The 2020 Tour de France is the 107th edition of Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Tour began in Nice with a hilly stage on 29 August, and Stage 12 occurred on 10 September with a hilly stage from Chauvigny. The race finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 20 September.
The stage breakaway contained Sánchez. Walscheid, Asgreen, Erviti, Burgaudeau and Politt. The latter won the intermediate sprint and Burgaudeau collected mountain points on two occasions. The peloton caught last survivors with 43 kilometers left, while riders from the peloton launched multiple attacks. Soler, Pacher, Schachmann and Team Sunweb trio Benoot, Kragh Andersen and Marc Hirschi made the front group on the Côte de la Croix du Pey. A dozen of riders formed a chasing group. Decisive move by Hirschi came on Suc au May, 26 kilometers before finish. Swiss rider reached his first World Tour victory. Pierre Rolland finished second and Søren Kragh Andersen third.[2]
Many riders were trying to form a breakaway and seventeen riders finally allied together around 60 kilometers after race began. Simon Geschke and Valentin Madouas won the mountain bonuses on two category 2 climbs, Pierre Rolland won two mountain bonuses on category 3 climbs. Julian Alaphilippe was first on intermediate sprint. The advantage on the peloton grew up to 11 minutes, so the stage winner was expected to be from the breakaway. Neilson Powless attacked first. Maximilian Schachmann joined him with 29 kilometers remaining. Powless was dropped on Col de Neronne and his teammate Daniel Martínez accelerated from breakaway group, followed by Schachmann's teammate Lennard Kämna. Both riders overtook Schachmann within last two kilometers. Colombian won the sprint for stage victory. Kämna and Schachmann filled the podium.
Meanwhile, crash injuries forced Bauke Mollema and Romain Bardet to leave off the race. Ineos Grenadiers led the peloton to Col de Neronne. Martin was in trouble. Roglič and Pogačar pushed hard on Pas de Peyrol. Landa, Porte, López were chasing and they dropped Egan Bernal. Slovenian duo reached the summit six minutes behind the stage winner. Landa, Porte and López finished less than 20 seconds behind them. Bernal came along with Quintana, Urán and Yates. Title defender lost 38 seconds to Roglič. Pogačar jumps to second place in overall. Guillaume Martin finished almost three minutes behind race leader and fell outside the top 10 in general classification.[4]
Stefan Küng and Edward Theuns arranged a breakaway during this stage. Theuns was first on intermediate sprint. Küng dropped Theuns and won eight mountain points on three climbs. Swiss rider was caught with 82 kilometers left. Plenty of attacks have started since 12 kilometers before finish. In sequence Benoot, Madouas, Kämna, De Gendt, Alaphilippe, Hirschi, Sagan and Van Avermaet they all attempted to escape from the bunch and win this stage. But it was Søren Kragh Andersen, who chose an accurate moment to attack in last 3 kilometers. Luka Mezgec and Simone Consonni finished second and third from a bunch including all Tour contenders. Peter Sagan was fourth and earned some points to put pressure on green jersey wearer Sam Bennett[6]
Race started with many approaches to form a breakaway but the presence of points classification contenders Peter Sagan and Sam Bennett prevented from successful move. Sergio Higuita abandoned the race after two early crashes. The definitive breakaway included Pierre Rolland, Simon Geschke, Marco Marcato, Matteo Trentin, Jesús Herrada, Michael Gogl, Niccolò Bonifazio and Kévin Ledanois. Trentin won the intermediate sprint. Herrada and Rolland won mountain point bonuses on two category 1 climbs. Rolland and Gogl were the last to be caught by the peloton at the foot of the final climb of Grand Colombier. Egan Bernal, Nairo Quintana and Guillaume Martin were dropped early. Group of favourites led by Team Jumbo–Visma kept the strong pace. Adam Yates attacked with no effect. Cyclists restrained from another moves until the last kilometer. Richie Porte accelerated, Primož Roglič responded but Tadej Pogačar followed him and went for his second stage victory. Most of other favourites came within 40 seconds. Caruso lost almost two minutes, Guillaume Martin and Quintana were more than three minutes late. Hopes for a sixth consecutive overall win for Ineos Grenadiers evaporated. Bernal finished seven minutes behind, Carapaz came twenty minutes later.
Dubbed as the "Queen Stage" for this year's tour, this stage features two Hors catégorie climbs, the Col de la Madeleine with a height 2000 m and the Col de la Loze with 2304 m, the latter being used for the first time on the tour and was the finish line for this stage. Prior to the race, defending champion Egan Bernal announced that he is quitting from the tour.
