Look at that profile! Ain’t that beautiful? With 197 kilometers, Stage 12 is the longest mountain stage and the third longest stage full stop of this race. And it’s got one Cat 2, two Cat 1 and a nice HC climb to top things off.
It’s certainly a pivotal stage for the GC, since the final climb will no doubt lead to seperations between the contenders. Will Madrazo and Sicard be able to build upon their success from two days ago and claim the yellow jersey? Or can Herklotz strike back and regain his great form of the first week?
And what about the other podium contenders? Spilak is the closest, he has to step his game up, and so do the likes of Dombrowski, Morton and anyone else, who at this point have to hope for a collapse of Sicard at the very least to have any shot at a Top 3 result at all.
Plus, there’s obviously a lot at stake in the mountain classification. Lastra and Bizkarra have emerged as the new leaders in the ranking yesterday. Will they continue to collect points today? Or will some of the more prominent names join the fight? Let’s find out:
Boily may not be among the big names, but he is certainly a very capable climber, he’s the first to attack. Revard, who held the jersey for a bit earlier in the race, and Christodoulos follow. Swisslion really have no climber to speak of, but it’s admirable that they’re still present in almost every breakaway, even in the mountains.
Grieg - Maersk are unhappy that they didn’t get someone up front (though they didn’t even try) and work to bring the trio back. At the same time, Riesebeek and Smith attack. Both were already in the breakaway yesterday, the latter with great success.
In a second attempt, Smith is joined by another familiar face from yesterday, Chernetskiy. They get a bit of seperation, but the peloton still shows no signs of slowing down.
But in another wave of attacks, Grieg finally make their move and send Nesset to the front along with Abreu, Roman, Kratochvila and Ji.
With Grieg off the front, the peloton slows down significantly, and many riders take advantage. After a flurry of attacks, we finally end up with a group of no less than 20 (!) riders. They are:
Ji
Campero
Affonso
Zakarin
Nesset
Krigbaum
Lastra
Gillett
Costagli
Iino
Kratochvila
Abreu
Smith
Gidich
Revard
Roman
Boily
Chernetskiy
Christodoulos
Schlegel
As you can see, there are four teams with 3 or 4 riders each, with interesting strategies especially from ISA and Rakuten, who leave their leaders Berhane and Quintana with only minimal support back in the peloton.
In general, there are really strong climbers in this group. It’s tough to pick favorites, but Costagli, Ji, Nesset and Smith might be the strongest on paper. But that doesn’t have to mean much.
Lastra, of course, is also the leader in the mountain classification with 47 points to his name. Abreu, Smith and Schlegel are the others in the group that have significant points. On the first three climbs, 38 points can be scored, so unless the stage win comes into play, only those three have a realistic shot at dethroning the Spaniard today. But others can lay the foundation for later endeavors.
Whether the stage win does come into play depends a lot on how the peloton handles things. A wide variety of teams chip in and for the moment, it doesn’t seem like they take it that slowly. The gap does not increase to more than 4 minutes.
The King Power crew leads the breakaway all the way up the first climb, then it’s Abreu who attacks. Lastra is at the back of the group, not positioned well at all.
Somehow missed the screenshot here, I apologize.
Boily takes the sprint with relative ease ahead of Smith, Gidich, Schlegel and Abreu, who only gets 2. He’s now up to 35 points, Smith has 36!
Krigbaum and, surprisingly, Campero, fall way behind on the way to the summit. Perhaps he was instructed to fall back to the peloton in support of Berhane, because he makes no effort at all to come back to the front on the descent and following flat and the duo are caught by the peloton soon.
The rest of the breakaway had been split up as well, but easily reunited on its way to the second climb of the day. Zakarin leads the remaining group of 18 into the Col de la Core, 3’50 ahead of the peloton.
The Col de la Core isn’t super steep on average, but earns its Category 1 rating due to its length and the steeper parts in the second half of the climb.
Lastra continues to spend his time at the end of the group and thus has a ways to go to counter Abreu, who quickly creates a gap as he once again attacks towards the summit.
This time though, Smith didn’t pay attention either. Instead, Costagli and Schlegel are the only ones who pursue with any sort of dedication.
But from all the way back, it’s actually Boily who takes the maximum amount of points, 16 that is. He now has 26, Schlegel collects 12 to go up to 36. Abreu is left with 8, which leaves him at 43, still 4 points short of Lastra, who really has to ask himself why he’s in this group to begin with, if he’s not going to compete for the mountain points.
