Having twice finished runner-up in bunch sprints, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) finally got his maiden Tour de France stage victory when he emerged as the strongest in the bunch sprint at the end of today’s hard stage 12. The Norwegian did a long sprint on the uphill finishing straight and easily held off Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Arnaud Demare (FDJ) while Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) finished safely in the bunch to defend his leader’s jersey.

 

In stages 4 and 6, Alexander Kristoff finished second in bunch sprints and the Norwegian did nothing to hide that we starting to get a bit frustrated by his near-misses. Today he finally broke the drought when he won the hard sprint at the end of stage 12 in Saint-Etienne.

 

Yesterday Kristoff had deliberately let the peloton go to be ready for today’s stage which suited him down to the ground. Two long, gradual climbs in the finale were set to take the sting out of the legs of the pure sprinters and then an uphill finishing straight was the perfect scene for the Norwegian to break the ice.

 

Things panned out perfectly for Kristoff who could see the Giant-Shimano team work hard all day to keep a 5-rider break under control, and the Dutch team continued their hard pace-setting on the two climbs in the finale. All the time, the Norwegian was riding comfortably near the front, perfectly supported by his Katusha teammates.

 

The climbs proved to be rather easy and Mark Renshaw and Marcel Kittel were the only riders that lost contact with the bunch. As André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) had made the selection, Lotto Belisol joined forces with Giant-Shimano in the run-in to the finish and with 5km to go, the remnants of the break was caught.

 

Unfortunately, a frustrated Greipel hit the deck, meaning that Lotto’s hard work was in vain. Instead, Omega Pharma-Quick Step took control inside the final kilometre, with Tony Martin and Michal Kwiakowski giving Matteo Trentin the perfect lead-out.

 

Kristoff had positioned himself perfectly on the Italian’s wheel and when Kwiatkowski swung off, he launched a long sprint. At first it seemed that Arnaud Demare would pass him but the French champion started to fade.

 

Instead, Peter Sagan started to move up but the Slovakian ran out of metres and again had to settle for second. At the line, Kristoff took the victory with a comfortable margin while Demare took third ahead of Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEDGE).

 

Yesterday’s stage winner Tony Gallopin (Lotto Belisol) paid the price for his efforts and got dropped in the finale, meaning that he slipped out of the top 10. For race leader Vincenzo Nibali, however, it was an easy day and he comfortably defended his 2.23 lead over Richie Porte (Sky).

 

Nibali faces a much harder test tomorrow when he tackles the first mountain stage of the race. After a mostly flat start, the race has a nasty sting in its tail, with a hard category 1 climb preceding the HC ascent to the finish in Chamrousse.

 

A lumpy stage

After yesterday’s lumpy stage, the Tour de France continued with another tricky stage that brought the riders over 185.5km from Bourg-en-Bresse to Saint-Etienne. After a flat start, the riders tackled two small climbs at the midpoint of the stage but the main challenges were all located in the finale where the riders went up two very long, gradual climbs. The final 21.5km were mostly downhill but the final 8.5km consisted of a flat run to the finish in Saint-Etienne.

 

For the second day in a row, the riders took the start under very hot temperatures. Unfortunately, one rider didn’t sign in this morning as Andrew Talansky has chosen to abandon the race despite his heroic effort in yesterday’s stage.

 

Huzarski makes the first attack

As expected, the stage was off to a very fast start as lots of riders planned to go on the attack. The first rider to make a move was Bartosz Huzarski (NetApp-Endura) and soon after a 9-rider group got clear. At the 5km mark, however, things were back together.

 

Sebastian Langeveld (Garmin-Sharp) made the next move and after 7km of racing he had a 10-seconds gap. He was joined by Gregory Rast (Trek), Florian Vachon (Bretagne), Simon Clarke (Orica-GreenEDGE) and David De La Cruz (NetApp-Endura) and they fought hard to build an advantage.

 

The break gets clear

At the 12km mark, they were 20 seconds ahead but as Astana took over the pace-setting, they started to build a bigger advantage. After 13km of racing, they were 1.05 ahead and at the 30km mark, it was already 4.40.

