The transition stages out of the mountains are supposed to be a procession for the fast men, but Stage 12 of the Tour de France devolved into a high-speed street fight instead. After rolling off the tarmac at the Nevers Magny-Cours motor racing circuit and swallowing up a doomed, lonely breakaway from Lotto Intermarché’s Baptiste Veistroffer, the sprinters’ teams nearly lost their grip on the race. Lidl-Trek decided to blow up the script, throwing down massive late accelerations through Quinn Simmons and Mads Pedersen to split the lead-out trains before the peloton hit the 1.6-kilometer finishing straight in Chalon-sur-Saône.
With the bunch stretched to breaking point and a nasty crash taking down Fernando Gaviria and Dorian Godon at the rear, the pure sprinters were forced to rely on raw instinct. Mathieu van der Poel delivered Jasper Philipsen into textbook position, but the Alpecin-Premier Tech man lacked the finishing venom to seal the deal. Soudal Quick-Step’s Tim Merlier waited for the slipstream to evaporate before launching a devastating kick, blasting past both Philipsen and Decathlon CMA CGM’s Olav Kooij. Merlier snatches his third victory of this Tour, proving that no amount of late chaos can derail the fastest man in the race.
Results
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