NOS Cycling•Thursday, 17:08•Modified Thursday, 21:46
Third Tour victory for Girmay, he beats Van Aert and Démare in mass sprint
Biniam Girmay has booked his third stage victory in the twelfth stage of the Tour de France. The Eritrean was once more the fastest in the mass sprint in Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
The green jersey wearer beat Wout van Aert at the finish, who was hindered in a full sprint by Arnaud Démare. The Frenchman was therefore declassified.
With 12 kilometres to go, the race was shocked by a crash. Primoz Roglic was one of the victims. The Slovenian GC rider from Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe was able to continue his way quickly with a damaged shoulder, but lost almost two and a half minutes to the other podium candidates.
Will Roglic start on Friday?
Later in the evening, team manager Rolf Aldag joined CyclingWeekly with an update on his leader. “We now look differently at a possible final podium in the Tour, but we first have to find out whether Primoz can start tomorrow or not. We will listen to our doctors and are still in the dark.”
Watch the summary of the twelfth stage and the reactions followingwards:
The hilly opening phase of the stage saw the sprinter teams on edge to prevent a strong breakaway group from riding away. After a turbulent opening phase, which even resulted in a crash in which classification leader Tadej Pogacar had to put his foot on the ground, four riders rode away.
The quartet consisted of the strong Jonas Abrahamsen, who has been active throughout the Tour and currently wears the polka dot jersey, Quentin Pacher, Valentin Madouas and Anthony Turgis. The latter won the fiercely contested gravel stage to Troyes on Sunday. A strong leading group, which meant that the sprint teams gave the four riders little room.
Task Jakobsen
In the meantime, Fabio Jakobsen had been dropped at the back of the race. The sprinter from dsm-firmenich PostNL had to let the peloton go early and saw his deficit quickly increase to more than five minutes. His team leaders encouraged him from the car, but Jakobsen decided to end the ordeal following 25 kilometers.
Jakobsen was the trump card for the mass sprints in his team, but might not live up to expectations. He did not get further than a fifth and seventh place in this Tour and always had a hard time in the mountain stages.
Spanish climber Pello Bilbao also dropped out.
The leaders fought hard in the long middle part of the stage, but stood no chance once morest the onrushing peloton. With 40 kilometers to go, they were caught.
Roglic falls and loses time
What followed was a thrilling finale, which was startled by a major crash 12 kilometers from the finish. Alexey Lutsenko rode into a traffic island and took many riders with him in his fall, including Roglic.
The Slovenian was able to continue, but reached the finish almost two and a half minutes behind the other classification riders. He dropped from fourth to sixth place in the general classification and is now 4.42 minutes behind his compatriot Pogacar.
Review of stage 12
The Evening Stage can be seen tonight on NPO 1 at 22:20. Of course you can always watch via the livestream on NOS.nl and in the NOS app.
Tonight, Stef Clement (18th in the final classification of the Tour de France in 2016), Roxane Knetemann (7th in La Route de France in 2013) and Aike Visbeek (performance manager Intermarché-Wanty) will be sitting at the table with Dione de Graaff.
Most of the sprinters were not involved in the crash, which led to a chaotic final kilometer. Démare was perfectly brought in by his Arkéa team and started the sprint first.
Van Aert had to brake briefly due to a dangerous manoeuvre by Démare, but did not give up. The Belgian from Visma-Lease a Bike passed the Frenchman in the final metres. The Belgian seemed to be on his way to victory.
Girmay once more, Groenewegen ninth
But Girmay was not counting on that. Suddenly the Eritrean appeared in the middle, following which he sprinted to victory with powerful strokes. He even had enough time to raise his arms in the air to celebrate his hat trick.
Van Aert was not happy with Démare’s action followingwards and the jury agreed with him. The Frenchman was declassified. Behind them, Mark Cavendish, originally fifth, was also put back in the results due to dangerous sprinting. Dylan Groenewegen was the best Dutchman in ninth place.
With his third victory, Girmay now also has a street-length lead in the points classification over his closest rival Jasper Philipsen.
