And with that, I’m done. It’s been a day of consolidation. This is what we’ve got to look forward to tomorrow. I’ll be back for another day in the saddle on Sunday. Bye!
Here’s Geraint Thomas, who says he’s “feeling a bit punchy”, which I think is a declaration of good health rather than combative intent:
I think the whole peloton enjoyed a bit of an easier day today. It was fast, but quick roads. A stressful final. We rode well, like we have all race. Tomorrow’s a tough day. I think there’s going to be a big fight to get in the breakaway, and then a fight at the final as well.
Today, you’re kind of trying to do as little as possible. Every acceleration you don’t really want to do and it hurts a little bit more because you’re not really ready for it.
Nobody will be changing jerseys today: Sagan retains his monstrous lead in the green jersey standings, Geraint Thomas is still in yellow, and Julian Alaphilippe has the polka dots. Michael Schar gets today’s combativity prize.
Here’s a first-take report on today’s action:
Team Sky did their job, shepherding their leading duo to the final few kilometres before dropping back to safety and letting the remaining sprinters do their thing.
Peter Sagan speaks!
Well, today, this stage was like a piece of gold for us I think [after the mountains]. It’s fantastic. Also it was a flat stage, everybody recovered a little bit and everybody is happy we had a relaxed stage. In the end I’m very happy to win. It’s good for me and thanks for my team-mates, they did a perfect job. I was a little bit behind, with 600m to go, then the last climb I tried to bring myself to the front. After I just stayed on the wheel of Kristoff and I was very happy to beat them.
And here’s Philippe Gilbert:
It was a hot stage. The breakaway was smart. They were going fast-slow, fast-slow, so it was a stop-start day for us. And then the finish was fast, with a lot of roundabouts. I decided to stay round about 20th place, use my position to gain speed and come from behind. That’s what I did, but not fast enough.
And here’s the photo finish:
WOWWW.@petosagan for a 3rd stage victory! 3ème victoire d'étape pour @petosagan! #TDF2018 @TISSOT pic.twitter.com/kfarlXsipL
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 20, 2018
Arnaud Démare was the Groupama-FDJ rider in third. Here’s today’s top 10:
Top-10 on Stage 13 #TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/ViXSsycOqz
— the Inner Ring (@inrng) July 20, 2018
Peter Sagan wins the 13th stage at Valence!
That was close. Three riders break away at the last, and in the final couple of metres Sagan steals ahead of Alexander Kristoff to cross the line first!
500m to go: He has perhaps a five-metre lead. It’s not enough, surely.
900m to go: Philippe Gilbert attacks!
2km to go: Trek-Segafredo move pretty much their entire team to the front. They hold the first four places.
2.5km to go: Daniel Oss, one of Sagan’s team-mates, spends a while at the front before melting away.
3.5km to go: Five of the first eight riders are in Groupama-FDJ colours, as they have been for much of the day.
5km to go: Geraint Thomas is perhaps third at the moment, on the far right of the peloton as we look at it from above.
6km to go: Schar is caught. Now it’s all about preparation for the finish, with Peter Sagan inevitably in the thick of things.
8km to go: Schar’s lead is now in the single seconds. Eight as I type. We are going to get the bunch sprint that was predicted.
10km to go: Schar passes under the arch marking the 10km line. He has a lead of 23sec. Can he possibly hold on?
12.5km to go: The road widens and the peloton splits, with Team Sky heading right and Groupama-FDJ on the left.
15km to go: Schar’s lead has been halves in the last 3km. He’s 22sec ahead now.
16km to go: The peloton rides through the outskirts of Chabeuil. Two riders toss water bottles aside, one of them landing on the toe of a man in a salmon pink T-shirt, who hobbles away.
18km to go: Schar’s lead is back to 45sec now. On ITV4 we’re informed that a bunch sprint will be “amazingly scary”.
21km to go: Scully has fallen as well, so it’s Schar against the world right now.
23km to go: The breakaway has been broken! Two of the four have been gobbled up, and Tom Scully amd Michael Schar are clinging on, the latter heading off on his own.
30km to go: Groupama – FDJ have been on or very near the front of the peloton all day. Sky are approaching menacingly as a gang to their left as I type, and Movistar on the right. The front four are just 30sec ahead. “On rowdy crowds, the unique proximity of fans lends colour to the battle,” writes Guy Hornsby. “But how can you realistically police a 200km stage? In an era of tweetstorms, everyone feels they can have a pop. Add booze and it’s a perfect storm. But flares are beyond sense.”
