders try and get prime position, approaching 60km/h in the pack.
03:30 PM BST
30km to go
A message from Ineos Grenadiers to their men on the road:
If you can tell the other teams there in the front to slow down a little bit and just slow down the road. Just calm then down a little bit.
03:25 PM BST
Mechanical issue for Nicolas Prodhomme
It’s a rear-wheel change but he’s soon back on his way.
03:15 PM BST
41km to go – The break is caught
Jan Tratnik at the front of the peloton now as the break is caught by the peloton, which is becoming a little stretched.
💨 The breakaway is caught by a peloton that has been going flat out since (almost) the start of the stage.
💨 L’échappée est reprise par un peloton lancé à fond depuis le départ de l’étape.#TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/SUVKXpw2sD
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 11, 2024
03:10 PM BST
44.4km to go
It’s just 22 seconds that the breakaway leads by as the pace in the peloton is upped as we await what will inevitably be a bunch sprint finish.
🏁 48km
🫣 The peloton have the break in their sights. Just 37” or 537m separates them.
🫣 Le peloton a l’échappée en vue. 37” ou 537m séparent les deux groupes. #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/UNBUADEEUI
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 11, 2024
03:03 PM BST
50.5 km to go
A bit of bike trouble for Vercher, who changes a wheel, I think, and then sets about getting to the back of the peloton.
The current three-man breakaway lead is 40 seconds with just over 50km to go…
02:57 PM BST
65km to go
Jonas Abrahamensen wins the KOM sprint in the breakway. Meanwhile, it’s Alpecin-Deceuninck who are on the front of the peloton with Silvan Dillier at the very front.
02:45 PM BST
It is now a three-man breakaway
Anthony Turgis has been dropped from the leading pack.
02:39 PM BST
71km to go and the peloton have reduced the gap to under a minute
Still a good effort in the four-man breakaway, with a message coming through to one of them that the chasing bunch “will have to slow down”. It is a pretty rapid pace with the breakaway reaching the Cote de Montclera, which is a 2km climb at 4.8 per cent average gradient.
02:38 PM BST
Earlier in the day: Fabio Jakobsen abandons
02:31 PM BST
The third and final categorised climb is coming up
It is the Cote de Montclera, but the breakaway’s lead is about to go below a minute so they will very shortly be reeled in by the big chasing pack.
02:28 PM BST
82km to go
And the peloton is, inevitably, catching the breakaway with the advantage down to just 1min25sec…
02:20 PM BST
Current points classification, top six
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Biniam Girmay 278pts
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Jasper Phillipsen 203pts
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Anthony Turgus 141pts
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Jonas Abrahamsen 125pts
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Bryan Coquard 108pts
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Fernando Gaviria 100pts
02:18 PM BST
Intermediate sprint, stage 12
Result
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Anthony Turgis 20pts
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Jonas Abrahamsen 17pts
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Quentin Pacher 15pts
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Valentin Madouas 13pts
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Biniam Girmay 11pts
02:13 PM BST
A reminder of the points classification before today’s stage
Girmay way out ahead at the moment.
02:12 PM BST
94km to go
It’s an intermediate sprint, who will claim the points? The peloton is down to 1min46sec behind. It’s Anthony Turgis who wins the intermediate sprint and adds to his tally in his quest for the green jersey. Green jersey holder Biniam Girmay picks up 11 points for fifth.
02:07 PM BST
The current state of play on stage 12…
We have roughly 100km until the stage finish. There is a four-man breakaway of Madouas, Pacher, Abrahamson and Turgis but their advantage is slowly being closed down by the chasing peloton. The gap is now a tad under two minutes.
01:40 PM BST
Stage 12: Aurillac—Villeneuve-sur-Lot
Good afternoon. Stage 12 of the 2024 Tour de France is well under way as Tadej Pogacar looks to defend his 1min6sec lead over Remco Evenepoel and the 1min14sec he has on Jonas Vingegaard. Dane Vingegaard took victory on yesterday’s stage 11, beating the yellow jersey and fellow two-time tour winner in a sprint finish in Le Lioran.
Clearly, Pogacar did not surrender any real time to his rival and the defending champion, but the stage win will surely feel important for Vingegaard who crashed heavily, puncturing a lung, fracturing his ribs and collarbone to boot, earlier this year. Will it kickstart his bid for the general classification?
Today is a flat stage, so is set up for the sprinters. What chance, then, of Mark Cavendish extending his record 35 stage wins in this race to 36? Well, he has suffered a bit of a blow with veteran (albeit barely three weeks older than the Manxman) team-mate Michael Morkov has withdrawn from the race because of Covid-19.
The 39-year-old Dane tested positive on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the Associated Press reports.
“Despite the rider feeling good and doesn’t have essential symptoms, the medical staff of Astana took a decision to stop the rider,” Astana said.
He won a stage on the 2013 Spanish Vuelta and the gold medal in the Madison track race at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. He is set to compete at the Paris Games.
Cavendish spoke to broadcaster ITV earlier today about the withdrawal:
“We have to adapt. It’s really unfortunate. On a professional level he’s a big part of the team, as road captain he’s my final lead-out man.
“On a personal level he is one of my closest friends and for that reason I would rather he is healthy and right. For me, above any bike race, is that his long term health is not compromised.”
Stage 12 is a 204-kilometer (126-mile) flat stage from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwest France.
Source Agencies
