Tour de France 2024: stage 13 heads for Pau but Roglic forced to pull out – live | Tour de France 2024
Key events
144km to go: The gap continues to hover around the 30-second mark, with the peloton (a) reluctant to let Adam Yates hare off over the horizon and (b) being led by riders who missed the break and have got a rocket from their extremely displeased team Directeur Sportifs.
146km to go: Your breakaway in a stage that has yet to settle down: Jan Tratnik (Visma-Lease a Bike), Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Julien Bernard and Toms Skujins (Lidl-Trek), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) Kevin Geniets and Romain Gregoire (Groupama-FDJ), Mathieu Van der Poel and Axel Laurance (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Deep breath …
Rui Costa, Neilson Powless and Marijn Van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost), Arnaud de Lie and Brent Van Moer (Lotto-dstny), Jakob Fuglsang and Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech), Oier Lazkano (Movistar Team), Frank Van den Broek (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Davide Ballerini (Astana Qazaqstan), Magnus Cort and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X).
148km to go: There are – I think – 23 riders in the front group and interestingly, Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) is one of them. The British rider is currently eighth on General Classification, just 6min 59sec behind Tadej Pogacar. Michal Kwiatkoski (Ineos Grenadiers) is also in it. Like I said, serious heavywieghts.
152km to go: The gap remains at 28 seconds, so this breakaway could get reeled in yet.
152km to go: A breakaway group of about 20 riders have opened a gap of 37 seconds over the peloton but the riders of Jayco-AlUla are trying to close it down because they don’t have anybody in it and have been ordered to rectify the situation by their team boss.
There’s are some serious heavyweights in the escape party, which has representatives from 15 different teams. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility), Neilson Powless (Education–EasyPost) and Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) are among them.
They’re away and racing in stage 13
164km to go: Following their parade through the neutralised zone and the conclusion of all our pre-stage admin, the riders have been given the signal to start racing today. Eurosport have highlighted the delicious prospect of crosswinds later in what could be an otherwise extremely boring stage.
It’s my third and final one to report on in this year’s Tour and I don’t mind saying I’m due a good stage because the previous two have been pretty dull transitional stages. My heart sank into my boots when I saw the topography of today’s!
Sickness in the peloton
Astana-Qazaqstan rider Michael Morkov was working as Mark Cavendish’s chief lead-out man but pulled out of the Tour before yesterday’s stage after testing positive for non-symptomatic Covid. While fit enough to continue, he abandoned in order to prevent spreading the virus to his teammates. Fred Wright also pulled out with illness yesterday following what he described as his “worst ever day on a bike”.
Pello Bilbao also abandoned during yesterday’s stage after spending two days struggling at the back of the field with an unspecified illness. Following the conclusion of yesterday’s stage, Cavendish raised his concerns that “there are riders riding with Covid” and almost all the riders are wearing protective masks between leaving their team buses and going to the signing on area.
Other withdrawals: Alpecin-Deceuninck riders Soren Kragh Andersen and Jonas Rickaert both finished outside the time limit yesterday, as did Astana-Qazaqstan’s Yevgeniy Fedorov, who I am reasonably certain was the man who hit the road furniture and went down with 11 kilometres to go, causing the pile-up that ended up doing for Roglic.
Lotto Dstny rider Jarrad Drizners landed extremely heavily in yesterday’s crash but is starting today. EF Education-EasyPost’s Neilson Powless is also going to see how he goes despite having a fractured wrist.
Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe: The loss of Primoz Roglic need not be a total disaster as it frees up the team’s sprinter Danny van Poppel to try and go for a stage win today and in the race’s only other flat stage.
The Australian Jai Hindley is currently 19th on GC, 19min 25sec behind Tadej Pogacar, so he could make a push for the top 10. Also, in Hindley and the Luxembourgish rider Bob Jungels, Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe have two men who know what it takes to win mountain stages of the Tour de France.
Girmay seals hat-trick while Cavendish seethes
Stage 12 report: Biniam Girmay won his third stage of this year’s Tour yesterday, while a frustrated Mark Cavendish was relegated to 68th after what he thought was a hard-fought fifth place finish and an unlucky Primoz Roglic lost almost over two minutes through no fault of his own. Jeremy Whittle reports from Villeneuve-sur-Lot on a stage that was simultaneously eventful and very boring .
The top five on General Classification
Primoz Roglic abandons the Tour
Following his second crash in as many days, Primoz Roglic has decided enough is enough and pulled out of the race ahead of today’s stage 13. His Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team confirmed that their 34-year-old Slovenian team leader will not start today and is choosing instead to focus on “upcoming goals”.
“Primoz Roglic underwent careful examination by our medical team after yesterday’s stage and again this morning,” said a team statement. “The decision has been taken that he will not start [Friday]. We wish you a speedy recovery Primoz.”
Bad luck seems to follow Roglic around and the rider was helpless to avoid coming off his bike yesterday after an Astana rider’s collison with some traffic-dividers resulted in several other riders hitting the deck in front of him. His abandonment is a big blow for his new team Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe, who had been hoping for a big performance from their star signing in this year’s Tour.
Stage 13: Agen to Pau (165.3km)
William Fotheringham’s stage 13 guide: The 75th time the Tour has visited the “belvedere of the Pyrenees.” After this there is only one sprint stage left, so the pressure will be on those fast men left in the race, particularly if they have missed out so far. There are a couple of climbs in the finale which will could catch out anyone who is struggling, but this will be another day for Philipsen, Jakobsen, Groenewegen et al.
