The 2022 Tour, which started from Copenhagen, continues to smile on the Danes: Mads Pedersen won the thirteenth stage on Friday in Saint-Étienne, where Jonas Vingegaard extended his lease with the yellow jersey.
Pedersen signed the third Danish success of the week, after Magnus Cort Nielsen in Megève (Tuesday) and Jonas Vingegaard at the Col du Granon (Wednesday). The 2019 world champion won the Tour for the first time, after a hot day, exhausting for the whole peloton.
To win at the end of the 192.6 kilometres, the Dane had his last two breakaway companions. In front of the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium, the historic lair of the “Greens”, he launched the sprint from afar to clearly beat the Briton Fred Wright and the Canadian Hugo Houle.
The other members of the breakaway, who could not follow Pedersen’s attack twelve kilometers from the finish, finished at around thirty seconds. The Italian Filippo Ganna and the Swiss Stefan Küng, two of the greatest current riders, stumbled on the last obstacle as they too were aiming for their first stage success in the Tour.
“Mads had legs of fire”, recognized Küng who was able to realize the strength of the Dane. In 2019, the Swiss finished third in the very restricted sprint in the world championship won by Pedersen in Harrogate, in the cold and rain of Yorkshire. Quite the opposite of the conditions encountered between Bourg d’Oisans and Saint-Étienne, where the thermometer was well over thirty degrees.
– “Almost the heat wave” –
The day after Alpe d’Huez, the peloton left the alpine massif at high speed, at more than 45 km/h. A breakaway of seven riders formed in two stages: Ganna, Küng and Jorgenson from the 30th km, then Houle, Pedersen, Simmons and Wright 21 km further.
The Lotto team, until the fall of its Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan, and the Alpecin team devoted themselves to controlling the gap of around two minutes. The chase stopped 47 kilometers from the finish before BikeExchange decided to pick up the pace and then capitulated after fifteen kilometers.
Up front, Pedersen was the strongest. He made the first attack, on a false flat, to divide the breakaway and better control his opponents, before making the final thrust in the sprint and giving his first bouquet to the Trek team.
On the other hand, many runners appeared tired by the very fast pace each day and the weather conditions. “I like the heat but today was almost a heat wave,” said Vingegaard, who crossed the line in the peloton, nearly six minutes from the winner.
“You have to constantly cool down, lower your body temperature, hydrate yourself,” listed the yellow jersey. “We were hoping for a cool day, it was a hot and finally difficult day.”
Vingegaard mentioned the next stage and the arrival on Saturday in Mende, favorable to the punchers. The slope of the short climb (3 km at 10.2%) towards the aerodrome where the scenes of a blockbuster film, La Grande vadrouille, were shot, could favor Vingegaard’s dolphin, the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, very explosive . But the yellow jersey showed no concern.
