After headwinds, crosswinds, and a short, steep climb shredded the peloton, Lotto-Belisol’s André Greipel managed to hold on to win the final sprint of Stage 13 of the 2012 Tour de France, beating Peter Sagan of Liquigas by about a foot.
The tally now stands at two stages apiece for the sprint rivals. Sky’s Mark Cavendish got stuck in a group a minute behind, and finished a minute down. Cavendish has not been contesting the Points Classification this year, saving himself for the Olympics; Sagan now has a sizable 60-pointlead, 296 to Greipel’s 232.
The race started with an eight-rider break—six French, fitting for Bastille Day: Pablo Urtasun Perez (Euskaltel-Euskadi,) Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis,) Matthieu Ladagnous (FDJ-Big Mat,) Michael Mørkøv (Team Saxo-Tinkoff,) Roy Curvers Argos-Shimano,) Jérôme Pineau (Omega Pharma-QuickStep,) Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur-Sojasun,) Maxime Bouet (AG2R La Mondiale.)
Urtasun, Dumoulin, Ladagnous, Mørkøv and Curvers attacked from the start; the other three joined within ten kilometers. This break got a gap of nine minutes, maximum, but the day was always going to end in a sprint. With so few sprint stages in the Tour, the sprinters’ teams weren’t going to concede an opportunity.
The first two-thirds of the 217 km stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Le Cap d'Agde was full of rolling hills; the last third wan a pan-flat run along the beaches of the Mediterranean coast, where strong winds pushed the peloton across the road. The race leaders accelerated with every change of the wind, taking advantage when a crosswind for the front riders was a headwind for the back of the peloton.
The only climb of the day, the Cat 3 Mont Saint-Clair, proved to be another decisive obstacle. This climb, 1.6 km at 10.2 percent, came 24 km from the finish line. He now has a clear lead in kilometers ridden on breakaways.
Most of the sprinters who had stayed in the lead group through the various accelerations into the wind got lost on this climb. The two notable exceptions were Peter Sagan and André Greipel.
Michael Mørkøv, who has featured so prominently in breakaways in this Tour, was the last survivor of the break, getting lots of air time for his sponsors before being caught on the climb, setting up a battle between the remaining sprinters.
