Peter Sagan sprints to third win of 2018 Tour de France as Geraint Thomas retains yellow
Last Updated: 22/07/18 5:44pm
Peter Sagan timed his sprint to perfection to beat Alexander Kristoff by a wheel and win his third stage of the 2018 Tour de France.
After three gruelling stages in the Alps, the peloton enjoyed the closest thing to a day off as is possible in the middle of a Grand Tour on the relatively flat 167km trek from Bourg d'Oisans to Valence, and Team Sky delivered both Geraint Thomas and Chris Froome safely over the line to ensure there was no change to the general classification.
Thomas will begin stage 14 in yellow, with a one minute 39 second lead over Froome, with Tom Dumoulin 11 seconds further back.
Indeed, the day was largely spent in relaxed pursuit of the breakaway quartet of Tom Scully, Thomas De Gendt, Michael Schar and Dimitri Claeys, three of whom were swallowed by the pack with 10km to go, leaving Schar to get his head down in pursuit of an unlikely solo win.
But he was soon caught as the sprinters' teams jostled for position on the wide roads into Valence and inside the last kilometre, Quick-Step Floors' Philippe Gilbert tried to capitalise on a slight drag up to the finish line - and the Alpine decimation of the sprint - as he attacked when they passed under the flamme rouge.
But the Belgian was caught with 300 metres to go, leaving Bora-Hansgrohe's Sagan to extend his green jersey points lead with victory in the final metres over Kristoff of UAE Team Emirates, with both overhauling French hope Arnaud Demare of Groupama-FDJ.
Sagan, who won stages two and six of this Tour, now has 11 Tour stage wins to his name.
"It's fantastic," he said. "It was a flat stage, and everyone could recover a bit in the group. I think everyone was happy in the bunch to have a relaxed stage.
"I'm very happy to win today, it's very nice for me and thanks to all my team-mates because they did a very good job. I thought I'd left it a little bit late, I was a little bit behind in the last 600m, then on the last turn I tried to bring myself up to the front, and after that I stayed on the wheel of Kristoff and I'm very happy to beat him."
Stage 13:
1 Peter Sagan (Svk) Bora-Hansgrohe 03:45:55
2 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) UAE Team Emirates same time
3 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ same time
4 John Degenkolb (Ger) Trek-Segafredo same time
5 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing Team same time
6 Yves Lampaert (Bel) Quick-Step Floors same time
7 Magnus Cort (Den) Astana Pro Team same time
8 Andrea Pasqualon (Ita) Wanty-Groupe Gobert same time
9 Sonny Colbrelli (Ita) Bahrain-Merida same time
10 Taylor Phinney (USA) EF Education First-Drapac p/b Cannondale same time
General Classification:
1 Geraint Thomas (GBr) Team Sky 53:10:38
2 Chris Froome (GBr) Team Sky +1:39
3 Tom Dumoulin (Ned) Team Sunweb +1:50
4 Primoz Roglic (Slo) LottoNL-Jumbo +2:46
5 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale +3:07
6 Mikel Landa (Spa) Movistar Team +3:13
7 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) LottoNL-Jumbo +3:43
8 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team +4:13
9 Daniel Martin (Irl) UAE Team Emirates +5:11
10 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team +5:45