Kratochvila and Revard are the next to drop back. The Rakuten rider had done most of the work leading up to the summit, which has apparently left him empty. Both would be caught by the peloton not much later. The gap from the peloton to the leaders stands at around 3’30 at the moment.
Christodoulos also fell behind in the final meters of the climb and despite a long chase, he would not make it back to the front, leaving 15 riders in the breakaway. But kudos to him for making it that far in the first place.
Former GC leader Vlatos once again finds himself in last place on the road. On the descent, he’s already more than 15 minutes behind the peloton. He might have a tough time to reach the finish within the time limit today. The same is true for his teammate Nizzolo a bit further down the road alongside the Indosat duo Markus and Wolf.
Despite many riders pitching in, the lead of the breakaway has dropeed to under 3 minutes at the intermediate sprint. But we’ve seen before that the peloton can take it slow on climbs, so they shouldn’t be disheartened just yet.
The next climb on the menu is the Port de Lers. It’s a bit steeper on average than the Col de la Core, but also a bit shorter.
Lastra takes a more active role in the group now and leads the breakaway alongside Iino for most of the early parts of the climb. He has to keep some of his energy for later, though, and it’s a bit odd that Grieg leaves him to work and not Gillett, for instance.
A bit later, the efforts surprisingly take an early toll on Iino. Rakuten now only have Costagli left, though the Italian did look pretty good earlier.
Meanwhile, Bennelong - Mitchelton show their colors at the head of the peloton. Morton might be looking for some redemption after the bad performance 2 days ago.
Well, here’s the answer why Gillett hadn’t been doing any work for Grieg: He just couldn’t. Alongside Gidich and Chernetskiy, he falls behind.
So does Abreu, whose hopes to end the day in the polkadots jersey seem to be over.
Much to Grieg’s consternation, neither Lastra nor Nesset can hang on either. Nor can Zakarin, or Smith or Schlegel, both potentially suffering from yesterday’s efforts.
Which, at least for now, leaves just 5 men up front: Roman, Costagli, Ji, Affonso and Boily. The peloton can already be seen in the distance, but it’s still more than two and a half minutes behind.
Roman then attacks, which sends Boily off the back.
Affonso couldn’t keep up either, he’s now joined by a resurging Smith. Ji is clearly the strongest, he crosses the summit around 20 seconds ahead of Roman and Costagli.
For the mountain classification, this now means that unless any of the escapees make it to the finish in front, which is not impossible but also maybe not super likely, Lastra lives to fight another day, despite not scoring a single point.
Possible though, because the peloton once again took it easy on the ascent and the gap has grown back to more than 4 minutes. It likely depends on how aggressive the favorites approach the final climb - but also, there’s still a lot of downhill and flat until that climbs begins at all, terrain on which the peloton has been gaining time so far. There are still 83 men in there, by the way, another sign that the pace hasn’t been that high.
Roman is a tremendous downhill rider and quickly catches up to Ji. The two have around 50 seconds on Costagli, Smith and Nesset, who recovered well. Boily is only 20 more seconds behind, while Affonso plummeted further and, alongside Lastra and Schlegel, trails the leaders by almost 2 minutes already.
At the bottom of the Plateau de Beille, everyone up to and including Boily has been caught, but the other five have come together and lead by 2 minutes. As expected, the peloton has come a lot closer. Gazelle and Generali have now started to pitch in at the front there as well.
The final climb is both longer and steeper than either of the previous two. Its roughest patch is in the middle, but it gets slightly less arduous close to the summit. But until then, I’m sure we’ll have a lot to see.
The first thing to see is that under continuous pressure from Ji, Smith and Roman can’t keep up anymore.
And then, Ji attacks! There are still 10 kilometers to go, but the peloton isn’t far off so he decides to crank it up a notch.
And he’s doing really well! In just a kilometer, Ji distances Costagli and Nesset by 45 seconds and also increases his lead on the peloton to more than 2 minutes again!
Ji looks incredibly strong! As Smith is caught by the peloton, his lead is up to almost 4 minutes. But then, the GC riders get going. Alarcon is again the first aggressor, Dombrowski and Olivier follow his lead!
And so do Morton, Berhane and Sicard. Vasyliv and Kangert try to keep everything together for their leaders.
But as all of this unfolds, Herklotz is once again in a terrible position. He really has to pay more attention to this kind of stuff!
Vasyliv does a great job neutralizing the attacks and they never get any sort of gap. Then Roglic gives it a go.
