Roanne to Belleville en Beaujolais – 189 km
July 13, 2023
Spaniard Ion Izagirre, 34, claimed his second Tour de France stage win in Belleville-en-Beaujolais, seven years after his first one in Morzine as he emulated his teammate Victor Lafay and his compatriot Pello Bilbao, a Basque rider like him who started with an exceptional motivation in Bilbao. Jonas Vingegaard retained the yellow jersey in an action packed stage in the vineyards.
The Deets
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was the first on the attack in stage 12, but no one wanted to go with him as he’d be hard to beat from a breakaway group. He was brought back by the bunch after 3 km and that led to successive and unfruitful attacks for more than an hour. Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step), Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) were among the specialists of the big classics eager to break away. David De La Cruz (Astana) crashed out in a downhill to St-Vincent-de-Reins (km 28). At km 45, Van Aert managed to go clear but he was brought back after 8 km out in the lead.
15 Riders Were in the Lead
A strong leading group of 13 was eventually formed at half way into stage 12: Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma), Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ), Andrey Amador (EF Education-EasyPost), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Guillaume Martin, Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Ruben Guerreiro, Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Dylan Teuns (Israel-PremierTech), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), Tobias Halland Johanessen (Uno-X) and Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies).
Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step) and Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek) came across on the line of the intermediate sprint at Régnié-Durette where Mads Pedersen scored 20 points in first position. The peloton was divided in three groups with Sepp Kuss, Mikel Landa, Emanuel Buchmann and Louis Meintjes among the stragglers, which inclined AG2R-Citroën to lead the pace of the yellow jersey group in order to get Felix Gall up on the GC. Van der Poel and Amador rode away from the leading group with 55 km to go. The Dutchman sped up and continued solo up the côte de Montmain.
In the Last 31 km, Izagirre is Alone
Thirty-two km before the end, Pinot and Jorgenson caught up with Van der Poel. It became an 8-man group with the reinforcement of Martin, Izagirre, Benoot, Guerreiro and Burgaudeau.
Izagirre rode away by himself 31km before the finish. After the Kuss group caught up with the yellow jersey group, Ineos Grenadiers set the pace of that main peloton as Pinot was threatening the fourth place overall of Carlos Rodriguez. Izagirre reached an advantage of 50’’ with 15km to go. He forged on as the cooperation in the chasing group wasn’t great. Jorgenson and Burgaudeau attacked with 3km to go to round out the stage podium. The yellow jersey peloton crossed the line 4’14’’ after the Spanish winner.