35km to go: “Where’s Sagan?” asks Hotspring Monkey on Twitter. “I’ve got him for the win in the sweepstakes we’ve got going here.” He’s handily placed, with a Bora-Hansgrohe team-mate at the front of the peloton at the moment. The front four still lead by 45sec.
40km to go: So the situation as it stands is exactly as it has stood all day, but it is running out of time in which to stand before it’s forced to go and have a lie down. The front four lead by 45 seconds.
45km to go: Here they are again. Super.
48km to go: Also exciting today: 2018’s first cyclist/sunflower photo opportunity.
🌞🌻🌞🌻🌞🌻🌞🌻🌞🌻🌞🌻#TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/LsMvlQHr1x
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 20, 2018
53km to go: The leading four have a gap of precisely 45 seconds.
Summary
54km to go: So far today, in short, not a lot has happened.
59.5km to go: Tom Scully is first over the hill, and pockets a single point.
60.5km to go: The leaders will soon complete the day’s second climb, the category four Côte de Sainte-Eulalie-en-Royans.
65km to go: The peloton is now just 1min or so behind the front four.
66km to go: The leaders will soon reach Pont-en-Royans, site of some ridiculous clifftop housing (see here). Not ideal for vertigo sufferers.
72km to go: “Who is leading today?” asks Bill Crownover. It has probably been too long since I mentioned this, given that the same four riders have been at the front since about four minutes after the start, but Tom Scully, Thomas De Gendt, Michael Schar and Dimitri Claeys are leading the peloton by 1min 50sec.
80km to go: “A bit of info about one quarter of today’s break,” writes Philip Malcolm. “Dimitri Claeys turned pro in 2010 but decided after one year he’d had enough and quit. Three weeks later he changed his mind and spent the next three years working full time and racing as an amateur to get back to the pros. 2016 was his first year back and since then he’s finished 9th at the Tour of Flanders and finished the Tour De France.”
It’s a good yarn: he spent three years working in a warehouse for Oxfam, but decided “after three weeks in a normal job” that he wanted to return to cycling. It’s been a long road back. There’s an interview with him from 2016 here.
88km to go: The front four currently have a cushion of 2min 5sec.
90km to go: The full results of the day’s intermediate sprint at Saint-Quentin-sur-Isère:
1. Thomas De Gendt (20 points)
2. Michael Schär (17)
3. Dimitri Claeys (15)
4. Tom Scully (13)
And then, about 1min 45sec later:
5. Alexander Kristoff (11)
6. John Degenkolb (10)
7. Peter Sagan (9)
8. Andrea Pasqualon (8)
9. Arnaud Démare (7)
10. Edvald Boasson Hagen (6)
11. Koen de Kort (5)
12. Dion Smith (4)
13. Darwin Atapuma (3)
14. Tobias Ludvigsson (2)
15. Lukas Pöstlberger (1)
92km to go: Though it appears to have been around for a while I just saw this advert for the first time during ITV4’s coverage. I think it’s the first time I’ve been mentioned by name in an advert.
96km to go: “There was lots of security on the mountain yesterday but it’s impossible to police all 13km,” writes Tim Pile. “Netherlands police were on hand to assist their French counterparts at Dutch Corner but those clad in orange are mostly big cycling fans; I don’t think they would do anything to risk the riders safety. The idiots appeared to be tourists rather than lovers of the sport.” That’s obvious, I think: if you care for cycling, cyclists or other people in general you don’t blind them and impede them.
98km to go: De Gendt pulls away in the final metres to win the sprint.
100km to go: The front four have a lead of precisely two minutes. Really nothing much has happened today. A bloke looking was a highlight.
106km to go: The peloton rides alongside the Isère river. “All this about the very sad retirement of Vincenzo Nibali reminds me of Andy Schleck,” writes Paul Wright, “who crashed into a Spectator in London and whose retirement was permanent.”
108km to go: It is 31C in Valence today, and storms are forecast. Not a drop of rain has fallen on this year’s Tour, and today could be the day (though it looks to me like they might get away with it, with the worst of the weather due overnight).
112km to go: The leaders head into Saint Quentin Sur Isère for today’s sprint. The peloton cycles past a man looking at a noticeboard on a wall. Not everyone’s interested in the cycling but it’s really something to totally ignore the Tour while standing five yards away staring at a wall.
