Stage 12 really emphasized the speed that this year’s Tour has produced as the peloton started the race from Nevers Magny-Cours motorsports circuit.
One after the other, the attacks began to pour on as soon as the starting flag was dropped. Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto Intermarché once again found himself tearing away from the breakaway close to 30km into the race.
While Veistroffer stayed ahead, Mads Pedersen lead the peloton behind him to gain more points at the intermediate sprints, retaining the green jersey lead he’s successfully built up over the first 12 days.
Around 60km, Veistroffer gained some company to stay ahead of the raging peloton.
The sprint teams began to form an offensive formation at the front of the peloton. Every sprint team was hungry for a win today.
With around 50km to go, Veistroffer once again abandoned his help in hopes he could pull out the stage win.
With around 15km to go, the peloton finally dropped the hammer as the sprinter’s formations menacingly formed up front.
Alpecin-Premier Tech, led out by the most powerful cyclist in the peloton, Mathieu Van der Poel, took the lead with 1km to go. The line of 4 blue jerseys certainly had the power to lead their sprinter, Jasper Philipsen, to a stage win today.
With tens of meters to go, a huge wreck occured in the middle the dead sprint. The strongest survive in the clean air up front.
Tim Merlier of Soudal Quick-Step launched like a rocket out of nowhere and confirmed that he is the standard for sprinting in 2026. As he kissed his wrist, everyone else just raced for second place.
With the weekend approaching, more opportunities for riders to showcase their strengths will be provided now that we are out of the flat sprinter stages.
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