British rider outsprints Jean-Christophe Péraud on the 45th anniversary of the death of Tom Simpson
David Millar (Garmin-Sharp) salvaged his team’s Tour de France, with victory in a two-man breakaway sprint at the end of the twelfth stage, between Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne and Annonay Davézieux. The Scottish rider outsprinted Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R La Mondiale) after the two of the escaped the rest of a five-man breakaway group, to deny France a fourth stage victory, but instead took Great Britain’s fourth stage of the race on the 45th anniversary of the death of Tom Simpson.
Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) took the sprint for third place, five seconds back, ahead of Cyril Gautier (Europcar) and Robert Kiserlovski (Astana).
“I think this is as good a win as I’ve had in my career,” said Millar afterwards. “And it’s particularly poignant that it came today on the 45th anniversary of Tommy Simpson’s death. I think it’s a full circle in a way. I’m an ex-doper and I’m very proud of where our sport is today and what we’ve done to change it. I think we mustn’t forget the past and I’m one of the people who have made mistakes and I want people to know that I am clean now and the sport is a different sport. We should be very proud of it.
Garmin-Sharp had endured a torrid Tour de France to date, with most of its riders crashing in the first week, and the loss of three of its number, including Giro d’Italia winner Ryder Hesjedal. Millar’s win gave the Argyle Armada a much-needed boost of morale.
“I needed to do this for the team,” Millar said. “I’m very proud to be the one who’s helped the team come back from what’s been a shocking Tour. I was determined to win today. Allan [Peiper, Garmin-Sharp directeur sportif] has had a rough time these last few weeks – we all have… we came here with big objectives and they were destroyed in one fell swoop so I think we’ve shown our character and we’re going to continue on the same manner.”
Although it took some time for the break to become established, with the stage starting with two 1st category climbs, the peloton finally switched off and allowed the five riders to take a lead that reached almost 13 minutes. Despite the lack of danger from behind however, it was not until the final three and a half kilometres that the first attack came from within the leading quintet.
The first two moves came from Kiserlovski as the road began to rise gently to the finish, which were both covered by Péraud. When the Frenchman himself jumped away however, only Millar could follow, and they left the others behind. Once they had established a gap, Millar was happy to sit in front to keep the other three at bay; Péraud launched his sprint for the line with just 200 metres to go, but the Scot had little trouble in coming around the mountainbiker to take his fourth career victory in the Tour.
As the peloton neared the finish the pace began to rise as the battle for the green jersey – mostly between incumbent Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) and challenger Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) – was hotting up. Goss’ team led the Australian towards the line but, as he was making his sprint he moved slightly off his line, which brought a protest from Sagan. The complaint was upheld by the jury but since the two of them had pulled away from the peloton, the Australian was only relegated to seventh. A 30-point fine however, could have ended Goss’ green jersey campaign.
Maillot Jaune Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) and all of the other general classification contenders finished safely in the peloton behind the sprinters, some 7’53’ behind Millar – having enjoyed an easy second half to the stage – and there were no changes overall.
The mountains come early but the break takes a long time to gain acceptance
Although it was officially an Alpine stage, stage 12 was far from the toughest of the 2012 Tour de France, although it was to be the longest at 226km. Featuring the 1st category climbs of the Cols du Grand Cucheron and Granier in the first 80km, the rest of the route would be far more rolling in nature as it headed west away from the big mountain range. Providing its composition was right, the stage was made for breakaways, especially with the 3rd category Côte d’Ardoix coming inside the final 20km – as the stage entered the Ardeche region – there to spoil things for the sprinters.
After a number of early moves, a 19-man group managed to escape after 18km. By the time it reached the top of the Grand Cucheron, it had been reduced to eleven, and consisted of: Millar, Kiserlovski, Péraud, Gautier and Maxime Bouet (AG2R La Mondiale), Yaroslav Popovych (RadioShack-Nissan), Kristjan Koren (Liquigas-Cannondale), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis), Vladimir Gusev and Eduard Vorganov (Katusha), and Nicki Sorensen (Saxo Bank-Tinkoff Bank).
Defending teammate Frederik Kessiakoff’s polka-dot jersey lead, Kiserlovski attacked and took first place over the top, but was rejoined by the other ten on the descent. David Moncoutié (Cofidis) tried to bridge across to the break, but crashed badly on the descent, and was forced to abandon with nasty abrasions on his left side, and a suspected broken collarbone.
