Tour de France: Nils Politt wins stage 12 as breakaway sticks

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Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe) won stage 12 of the Tour de France, after he managed to drop every other member of a 13-man breakaway that went clear at the start of the day.

Having gone clear with three other riders 40 kilometres from the finish, the German struck out alone with an attack 12km from the finish, and soloed all the way to the finish to take what was just the second victory of his pro career. 

The riders he had dropped, Imanol Erviti (Movistar) and Harry Sweeny (Lotto Soudal), arrived at the line 31 seconds later to claim second and third, respectively. 

Although crosswinds caused some gaps in the peloton at the start of the stage in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, no major general classification contenders were caught out, and the race soon settled down with the trailing groups all re-joining the peloton, and the sprinters’ teams allowing the breakaway to contest for the stage win. 

Strong tail and cross-tail winds made for a very fast stage, and helped Politt use his sheer strength to drop the other riders from the breakaways, which featured several dangerous fast finishers including Andre Greipel (Israel Start-Up Nation), Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies) and Luka Mezgec (Team BikeExchange). 

There was no interest in exploiting the potential of the winds in the peloton, however, which rolled into the finish 15:52 after Politt, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finishing safely with no changes in the top of the GC.

Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) brought the peloton home by sprinting for the three green jersey points not swept up by the riders from the break. This might have been a stage for him to match Eddy Merckx’s Tour record for stage wins, but Deceuninck-QuickStep chose not to chase the break after Julian Alaphilippe managed to get into it. 

“It’s unbelievable,” said Politt at the finish. “It’s a dream to win a stage at the Tour de France.”

It was an especially welcome result for his Bora-Hansgrohe team, as their star man Peter Sagan failed to make it to the start, as he chose to abandon due to a deterioration of knee injuries suffered after his crash on stage 3.

“At the start we had to decide that Peter [Sagan] was to leave the race because of his knee problem, so it changed our tactics,” explained Politt in regards to him getting into the lead group.  

Having made it into the break, Politt continued to make the right tactical choices, and had the strength to make his well-timed attacks stick.

“There were quite a lot of sprinters in the group...so I knew that I had to do the race hard, and that I had to attack, and attack quite early. I did the first attack, and then there were just four guys. Then the sports director told me, 'now it’s the last way until the finish, so give everything'. So I did it again, I attacked...to come in solo to the finish line, it’s unbelievable," Politt said.

“It’s my passion, cycling. I’m away so much from home because of training and races. And now I have the biggest win that you can have — a stage at the Tour.” 

How it unfolded

Rather than the usual fight to go out in front of the peloton and get into the day’s break, stage 12 of the Tour de France began with an intense battle to stay in the peloton as crosswinds blew the race apart from the flag.

Multiple groups were spat out of the back of the peloton and formed into echelons, with big names including the Ineos Grenadiers' duo Geraint Thomas and Richie Porte, although all of the top GC riders remained in the bunch.

The pace was intense, but a change of direction from a crosswind to a tailwind about 10km into the stage prompted the first attacks out of the front of the diminished peloton in an attempt to form a breakaway.

A group of 13 riders formed, and, as you’d expect given the effort required to go clear in such circumstances, it featured several very strong riders: André Greipel (Israel Start-Up Nation), Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo), Connor Swift (Arkea-Samsic), Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal), Luka Mezgec (Team BikeExchange), Sergio Henao (Qhubeka NextHash), Edvald Boasson Hagen (TotalEnergies), Erviti, Sweeny and Politt.

Alaphilippe was the 13th rider, and although he was initially on marking duties, he soon began to contribute too, indicating that Deceuninck-QuickStep would not chase for Cavendish today.

With this group gaining a gap, the peloton sat up 20km into the stage, allowing all of the trailing groups to return to the peloton.

With the race having calmed down, it wasn’t long before the break had opened a lead of nine minutes over the peloton. 

No sprinters’ teams showed any interest in bringing the break back, leaving UAE Team Emirates to set a steady pace at the front of the peloton as custodians of the yellow jersey. 

Success for the breakaway was therefore all but confirmed, and the battle between the 13 riders in it to become the stage winner commenced 50km from the finish.

Politt was the man to ignite hostilities with an attack, with Swift and later Mezgec joining him, and the trio stayed clear for 5km before being brought back. 

Sweeny was next to try 40km from the finish, and went clear along with Küng, Politt and Erviti. The tailwinds and cross-tailwinds saw the riders reach speeds of over 70 kph and made gaps hard to close down, and helped this quartet open up and maintain a gap of 30 seconds over the rest of the break.  

The chasers continued to work well together, but could not make any inroads into this 30-second deficit from the leading quartet. By the time they reached the final 20km, and the gap began to increase to over 40 seconds, it became clear that they would not be caught.

Sweeny attacked on a small uphill 14.5km from the finish, managing to drop and take Küng of contention.

Then 2.5km later, Politt launched a huge attack, to which neither Sweeny or Erviti had any response. From that moment there was little doubt that he would hang on for victory, and he was able to soak in the atmosphere and reflect on his imminent victory as he soloed to the win during the final few kilometres.