Tour de France Stage 13 Result and Standings

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The stage was short and thus was as hectic and unruly as were the preceding stages: riders tried to get away from the main bunch, were reeled back in and the game began anew.

ICONSPORT 705883591 scaled — Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard of Jumbo-Visma and his team mates; © BELGA PHOTO DAVID PINTENS – Photo by Icon sport

Stage 13 Report and Standings

Contents

1 Stage 13 Report and Standings

A short stage with only one sprint after 87 kilometres and nothing but a climb at the end of the day awaiting the riders. There were initially two riders and they were caught relatively quickly. One break away was over and another begins. This yo-yoing of riders between the peloton and a breakaway went on for the first twenty kilometres.

The Break-Away

With 110 kilometres left to race, a group of twenty men finally got their break and quickly established a gap of 25 seconds. This increased steadily up to 1 minute 25 seconds. Those in the group were

Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers), Pacher (Groupama-FDJ), Bettiol, Shaw (EF Education-EasyPost), Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step), Mohoric, Wright (Bahrain Victorious), Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), Petit, Teunissen, Zimmerman (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Oliveira (Movistar), Houle (Israel-PremierTech), Mozzato (Arkéa-Samsic), Van Gils (Lotto-Dstny), Bol, Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan), Charmig (Uno-X), Latour (TotalEnergies).

There is no need to mention that these riders posed no threat to the top ten of the overall standings. Additionally, this group contained no out and out climber. Therefore, letting them go seemed the right thing to do for the decision-makers in the peloton, i.e. Jonas Vingegaard, the man in yellow.

The Intermediate Sprint

In the middle of a mountain range, the climb up to which was surprisingly not categorised came the sprint of the day. The top ten was:

1. M. Teunissen 20 pts
2. M. Mohoric 17 pts
3. A. Charmig 15 pts
4. H. canacue 13 pts
5. N. Oliviera 11 pts
6. P. Latour 10 pts
7. M. Kwiatkowski 9 pts
8. A. Bettiol 8 pts
9. F. Wright 7 pts
10. Q. Pacher 6 pts

The Final Climb

There was a gap of almost four minutes with 30 kilometres left in the race. Depending upon how hard the top guns would ride up the Grand Colombiers, the breakaway group stood a good chance to get to the finish and battling it out among them.

This was expected as he already struggled yesterday, finishing within the time limit yet with only seven minutes left. Today he was already twelve minutes behind, had no one to tow him back into the peloton.

❌ @CalebEwan leaves the #TDF2023
❌Abandon de @CalebEwan
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 14, 2023

At the bottom of the climb, there were sixteen men left in the group:

Their advantage was 3 minutes 51 seconds. This was very much on for those guys. In the peloton, Pogačar and Vingegaard watched each other carefully, the man in yellow marking his rival.

In case anyone fancies feeling how some of the riders will certainly feel later on today, here is some advice:

If you want to climb the Grand Colombier, a) don’t do it in heat like this and b) here are the dates when it is reserved for cyclists only…👇 pic.twitter.com/TjueiVPKbW
— Jeremy Whittle (@jeremycwhittle) July 14, 2023

Then, with 11 kilometres to go, the Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Ineos-Grenadiers simply rode past three other men and powered away! Game on!

Within the blink of an eye he had opened up a gap of 15 seconds that was growing by the metre! Inside a kilometre the gap was 29 seconds – an amazing effort from this man who was the road race world champion in 2014 and has won Milan-San Remo in 2017. In other words, he aas not an unknown entity. He proved that he got what it takes to ride for the GC at the Tour! With 10 kilometres left he was 38 seconds ahead of those trying to chase him.

Kwiatkowski too strong – van Gils second, Pogačar third – Vingegaard still in Yellow

Their efforts were futile, Kwiatkowski was simply too strong. At the final kilometre, the famous flame rouge, Kwiatkowski had a lead of one minute and seven seconds over those giving chase. The victory on the Grand Colombier was his! This was his day!

Among the top two riders, it seemed there was a stalemate as both kept an eye on each other. Pogačar had a slight advantage as he had three men with him. His team had worked very well today, setting the pace for most of the day, not letting the breakaway group get too far ahead.

With five kilometres to go, an attack from Pogačar seemed imminent yet it did not happen. Was he feeling not strong enough?

Finally, when most had given up on any attack, the Slovenian attacked inside the last kilometre. Initially, Vingegaard could keep up but Pogačar took off some vital seconds. This was one of the possible options predicted for today. If the Tour ended today, the gap of nine seconds would be the second closest-ever finish of the race. Greg LeMond beat Laurent Fignon by 8 seconds in 1989 in the time trial of the last stage. Since then, no time trial has been held on the last day to honour the yellow jersey.

Fortunately, the race is not over yet and we have eight days of racing to go before we have a final result.

The standings after stage 13

General Classification Standings

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma): 53:48:50
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates): -:09
Jai Hindley (Bora–Hansgrohe): -2:51
Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers): -4:48
Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates): -5:03

Points Classification Leader

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck): 323 points

Mountain Classification Leader

Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost): 46 points

Best Young Rider Classification Leader

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates): 53:48:59′

No French winner on their fête nationale but nonetheless a very worthy winner of the stage in Michal Kwiatkowski. Tomorrow will see another mountain stage over 151,8 kilometres which comprises five climbs, one of the third category, one 1st category and one HC, highest category.

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