116km to go: “It’s not uncommon for French supporters to attack non-French favourites on the Tour (there are no French favourites),” notes Geof Walker. “I saw this last time it passed near me. Mountain stages worse. Difficult to police.”
118km to go: The riders are just going through Sassenage. “A charming city that has preserved its village spirit,” apparently.
124km to go: The front four have a lead of 1min 45sec, and it has been falling of late.
125km to go: Meanwhile, this is from Gary Naylor: “I’m calling enough on fans’ behaviour on L’Alpe d’Huez. If these were French riders being treated like this, L’Equipe, the gendarmerie, even Macron would do something about it. Are they waiting for a rider to be paralysed or killed? Take the fans off the mountain.” I’d go for a middle way: a complete ban on flares, and better and better-policed barriers in areas of particular concern.
126km to go: A couple of contrasting opinions on fans and riders. “The tour is not the best cycling race by any means,” says Bo Re. “It is often mundane and calculated. however the emotions of the riders and fans make it a full-on sporting drama. No doubt there will be calls for crowd control, a ban on flares and indecent clothing et cetera. I say keep it dirty and rude, it is really the biggest plus point for the tour.”
Updated
133km to go: The riders will soon head into Grenoble, birthplace of Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud. Grenoble is twinned with Oxford.
135km to go: De Gendt is first over the top of the hill, collecting two points while Scully snaffles a single.
137km to go: The leaders are about to go over the day’s first climb, the category three Côte de Brié.
138km to go: “Nibali was very unlucky yesterday crashing as a result of an accident rather than malicious behaviour,” writes James Powers. “It always seems perverse that riders are often more injured from a slow speed incident than a high speed incident.
“Having said that it was a heart-in-the-mouth, febrile atmosphere yesterday and the New York Times was reporting that there were two attempted attacks on Froome yesterday including one caught on television [an aggressive back-slap]. French police also confiscated liquid meant to be thrown on riders. I don’t want to think what was the liquid to be thrown.
“In my opinion, as well as people throwing flares taking responsibility for their actions the media also have to hold their hands up for creating such a febrile atmosphere by the sensational reporting over the last few months.”
This is probably fair. Police, organisers, fans and media all share a bit of blame for Nibali’s broken backbone.
140km to go: Schar and Claeys have caught Scully and De Gent to form a four-man breakaway, about 3min 20sec ahead of the peloton.
148km to go: Back in the peloton, the GC favourites appear to mainly be chilling and chatting. Geraint Thomas is having a rum old chinwag with Matt Hayman.
150km to go: Scully and De Gent have a 40-odd second lead, with Michael Schar and Dimitri Claeys attempting to chase them down, and the peloton a further 30sec behind.
There is an early kind-of-almost breakaway, involving Toms Scully and De Gendt, with Sylvain Chavanel somewhere between them and the peloton, trying to catch up.
Here are some screengrabs of the Nibali crash. Looks like the camera was OK, but the strap snapped. Accidents happen, it’s all part of an event which covers thousands of miles and at which part of the appeal is how close fans can get to the competitors, but this is just so chuffing stupid.
Ah non, il semblerait plutôt que (le cintre de) #Nibali ait accroché la sangle d'un appareil photo. #TDF2018 pic.twitter.com/yYxlN2JOSM
— Elpénor ⭐⭐ (@CptFeeney) July 19, 2018
168km to go: And they’re off!
So it looks like Vincenzo Nibali was taken out yesterday by a spectator’s camera strap, which dangled in his path and caught on his bike. You can see it happen (very briefly) in a video on Eurosport’s website here. Really, though, whoever set off the flares that blinded the riders immediately before the incident must share the blame. Nibali paid with a fractured veterbra, and is out of the Tour.
The roll-out has begun, with actual racing set to get under way in 10 minutes or so.
Updated
Hello world!
Well, wasn’t yesterday fun! We had hills, spills and thrills aplenty and at the end of it Geraint Thomas secured another stage win and became the first Briton and the first yellow jersey-wearer to win on the Alpe d’Huez.
Today’s stage is very different: 169.5km, with two smallish climbs, the category three Côte de Brié and the category four Côte de Sainte-Eulalie-en-Royans, a sprint in the middle and another at the finish, which after the withdrawals of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, André Greipel, Dylan Groenewegen and Fernando Gaviria will sadly happen with hardly any sprinters. Here’s what the stage looks like, and once again hello!
Here are our reports on yesterday’s 12th stage, and on Geraint Thomas’s continued insistence that Chris Froome remains boss man at Team Sky.
Updated
