The attacks started early and never relinquished during Stage 12 of the Tour de France on Thursday. Team Jumbo-Visma was alert, and Wout van Aert and Wilco Kelderman tried to join the early breakaway. The early breakaway attempts were reeled in, but after eighty kilometers Tiesj Benoot escaped with 13 riders.
Ion Izagirre, however, managed to win the stage by almost a minute, giving Cofidis its second win of the Tour. Mathieu Burgaudeau of TotalEnergies snagged second just before American Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar Team) while Benoot finished eight seconds later in fourth.
“I felt I was one of the strongest riders in the lead group, but it was difficult to make the difference,” Benoot said. “When our lead was more than four minutes, I knew someone from the breakaway would win. In the end, Cofidis did a good job with Izagirre. Today, finishing higher than fourth place was feasible, but of course, you need a bit of luck. The goal before the race was to have someone in the breakaway, also for the bonus seconds in the final. We achieved that today.”
Durangoan Sepp Kuss had to play catch up early, but was in position to stay with Jumbo-Visma leader Jonas Vingegaard when the breakaway took off. The group of 39 finished 4:14 after Izagirre. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) finished 12th, but Vingegaard crossed 16th in the same time to maintain his 17-second lead in the general classification. The GC’s top five also includes Jai Hindley of BORA-hansgrohe (+2:40), Carlos Rodriguez of Indeos Grenadiers (+4:22) and Tobias Halland Johannessen of the Uno-X Pro Cycling Team (+4:34).
Kuss finished 22nd on the day, but got passed by Thibault Pinot in the GC standings and slipped to 11th overall after the stage. Pinot (Groupana-FDJ) was part of the breakaway and finished sixth, 3:01 ahead of Kuss and GC group on Stage 12. Kuss was 6:45 out the lead while Pinot moved into 10th overall and was 6:33 out after passing five riders in the standings.
“We had everything under control,” said Jumbo-Visma sports director Grischa Niermann. “Sepp and Dylan (van Baarle) were a bit behind initially, due to a crash. The rest of the guys around Jonas rode an excellent stage. With the peloton remaining calm, Tiesj was able to take his chance today. He looked strong, but unfortunately, he couldn't win the stage. It's a shame because we always race for the win, but we also know that our main goal is to defend the yellow jersey with Jonas. We did that well today.”
Mads Pedersen of Lidl-Trek was one of the riders who attacked early and managed to score 20 points on Stage 12. With the effort, he moved into second in the points race behind Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin Deceuninck, 323 to 179.
Jasper Stuyven finished 15th to score Lidl-Trek’s best finish on the stage while leader Mattias Skjelmose moved up two spots to 24th in the GC (+27:43) with a 27th-place finish.
American Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) didn’t score any points in the mountains, but he held on to the King of the Mountain jersey. Johannessen scored four mountain points to move into second where he trails Powless, 46-30.
Pogacar leads Rodriguez by 4:05 in the youth category and will stay in the white jersey another day. Bahrain-Victorious has the best team time, followed by INEOS-Grenadiers (+1:18) and Jumbo-Visma (+1:52).
Vingegaard, who took the yellow leader’s jersey on Stage 6, is looking forward to Thursday's finish on the Grand Colombier. Stage 13 is only 137.8 kilometers and it starts flat, but it has a nice warm-up climb in the middle before finishing with the Grand Colombier climb.
“I've done this climb before,” Vingegaard said. “Like today, it's going to be a tough race, and I'm looking forward to it.”