 

However, Giant-Shimano joined Astana on the front and started to control the situation. Nonetheless, the advantage continued to grow and it reached a maximum of 5.00.

 

A battle for points

The escapees showed no interest in the intermediate sprint where Vachon led Rast across the line while Kittel beat Bryan Coquard, Mark Renshaw and Romain Feillu in the battle for the minor positions. Meanwhile, Cheng Ji and Tom Veelers continued the pace-setting and with 127km to go, the gap was down to 3.50.

 

De La Cruz was allowed to win the first KOM sprint uncontested and the harder terrain made the peloton lose ground. Having had the gap down to 3.25, Ji and Veelers saw it grow to 5.00 with 100km to go.

 

De La Cruz crashes out of the race

Albert Timmer took over from Veelers while up ahead disaster struck for De La Cruz. The Spaniard crashed in a right corner and abandoned the race with a broken collarbone.

 

Langeveld went down in the same tumble and suddenly found himself 40 seconds behind his escape companions. However, they decided to wait for the Dutch champion but when he rejoined, the group the gap was only 3.40.

 

Europcar hit the front

With 79km to go, Europcar hit the front as Alexandre Pichot and Yohann Gene started to swap turns with Ji and Timmer. Soon after, Giant stopped their work, leaving the rest of the job to Pichot and Gene.

 

When the escapees hit the first climb 62km from the finish, the escapees had extended their advantage from 1.55 to 2.20. Vachon was the first to get dropped from the breakaway and a little later it was also over for Rast. All the way up the climb, Timmer, Pichot and Gene kept the gap stable at around 2.15.

 

Gautier and Quemeneur attack

At the top of the climb, the gap was 2.20 but on the descent the trio started to accelerate. At the bottom of the final climb with 30km to go, the gap was 2.00.

 

As soon as the peloton started to climb Perrig Quemeneur and Cyril Gautier took off for Europcar. They quickly got a gap of 30 seconds while Timmer continued his work for Giant-Shimano. Soon after, however, Dries Devenyns took over and this spelled the end for Kittel and Renshaw who dropped off.

 

Langeveld gets dropped

A crash brought down Matthew Busche (Trek) and Nelson Oliveira (Lampre) while more riders fell off the pace. A few kilometres from the top, Clarke decided to take off on his own and Langeveld didn’t even try to respond.

 

Langeveld was passed by Quemeneur and Gautier and fell back to the peloton. At the top, the chasing dup were just 10 seconds behind and Clarke decided to wait for his chasers.

 

Gallopin is dropped

At the top, the peloton was just 50 seconds behind as all the GC riders now amassed on the front to be safe on the descent. However, Tom Dumoulin and Devenyns hit the front got Giant-Shimano and with 15km to go, they had brought the gap down to 30 seconds.

 

Behind, Tony Gallopin was suffering and after having fought hard for a long time, he finally got dropped for good. Meanwhile, Quemeneur and Gautier constantly tried to attack Clarke but they failed to get rid of their companion.

 

Bak contributes to the chase

With 9km to go, Quemeneur blew up and fell back to the peloton. Meanwhile, Lars Bak was now chasing with Dumoulin in the peloton.

 

Clarke now refused to work with Gautier and after the Frenchman had made a final attack, the duo waited for the peloton.

 

Cannondale in control

Katusha briefly hit the front with Vladimir Isaychev and after Martin had taken a turn for OPQS, Cannondale took over. Alessandro De Marchi and Maciej Bodnar set a hard pace while the sprinters were fighting for position.

 

Greipel and Sylvain Chavanel (IAM) went down in crash while Jan Bakelants took a brief turn for OPQS. Marco Marcato, Luca Paolini and Fabio Sabatini both had stints on the front but inside the final kilometre, Martin, Kwiatkowski and Trentin took over.

 

Trentin was given the perfect lead-out but Kristoff was looming on his wheel and when the sprint was launched, the Norwegian took an impressive first Tour stage victory.