SARRAN, France – Tour de France rookie Marc Hirschi won the longest stage of this year’s race with a bold solo breakaway Thursday on a previously unused sharp ascent, making up for two previous near misses.
The Swiss rider powered away on the Suc au May climb, new to the 117-year-old Tour. He extended his lead by racing with hair-raising speed down the other side and held off pursuers over the last 15 miles to win Stage 12 by a comfortable margin in Sarran.
It was the 22-year-old Hirschi’s inaugural victory at his inaugural Tour, after podium finishes on Stages 2 and 9. On the ninth stage, he also launched an early solo breakaway only to be caught by four riders near the end and then lost a sprint when he was overtaken in the final meters.
“It’s hard to finds words. It’s my first pro victory,” Hirschi said. “I would never have believed that I could win here, a stage, at this age.”
The Tour’s top contenders, including yellow-jersey wearer Primoz Roglic, were more than two minutes behind when Hirschi finished the 135-mile stage into the Massif Central, one of five mountain ranges scaled by this Tour. French rider Pierre Rolland placed second, 47 seconds behind. Hirschi covered the distance in just under 5 hours, 9 minutes.
Roglic kept the overall lead, still 21 seconds ahead of Egan Bernal, last year’s winner from Colombia. French rider Guillaume Martin remained third overall, 28 seconds behind Roglic.
Durango’s Sepp Kuss finished Thursday’s stage in 27th overall in the peloton 2:30 back of Hirschi. Kuss is in 24th in the overall standings, 32:01 behind his teammate’s lead.
It was a third consecutive day of safe riding in the peloton by Kuss. His job is about to get more difficult in the next three days as the route shifts back into the mountains for some important climbs. Roglic and Jumbo-Visma are counting on his strength to help the team fend off any attacks from Bernal or Martin.
“It was not an easy stage,” Roglic said in a Jumbo-Visma news release. “And it was certainly not a quiet day. We expected that a large breakaway would get away from the start, but some teams had other plans. We raced at a high pace all stage long. Especially at the end on the climbs. The team has again kept me in the front. This was a good day for us.”
The stage paid homage to France’s all-time favorite cyclist, Raymond Poulidor, by whizzing through his hometown where he died last November, Saint-Leonard-de-Noblat in west-central France.
Poulidor’s repeated failures to win the Tour conquered French hearts and earned him the moniker “Eternal Runner-up.”
Poulidor finished a record eight times on the Tour podium from 1962 to 1976 but never won and never wore the yellow jersey. He died at age 83.
Roadside spectators yelled “Allez Poupou!” – Poulidor’s nickname – as Tour riders raced through his town, past his portrait.
The stage was rolling and largely flat for the first hour after the start in Chauvigny but got progressively harder as it veered southeast into the lumpy Massif Central.
The four relatively modest climbs of note were a foretaste of harder ascents that await on Friday. Stage 13 is a start-to-finish roller-coaster of seven noted climbs. The 119 miles end with a short but furiously steep ascent of the Puy Mary, the remains of a once-giant volcano that is liable to force top contenders into battle.
The final kilometers to the finish at 5,213 feet in altitude kick upward at a gradient of 15%, plenty steep enough for the strongest riders to open consequential time gaps over any rivals who struggle.
Roglic said he is bracing for “some fight and real racing.” If all goes according to plan, Kuss will be right there to help Roglic to the finish.
“Tomorrow’s stage will be much more difficult than today’s,” Roglic said. “It will be tough with the sequence of climbs and the mountaintop finish. I expect the necessary attacks and a fight for the GC on the final climb. The team is very strong, and we have to keep riding like we have been doing the entire Tour. I am looking forward to it.”
Meanwhile, the Tour organizer confirmed Thursday that four teams which had staff members test positive for COVID-19 this week won’t automatically be sent home if another staff member is positive in the next battery of tests.
Health rules for the race say teams can be sent home if they have two or more positive tests in a seven-day span.
But race organizer ASO confirmed that the day-counter will be reset to zero when teams are tested again on the Tour’s second and last rest day next Monday.
That clarification lifts a weight off Cofidis, AG2R La Mondiale, Ineos Grenadiers, and Mitchelton Scott, the teams that each saw a staff member test positive on the first rest day.
Because they will all essentially be starting afresh in the next round of testing, a single positive test on Monday will not automatically trigger their exclusion, ASO said.
Any team that registers two or more positives could, however, still be sent home. The battery of tests will be the last before the Tour finishes on Sept. 20 in Paris.
Herald sports editor John Livingston contributed to this report.