He quickly moves past Costagli and Nesset. Kangert continues to lead the peloton, none of the other leaders have decided to counter yet.
Ji has done well so far, but all those attacks quickly cut his lead in half to just under 2 minutes. Still 5 kilometers left, some of the steepest parts are coming up now.
Roglic has a big motor and apparently great legs today. He’s almost a minute ahead of the peloton by now. Nesset is still trying to hang in there.
It’s over for him though when the next man attacks, which is Chiarello! Maybe not the one you’d expected to contend at this points, but he has some energy left. Alarcon counters, Herklotz continues to ride at the tail end of the group. Maybe he just doesn’t have it today?
Meanwhile, Roglic has caught up with Ji and immediately takes the lead. They still have just over a minute on the pack with 3 kilometers to go.
And now we also have the first bigger name losing contact with the rest of the group: It’s Eastman, who already had a tough time two days ago.
Chiarello’s attack went nowhere, but it did force most of the domestiques off the back of the group. Just the favorites now, Dombrowski has taken the lead.
Well, the actual leader is Roglic right now. He’s left Ji behind and keeps the gap to the other contenders steady at around a minute. 2,5 kilometers to go for him.
The main group is falling apart now. Godoy runs out of steam, but he’s far ahead of any other white jersey contender, at least. Alongside him, Mamykin but perhaps more importantly Berhane and Galta have to slow down.
Dombrowski continues to set a fierce pace. Morton, Madrazo and Sicard are closest, and with Herklotz hanging on but still a few positions behind, the GC lead may come within reach for the latter two. Any amount of bonus seconds would be enough for Sicard, Madrazo would need a time gap or a stage win. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Herklotz is still there and if need be, he may well be capable of closing any gap within seconds.
Also, regarding the stage win, this man would really like to keep that for himself. Roglic is into the less steep (though still north of 5%) parts now and still holds a lead of 50 seconds.
Schleck, Chiarello, Schelling, Barguil and Quintana are the next to be dropped by the top favorites.
The group around Godoy, Berhane and Galta trails those five by some 40 seconds. Eastman is suffering badly and almost another minute further down the road.
Ji is finally caught and overtaken. An impressive performance, but he’ll be left with empty hands.
Alarcon is in trouble. Morton and Dombrowski lead the rest of the group, Roglic only 25 seconds ahead. Herklotz is now in a more commanding position, right behind Sicard.
Heartbreak for Roglic, who is overtaken a mere 300 meters from the finish line. And wouldn’t you know it, Herklotz is immediately at the head of the group. Was he just playing games with everyone all along?
It’s going to be a very close fight for the bonus seconds. Madrazo looks to be slightly ahead.
Madrazo is on the way to the stage win, but to take yellow, he’d need Herklotz out of the Top 3. Will anyone do him the favor?
No! It’s really close, and Morton actually makes it into second place, but Herklotz finishes third and keeps yellow by 3 seconds!
Dombrowski finishes ahead of Spilak in 4th place, Sicard is 6th. The French drops down to third overall, but continues to assert himself as a proper podium contender.
Meintjes finishes 7th, a good result, as is Olivier’s 8th. The Aegon leader continues to perform consistently well and cements his Top 10 case. Roglic is left with a 9th place after his commendable efforts, but that gives him a boost for the GC as well, despite a deficit of 13 seconds.
After a stunning performance two days ago, Alarcon comes back down to earth today. He finishes next to Barguil, 48 seconds behind the leaders and 15 seconds ahead of Schelling and Ji.
Quintana and Schleck, who has his best outing yet, finish 14th and 15th at + 1’46 just ahead of Godoy, Mamykin and Chiarello, who all get the same time.
After Goos (the third EA Vesuvio rider in the Top 20) and Stüssi, Galta and Berhane finish 21st and 22nd. They lose 2’48 and 2’59 respectively.
But the biggest loser among the GC riders today is Eastman. He finishes 3’55 behind today’s winner and drops down to 20th overall.
Vlatos makes it just barely within the time limit and also barely ahead of Campero, who evidently didn’t drop from the breakaway earlier to help out Berhane, but instead just had a terrible, terrible day.
However, we do have the first rider outside the time limit today. It’s Krigbaum, who had nothing left to give after multiple breakaway efforts, including the one today.
So, while we had the Top 3 seperated by just 15 seconds ahead of today, that apparently wasn’t enough and it’s down to 12 now!
Tour de France 