During the start of the race, five cyclists started to break away from the main peloton, led by Julian Alaphilippe and Richard Carapaz. At the sprint point, green jersey leader Sam Bennett got ahead of Peter Sagan, adding two points to his lead. On the first climb, Carapaz won over Alaphilippe, both increasing their points but still behind King of the Mountains jersey leader Benoît Cosnefroy.Tadej Pogačar secured third place on the summit while in the yellow jersey group. Because of the fast pacing being done by the Team Bahrain McLaren, all of the stage leaders except Carapaz were caught up by the yellow jersey group. While ascending Col de la Loze, yellow jersey leader Primož Roglič and teammate Sepp Kuss, white jersey leader Pogačar, Miguel Ángel López, and Richie Porte were the remaining cyclists from the yellow jersey group, leaving the rest of the leaders group behind. Carapaz was eventually caught up near the 24% gradient part (the steepest section) of the ascent while Lopez and Kuss went ahead.[13] GC leaders Roglič and Pogačar tried to chase Lopez, but in the end, Lopez emerged as the winner of the stage and went up to third place in the general classification. As the stage with the highest climb, Lopez also got the Souvenir Henri Desgrange award. Roglič still retained the yellow jersey, while Pogačar got the KoM jersey from Cosnefroy while still retaining the young rider jersey, but his gap from Roglič ballooned to 57 seconds. Bennett retains the green jersey. Alaphilippe got the combativity award for the stage.
Aside from Bernal, Mikel Nieve called it a race. This marked the first time he abandoned a Grand Tour.
With the stage featuring the shortest distance to get sprint points (14km after start), green jersey leader Sam Bennett and Peter Sagan, along with 30 other cyclists battled it out. Bennett edged Sagan by finishing first and third respectively; hence, adding five more points to his lead.
After the sprint, the rest of the course featured five mountain classification climbs with the following order: Category 1 Cormet de Roselend, Category 3 Côte de la route des Villes, Category 2 Col des Saisies, Category 1 Col des Aravis, and the Hors catégorieGlières Plateau. With 47 points maximum up for grabs for the King of the Mountains (KoM) jersey for this stage and with several cyclists within 30 points of the current KoM leader Tadej Pogačar, cyclists who planned on getting the jersey made the attack. For the first two climbs, Marc Hirschi went ahead of Richard Carapaz, but Hirschi crashed while descending after Col des Saisies, leaving Carapaz, teammate Michał Kwiatkowski, and Pello Bilbao as race leaders. On the climb to Glieres Plateau, Mikel Landa tried to distance away from the yellow jersey group, but was soon caught up before reaching the summit, while dropping top 10 cyclists Adam Yates, Rigoberto Urán, and Alejandro Valverde. Richie Porte got a flat tire while traversing the gravel section of the Glieres Plateau, losing at most 40 seconds in the process, but was able to catch up with the yellow jersey group. Hirschi and Bilbao also got caught up with the yellow jersey group, while Kwiatkowski and Carapaz, who placed first on the final two climbs, cruised at the front, giving a 1-2 finish for the Ineos Grenadiers team.
Kwiatkowski won the stage, marking the first time he had won an individual stage on a Grand Tour. Carapaz won the KoM jersey from Pogačar. With his effort on today's stage, Hirschi won the combativity award. André Greipel called it quits for the tour.
The penultimate stage of the tour was an individual time trial and it featured a Category 1 climb at the end of the stage, with the last portion of the climb having a 20% gradient. Because of this, aside from the yellow jersey (in which Primož Roglič had less than a minute lead over compatriot Tadej Pogačar), the king of the mountains (KoM) jersey was also up for grabs (Richard Carapaz had a 2-point edge over Pogačar).
The stage started with Rémi Cavagna finishing the individual time trial at a faster time with most of the cyclists prior to the final 20 cyclists. Subsequently, two Team Jumbo–Visma teammates were faster than Cavagna, Wout van Aert by almost 30", and Tom Dumoulin, 10" faster than van Aert. Carapaz started slow on the stage in preparation for his jersey defense but was not able to get any points after the stage concluded. Pogačar was slowly chipping away Roglič's lead on the first and second checkpoints, and on the climb, Pogačar was able to overturn the deficit, besting Roglič by almost two minutes. He also became the stage winner while Roglič finished fifth. Since Pogačar climbed the fastest, he also won the KoM jersey over Carapaz. Sam Bennett still owned the green jersey despite not finishing in the top 10.
