2021 Tour de France – Stage 12 – Highlights, Report, Results
Highlights
Report
After the exertions of climbing Mont Ventoux twice yesterday, riders would be grateful for the flatter terrain of stage 12. The parcours covered only one third category climb in the middle of the day, but the peloton would have in the backs of their minds the thought that at the end of the day, the hard climbs of the Pyrenees would be 159.4km closer. While the stage was predicted to finish in a sprint, one rider who wouldn’t be contesting the win was Peter Sagan, whose knee injury had worsened over the past few days and did not start the stage today.
In a fast and furious start, Nils Politt jumped in the break, one of thirteen riders that quickly built a lead of two minutes and, from this point, their advantage grew and grew, hitting six minutes after a little more than 20km of racing, and then more than eight minutes after 40km.
The flat roads gave Nils’ group a chance to extend this to eleven minutes, before the German went on the attack with 50km to go, a move that shrank the leaders’ group to four, and multiple attacks and counter-attacks put some distance between this group and the nine chasers.
Further attacks brought the number in this group to three, but not happy with this, Nils went off the front with 11km left to go solo, maintaining a slim lead over his rivals for the win. Gritting his teeth in sheer determination, there were just twenty seconds between him and the chasers, but this grew to thirty as the number of kilometres remaining dropped.
The grimace turned into a grin as he passed under the Flamme Rouge, barely believing what he was about to do. In a career-best performance, Nils held his hands high as he crossed the line to take his first Tour de France stage win and the first stage win for BORA-hansgrohe at the 2021 edition of the race.
Results
Stage
| 1 | Nils Politt (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe | 3:22:12 |
| 2 | Imanol Erviti (Spa) Movistar Team | 0:00:31 |
| 3 | Harry Sweeny (Aus) Lotto Soudal | |
| 4 | Stefan Küng (Swi) Groupama-FDJ | 0:01:58 |
| 5 | Luka Mezgec (Slo) Team BikeExchange | 0:02:06 |
General Classification
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 47:22:43 |
| 2 | Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Education-Nippo | 0:05:18 |
| 3 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 0:05:32 |
| 4 | Richard Carapaz (Ecu) Ineos Grenadiers | 0:05:33 |
| 5 | Ben O’Connor (Aus) AG2R Citroën Team | 0:05:58 |
Points
| 1 | Mark Cavendish (GBr) Deceuninck-QuickStep | 221 |
| 2 | Michael Matthews (Aus) Team BikeExchange | 162 |
| 3 | Jasper Philipsen (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix | 142 |
Mountains
| 1 | Nairo Quintana (Col) Team Arkea-Samsic | 50 |
| 2 | Wout Van Aert (Bel) Jumbo-Visma | 44 |
Young Riders
| 1 | Tadej Pogacar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates | 47:22:43 |
| 2 | Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Jumbo-Visma | 0:05:32 |