‘Cav’ makes a Mark in Stage 13
The peloton passes Montresor Castle during the 13th stage of the Tour de France—P
Mark Cavendish won the 13th stage of the Tour de France in a sprint finish on Friday and Chris Froome lost a sizeable chunk of his overall lead after being caught out by an attack from rival Alberto Contador.
Cavendish moved ahead with about 100 metres to go and rival Peter Sagan, who leads the contest for the best sprinter’s green jersey, was unable to stay with him.
It was the British sprinter’s second stage win of this year’s Tour and 25th overall — moving him level in third place with Frenchman Andre Leducq on the all-time list.
Flat stages are normally relatively free of incident, but the 173-kilometre (107.5-mile) trek from Tours, which is surrounded by the Loire river, to Saint-Amand-Montrond in central France was exciting and showed that even Froome’s formidable Sky team can be vulnerable.
With about a third of the stage gone, the main pack was split into three and Alejandro Valverde dropped way out of overall contention after stopping to repair a puncture that cost him a huge amount of time and put him outside the top 10.
Valverde was second overnight but that spot was overtaken by Dutchman Bauke Mollema, while two-time former champion Contador improved to third. They both gained 1 minute, 9 seconds on Froome.
That means Mollema was 2:28 behind and Contador was 2:45 adrift.
Aside from Cavendish, Contador was the big winner of the stage after he was battered by Froome in the Pyrenees mountains and then lost more time to him in the time trial. Friday’s performance should be a big boost for the Spaniard going into a tough mountain stage on Sunday and then three grueling Alpine stages to follow after that. Given that Froome finished all alone and without any Sky teammates on a flat stage, it suggests he could be in serious trouble in the mountains if he’s isolated by an attack from Contador.
The Sky team were down to seven riders after Norwegian Edvald Boasson Hagen had to pull out after fracturing his right shoulder in a crash involving about 20 riders near the end of Thursday’s stage. Of the remaining seven, Geraint Thomas was riding with a fractured pelvis.
The peloton was split in three after an attack from Cavendish’s Omega Pharma QuickStep team, with Tony Martin leading the charge. Froome made sure he stayed with the small group forming at the front as it pulled away from the two groups behind.
The reason for Omega’s attack was to try and shake off German sprinter Marcel Kittel — who has won three sprint stages so far — which worked to perfection.
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