Crosswind chaos hit the Tour de France on stage 13 as the quickest road stage of the race so far ended with Jasper Philipsen’s second sprint win of the race, this time in Pau.
The Belgian took advantage of a messy and disorganised run-in to the line, hitting the wind at just the right time on the home straight as Christophe Laporte deposited his Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Wout van Aert on the front with 200 metres to go.
Philipsen, coming from further back in the reduced peloton, began his sprint as Laporte swung off the front, blowing past and holding on until the line to grab his seventh career Tour stage victory ahead of Van Aert.
Behind the Belgian duo, Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) took his third sprint third-place finish in a row after the stages to Saint-Amand-Montrond and Villeneuve-sur-Lot, while green jersey Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) and Nikias Arndt (Bahrain Victorious) rounded out the top five.
“It was full gas from the start and the bunch never slowed down,” Philipsen said after the stage. “It was crosswinds and a big group ahead. We [had] two guys in with Mathieu van der Poel and Axel Laurance, so I thought they would continue until the line, but the peloton kept on going.
“I also kept on believing because the feeling was good, much better than I had in previous weeks, so I could start the sprint with confidence and I’m happy that no one could pass.
“[Van Aert] was piloted perfectly by Christophe Laporte. I was a bit in the wind, and I had to launch early. I could pass him so I’m really happy with my sprint and with the feeling.
“I had my best feeling so far in the Tour de France. We didn’t have the best start feeling wise and with some bad luck but maybe you could turn around already with two stage wins and say it’s not a bad Tour.”
Intermarché-Wanty had been in charge leading into the final 2km, with three men leading out triple-stage winner Girmay, though the Belgian team somewhat disintegrated heading around the bends heading towards the final kilometre.
Laurenz Rex remained on the front heading under the flamme rouge with the two-man Visma train behind, followed by Arkéa-B&B Hotels’ two-man train of Amaury Capiot and Arnaud Démare, plus Girmay and Philipsen.
Rex swung off to leave Laporte and Van Aert leading the way into the final 600 metres, while further back Capiot also swung off. His move precipitated a major crash that took Arnaud De Lie out of contention as his Lotto-Dstny teammate Maxim Van Gils hit Capiot while trying to squeeze past the barriers.
Up front, Laporte continued to the 200-metre mark, setting up a final dash to the line which ended up with Philipsen shooting to a second victory in four days. His win closes the 107-point gap to Girmay a little, though he remains some way back in the points classification at 75 points down on the Eritrean.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) continues in the race lead after taking ninth at the finish. He retains a 1:06 lead over Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) in the GC, though is down a teammate after Juan Ayuso abandoned from ninth place with a COVID-19 infection.
Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) is also out of the race from sixth place, having failed to start stage 13 following his crash on the run into Villeneuve-sur-Lot on stage 12.
How it unfolded
Stage 13 of the Tour would run 165.3km from Agen south to Pau, the gateway to the Pyrenees, ahead of a weekend of climbing, making the stage the final chance for the sprinters before they’d be forced to suffer through two summit finishes.
The day would bring with it 1,800 metres of climbing but only two classified climbs – the fourth-category Côte de Blachon and Côte de Simacourbe inside the final 40km.
It wouldn’t be the ascents which made the difference in the early parts of the stage, however. Instead, it was the wind which influenced racing as a 22-rider group went clear during the initial kilometres of the race.
Attacks by Classics men Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Michał Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) and Oier Lazkano (Movistar) launched the breakaway before countermoves built it up further.
Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), lying seventh overall, was the surprise face out front, the Briton joined there by stage 1 winner Jurgen van den Broek (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), perma-attacker Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) and his teammate Magnus Cort, Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease A Bike) and Rui Costa (EF Education-EasyPost), among others.
Back in the peloton, Yates’ teammate appeared to struggle at the rear of the race. The Spaniard, who had tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week, would battle on for 27km but would eventually cede to the inevitable and climb off the bike to call a premature end to his debut Tour.
At the same time, the wind struck the peloton, with Visma-Lease a Bike immediately taking charge and splitting the group apart. Tratnik dropped back to join Jonas Vingegaard, Matteo Jorgenson, Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot, and Wout van Aert in the move, while Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates teammate João Almeida also made the cut along with a lone Evenepoel.
The peloton, led by Jayco-AlUla, brought the move back 7km later at 131km to go, while out front the large lead group continued with GC threat Yates on board, one minute up the road. The speedy start – a 48kph average – showed no sign of abating as Ineos Grenadiers, Soudal-QuickStep, and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale contributed to the pacemaking along with Jayco.
But the lead group continued on their way with a lead of 50 seconds heading into the final 100km. The coalition held up for a handful of kilometres more before the first attacks came courtesy of Kwiatkowski, Cort and two Frenchmen in Julien Bernard (Lidl-Trek) and Romain Grégoire (Groupama-FDJ).
The quartet – and those they left behind – swept up the points on offer at the intermediate sprint in Nogaro at 77km to go, before the larger group were brought back by the peloton, ending the danger posed by Yates. Up front, the four attackers kept pushing with a one-minute advantage.
At 58km to go, the wind hit again with Visma and UAE once again leading the way at the front as the race once again split apart behind them. Riders including Van der Poel, Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) were missing from the front as the four-man break was quickly swept up.
They wouldn’t see the front of the race before Pau, while up front a counter-move came in the form of Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility) as the pair launched over the Côte de Blachon.
They’d last until the 22km mark before giving up the ghost, while a major casualty of the two hills was former stage winner Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), who wouldn’t figure at the finish.
Inside the final 20km of the day, attacks flew from the likes of Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Brent Van Moer (Lotto-Dstny), Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), and Christophe Laporte, though nothing stuck, leaving the sprint squads to work on setting up the final.
One last move from Jonas Abrahamsen, at 3km to go, was a final attempt to disrupt the inevitable, before Intermarché-Wanty took to the front and controlled the closing kilometres ahead of Philipsen’s eventual win.
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