TOUR DE FRANCE 2024 | STAGE 12 | AURILLAC > VILLENEUVE-SUR-LOT
Another brilliant finish for Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty) in the green jersey gave him a third stage victory at the 2024 Tour de France as he outsprinted his rivals to the line in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. Girmay accelerated superbly on the final straight of Stage 12, beating second placed Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and third placed Arnaud Démare (Arkea-B&B Hotels) to the finish. Démare was subsequently disqualified, moving Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) up to third. A crash towards the end of the stage for Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) saw him lose time in the GC, whilst Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) retained the yellow jersey. Pogačar continues to lead by 1’06” from second placed Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), whilst Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is third at +1’14”. Roglič has dropped to sixth overall, now +4’42” off the leader Pogačar.
A picturesque route ahead
Stage 12 commenced with 167 riders on the start line, after Michael Morkov tested positive for Covid-19 and the Astana Qazaqstan team’s medical staff took the decision to withdraw him from the Tour. With an afternoon in the beautiful landscapes of the Cantal and Lot regions ahead on the hilly 203.6 km route from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot, the early running saw several breakaway attempts failing in the first few kilometres.
Four men in the breakaway
Eventually it was Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) who initiated a successful movement at km 19 and he was quickly followed by his teammate Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), as well as Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) and Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies). This quartet did not encounter any opposition at first, especially as the peloton’s progress was disrupted by a crash at km 23. The incident was of no consequence, however, the day quickly turned into an ordeal for (Fabio Jakobsen Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) and then later Pello Bilbao (Bahrain – Victorious) who both abandoned the race due to illness.
Abrahamsen and Turgis
Still wearing the polka dot jersey despite having lost the lead in the Mountain classification to Yellow Jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) yesterday, Abrahamsen was the first to reach the summits of both the Côte d’Autoire (Cat. 4, km 62.8) and the Côte de Rocamadour (Cat. 4, km 84.3), where the breakaway foursome maintained a lead of 2’10” over the peloton. Turgis then led the breakaway through the intermediate sprint point at Gourdon (km 110), where they still had a 1’25” lead over their pursuers in the main group. The top of the Côte de Montcléra (Cat. 4, km 135.5) climb was also reached first by Abrahamsen and by that time the peloton had reduced their deficit to 1’10”.
An exciting finale in Villeneuve-sur-Lot
That Côte de Montcléra climb had seen Turgis lose contact with the other three riders in the breakaway and within 30 km the peloton caught up with the remaining trio of escapees (at km 162). With 12.5 kilometres to go a crash for Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan) brought several other riders to the ground, including Roglič, costing him crucial time in the GC. After a flat final sector it was another fantastic, frantic bunch sprint in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, with Girmay producing a brutal acceleration to beat his rivals to the finish line for his third win at this year’s Tour.
Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty): “The Green Jersey Gives Me Wings”
“I want to thank my teammates and my team, because without them I wouldn’t be able to show that I’m the fastest. Since the start of this Tour de France, I knew that I could win. I’ve proved now in three sprints that if I’m well positioned, I’m capable of finishing. Today, for us, a breakaway could have gone to the end, that would have suited us well. But when it turned into a bunch sprint, I told my team over the radio that I felt good and was going to do it. It makes me want to continue to concentrate fully on the sprints. The green jersey gives me wings. I feel super fast. It’s in the head. I’ve had my ups and downs in recent seasons but I changed things this year and it’s working. I also changed my philosophy. When a crash happened in the finale today I was very scared. At the 500m mark I found Mike (Teunissen), he brought me up from 15th to 3rd position and I did the rest. A slightly rising finish like this suited me perfectly.”
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step): “It Was a Nervous, Hectic Final”
“I only learned after the stage that Primož [Roglič] has crashed. It was a nervous, hectic final, with lots of road furniture, so the racing was pretty fast coming into the last kilometres. It sounds like a cliche, but us GC guys never have a day off in a stage race. What happened to Primož today unfortunately underlines it. It was a pretty tough stage. There was a big fight for the breakaway in the opening kilometres, and then Alpecin put in a very hard pace on the hilly section mid-race. Luckily, it all ended well for us. I found myself a little alone with Gianni Moscon, which wasn’t the most comfortable, but I still reached the finish without any problem. It’s my teammates’ job to keep me up front as much as possible.”