With Team Europcar – winner of the last two stages, but who had missed the break – leading a chase early on, and with Team Sky now setting a steady tempo, the eleven-man group was just 1’15” ahead after 50km. In between was a five-man counter move, which included Chris Horner (RadioShack-Nissan) and Martinez; Horner and the others dropped back to the peloton before the climb to the Granier began, but Martinez made it across in the early slopes.
Kiserlovski took the points over the top once again, but the peloton was less than a minute behind. A big effort from Millar on the descent pulled Gautier, Péraud, Martinez and Kiserlovski away, while a counterattack that included Green jersey Sagan brought the rest of the break together. This larger group was chased down by Orica-GreenEdge – which was not keen to see Sagan increase his points lead over second place Matt Goss – as they reached the feedzone, in Saint-Joseph-de-Riviére after 108.5km.
Finally five men are away and the peloton decides to take it easy for the rest of the stage
Millar’s group was still just 1’30” clear at the feedzone but, now that Sagan was back in the fold, its lead began to grow rapidly. Sky took up station at the front of the peloton once more and, with 105km to go, the gap finally rose over five minutes. With 90km to go it was approaching 12 minutes, as the group of sprinters that had been dropped on the two big climbs finally made it back up to the peloton.
The quintet’s maximum lead was 11’45”, but Team Sky’s Bernhard Eisel – who had just rejoined the peloton with World champion Mark Cavendish – took station at the front and it began to gradually come down.
Millar rolled over the line to take the intermediate sprint, in Marcilloles with 73km to go, by virtue of the fact that he was at the head of the break at the time. As the peloton approached however, the contenders in the Green jersey battle began to edge forward; Kenny van Hummel (Vacansoleil-DCM) tried to go early and take the rest by surprise, but Goss sprinted past him without too much trouble with André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) behind him. Sagan mistimed his lunge however, and couldn’t quite get past the Dutchman.
The peloton sprint hit the line exactly eleven minutes behind the break, but then began to drift out again. With 60km to go it was back out to 11’30”, as the peloton relaxed once more, and it continued to grow to 12’40” into the final 50km.
The final climb arrives and the battle for the stage win is on
As they arrived at the foot of the Côte d’Ardoix, the five leaders were still 12’10” clear of the peloton. Surprisingly none of the group attacked on the gentle 5.9km slopes, and Kiserlovski rolled over the line in front to take a clean sweep of the day’s mountain prizes. The Croatian was now up to fourth in the overall mountains classification, and had protected Kessiakoff from any threats from outside the Kazakh team.
Team Sky was still leading the peloton, but was simply riding to get Wiggins to the finish safely, and rolled over the top of the climb still 10’52” behind.
Into the final ten kilometres the five leaders were still working well together, with nobody missing turns on the front, and into the final five kilometres there had still been no attacks.
Finally, with 3.5km to go, Kiserlovski made the first move, but it was quickly snuffed out by Péraud, who had the rest behind him. As Millar took the front, the pace dropped completely on a slight rise under the three kilometre banner, and the Croation went again; as he was caught however, Péraud went himself and only Millar was able to follow.
Millar took the front again as they continued to climb, as the other three fought to close the gap, but with 1.5km to go it looked like a battle between the two up front. Under the flamme rouge Millar and Péraud were ten seconds ahead of the others, with the British riders sitting on the front as they rode around the final roundabout.
Finally, with 200 metres to go, Péraud made his move from behind Millar’s wheel, but the British rider was expecting it and had little trouble coming past the Frenchman with plenty of road left to take the stage. Millar punched the air with one fist as he hit the line to take his fourth stage victory in the Tour, before collapsing with exhaustion shortly afterwards.
Péraud crossed the line just behind him, then Martinez outsprinted Gautier and Kiserlovski to take third five seconds later.
As the peloton arrived at the foot of the final rise to the line Liquigas-Cannondale’s Daniel Oss was leading Sagan at the very head of the peloton. This seemed to have taken Goss by surprise, but the Australian recovered quickly and the Liquigas-Cannondale pair pulled away from the front.
Team Sky’s Michael Rogers took over with Wiggins tucked safely behind him, to keep the Maillot Jaune out of trouble, until Orica-GreenEdge surged forward into the final kilometre. The Australian team led Goss out and he made his move for the line but, as Sagan went to come around him he switched to his left and blocked the Slovakian’s path. Sagan tried one more time, but then sat up to protest Goss’ move, which was upheld by the race jury.
Luckily for Goss, the two riders had pulled slightly clear of the rest, which meant that relegating him to the back of the group he was in only meant the loss of one place, although the 30-point fine would hurt the Australian far more.