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates): “It’s Really Devastating That Primož Crashed”
“It was a stressful final already. I heard the big crash when it happened, with 12 kilometres to go, but it’s only at the finish that somebody told me that Primož [Roglič] had gone down. It is really devastating. He was in very good shape already, and I could feel he was getting better and better with every stage. I’m pretty sure he would have been fighting for the GC in the next few days. It’s very sad that a crash has affected him. I hope that he is well, that he recovers quickly, and that he can fight back into contention. I expected my legs to be more tired today. It was a very fast, up and down stage. Actually, I prefer this pace to Tuesday’s super easy rhythm. At this pace, the legs keep turning and it feels better for me. The final kilometres were pretty hot, though. As for tomorrow, it’s another sprint stage that might get complicated because of the wind. It will probably end up being a stressful day out, like many others in this Tour de France. I get along pretty well with Remco [Evenepoel], and I am really enjoying properly racing with him for the first time. I don’t know if we will help each other in the mountain stages… I don’t even think about that. We just need good legs for those stages. At the beginning of the stage, someone hit me from behind and the chain got stuck between the frame and the wheel, so I had to change bikes. I didn’t crash or get hurt, so it’s fine.”
TOUR DE FRANCE 2024 | STAGE 12 | AURILLAC > VILLENEUVE-SUR-LOT | DAILY STATS
3: GIRMAY LEADS THE WAY
With a 3rd stage win, Biniam Girmay:
- brings Eritrea’s tally in the Tour one step ahead of South Africa as the African nation with most victories (3 vs 2)
- consolidates Intermarché-Wanty’s position as the best scoring team in this Tour. They hadn’t won a stage before this edition but they are the only ones with multiple victories in the Tour 2024!
- moves one victory shy of Jasper Philipsen’s 4 stage wins in 2023.
74,8: A SUPER FAST SPRINT
Hitting a top speed of 74.8km/h with 260m to go according to the NTT Data trackers, Wout van Aert showed his power in the sprint. But it wasn’t enough to contain Biniam Girmay, who went up to 71.7km/h moments later and managed to sustain a higher speed all the way to the line.
2’27: ROGLIČ LOSES BIG WITH ANOTHER CRASH
As the peloton were travelling at 52km/h with 12.4km to go, Alexey Lutsenko hit the deck and some 50 riders were caught up in the crash, including Primož Roglič. The Slovenian star, who was 4th overall at the start of the stage, struggled to follow his teammates’ pace in the finale. He was 5.6km/h slower than Tadej Pogačar in the final 10km, eventually losing 2’27’’ on the line and dropping to the 6th position in the overall standings.
24: ANOTHER TOP-3 VAN AERT
Participating in his 6th Tour de France, Wout van Aert finished in the top-3 of a stage for the 24th time after the race passed through Rocamadour, where he took his last win to date, in 2022. Since then, Van Aert has finished 3 times 2nd (including today in Villeneuve-sur-Lot) and 3 times 3rd (the last time in Rimini, on day 1 of the Tour 2024). Only two riders participating in this edition have finished more often in the top-3 of Tour stages: Mark Cavendish (44) and Tadej Pogačar (26).
47,3: SEASONED BAROUDEURS TO LEAD THE BREAK
Jonas Abrahamsen, Valentin Madouas and Quentin Pacher were already the three riders who had spent most kilometres at the front of the race in this Tour ahead of stage 12. And they made the break together with Anthony Turgis (the 5th rider in this ranking) to add 143km to their tally, with an average speed of 47.3km/h when they led the way towards Villeneuve-sur-Lot.
Here are the riders with most kilometres in the break in the Tour 2024, based on group compositions reported during the race:
- Jonas Abrahamsen, 764km
- Valentin Madouas, 497km
- Quentin Pacher, 457km
- Anthony Turgis, 375km
Cristian Rodriguez, 271km
71: TURGIS TARGETS THE INTERMEDIATE SPRINTS
As he went first in Gourdon (km 110), Anthony Turgis won the intermediate sprint for the third time, after he did so on days 9 (en route to the stage win in Troyes) and 11. The Frenchman is up to the 3rd position in the points standings. Intermediate sprints account for more than half of his tally: 71 points out of 141. No rider has won more intermediate sprints (Abrahamsen and Pedersen follow with 2) but three riders took more points than Turgis: Jasper Philipsen (96), Biniam Girmay (91) and Jonas Abrahamsen (77).
10+20: POGAČAR MAKES IT TO 30 (AGAIN)
After he was distinguished as the race leader for the 30th of his career yesterday in Le Lioran, Tadej Pogačar joined René Vietto at the 12th spot in the all-time ranking for most Yellow Jersey (31). Pogačar is also up to 30 Grand Tour leader jerseys in 2024: 10 Yellow Jersey and 20 Maglia Rosa. That’s the 5th highest tally in a season. Eddy Merckx leads the way with 37 jerseys in 1970 (23 in the Tour, 14 in the Giro).
3 BELGIANS IN THE WAKE OF GIRMAY
Biniam Girmay has won 3 stages of the Tour de France and 3 different Belgian sprinters have joined him in the top-3 on these occasions:
- Arnaud De Lie, 3rd in Turin
- Jasper Philipsen, 2nd in Colombey-les-Deux-Églises
- Wout van Aert, 2nd in Villeneuve-sur-Lot
