Tour de France Stage 12: David Millar grabs a stage for Garmin-Sharp

David Millar, today won Stage 12 of this year's race in Annonay after again getting into an escape group that formed early on, his win came 45 years to the day after a legendary British cyclist of another era, Tom Simpson died at the Tour on the slopes of Mont Ventoux. In the final kilometres, Millar and AG2R's Jean-Christophe Péraud distanced their three remaining fellow escapees, the Scot waiting for the Frenchman to come round him just short of the line and counter-attacking to clinch the fourth Tour de France stage victory of his career.

In winning today, Millar, who broke his collarbone earlier this season, not only proves he has ridden into great form for the Olympic road race in a fortnight's time, but also gives Garmin-Sharp something to celebrate in a race that saw its riders caught up in a number of crashes in the opening week. He also becomes the fourth British rider to win a stage of this year's Tour, alongside the Team Sky trio of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, and Mark Cavendish. Wiggins and Froome had another successful day who and remain respectively first and second overall,. .

Millar, winner of three previous stages in the Tour de France – the Prologue in 2000, which put him into the maillot jaune, a road stage in Béziers in 2002 and an individual time trial in Nantes in 2003 – was instrumental in making sure that he and his fellow escapees stayed away today, when an attack from Liquigas-Cannondale’s Peter Sagan at one stage making it look like the peloton would up the tempo which would have spelt the end of the break.

The five men who formed that final selection – besides Millar and Péraud, the quintet comprised Cyril Gautier of Europcar, Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Egoi Martinez – had been in a group of 19 riders that got away early on in the stage ahead of the first of two Category 1 climbs tackled early on during the 226 kilometre stage from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne – Annonay.

On the descent from the first of those, the Col du Grand-Cucheron, David Moncoutié of Cofidis crashed out of the Tour, suffering a suspected broken collarbone. The Frenchman had been looking to rescue something for his team from a Tour that has seen Rémy Di Gregorio arrested on doping-related charges and Rein Taaramae, who had earlier worn the best young rider’s white jersey, blow up spectacularly on yesterday’s stage.

As the break headed up the second big climb of the day, the Col du Granier, crested with nearly 150 kilometres still to ride, its composition was whittled down to leave just those five riders who would eventually contest the finale out at the front of the race as the crossed the summit.

With a chasing group a minute or so behind them and the peloton less than three minutes behind, its pace increased after Team Sky’s Bradley Wiggins launched an attack on the ascent that was never going to influence the final result but seemed to serve to remind everyone that he is in the maillot jaune, there was no guarantee that the Millar group would stay out, particularly when Sagan launched himself down the descent.

Orica-GreenEdge, whose sprinter Matt Goss desperately needed to make up some points to try and close the gap on Sagan at the top of that competition, chased hard, and the Australian was the first man from the peloton over the intermediate sprint. With the threat from Sagan negated, meanwhile, the main bunch took its foot off the gas and the breakaway’s lead stretched out well beyond ten minutes as it became clear they weren’t going to be caught.

Sagan and Goss weren’t finished, however; a hard-fought sprint for sixth place at the end of the stage saw the Orica-GreenEdge man, who crossed ahead of his rival, adjudged to have ridden across the Liquigas-Cannondale rider’s line and he was relegated behind his opponent in the result, meaning that Sagan now has 56-point lead over the Australian.

Three years ago when the Tour visited Catalonia Millar was denied a stage victory as the peloton caught him late in Barcelona after he'd spent much of the day on a solo break. On the penultimate stage of that 2009 Tour, Millar had stopped on Mont Ventoux to lay a bidon at the memorial to Tom Simpson, today in the most dramatic of fashion he paid another tribute to Simpson with a superb win on the 45th anniversary of the Englishman's death.

Stage winner David Millar, Garmin-Sharp:

“It's amazing. I was thinking about the form of the British team while I was out there today. You've got a lot of time to think when you're riding for 226 kilometres... and we've got four stage winners in our team – we are going to have the strongest team at the Olympics and let's hope that we can do what we have to do. 


“You can't miss the attention that cycling is now receiving from the British public. It's something that we have to be very proud of; we have to appreciate that this isn't going to happen every year either. We've got the reigning world champion, we've got Brad in yellow – and he's more than likely going to win the Tour... we've got Chris who is Brad's biggest threat, his British team-mate. And if you had said that this would happen when I was at the Tour 10 years ago, I wouldn't have believed you – I'd have thought you were just crazy. 


“I think this is as good a win as I've had in my career. And it's particularly poignant that it came today on the 45th anniversary of Tommy Simpson's death. I think it's a full circle in a way. I'm an ex-doper and I'm very proud of where our sport is today and what we've done to change it. I think we mustn't forget the past and I'm one of the people who have made mistakes and I want people to know that I am clean now and the sport is a different sport. We should be very proud of it.


“I needed to do this for the team. I'm very proud to be the one who's helped the team come back from what's been a shocking Tour. I was determined to win today. Allan [Peiper, the Garmin-Sharp directeur sportif] has had a rough time these last few weeks – we all have... we came here with big objectives and they were destroyed in one fell swoop so I think we've shown our character and we're going to continue on the same manner.”

Maillot jaune Bradley Wiggins, Team Sky:

“It was a tough stage. The whole world just sees the last 100 kilometres but the first 100 was probably as hard as any Tour de France stage so far. It was a tough one today and even in the finish there, you couldn't relax for one minute because it was a tricky finish. 


“For Dave [Millar] to win after the season that he's had – breaking a collarbone early in the year and having to be on the comeback trail ever since – is impressive. To win on the anniversary of Tom [Simpson's death] is fantastic. I think he was beginning to feel a little left out this week so it's great for the team… our Olympic team. In a couple of weeks' time it's all going to happen. We've all won stages in the Tour so it's brilliant.


“This is the Tour de France and everybody wants to make a story but there is no story [regarding a supposed rivalry with Chris Froome]. 
“When I chased down the move over the second climb, I did so just to eliminate that break because we didn't want [Jérôme] Coppel to go away because he was only at 12 minutes on GC so it neutralised that breakaway at the summit. I was helping the team.

“There's never an easy day in the Tour. And that's the case again today.”

Sean Yates, Sports Director, Team Sky:

“It was hard at the start and the other teams didn’t make it easy for us, but at the same time they didn’t make it easy for themselves either and we shut down any moves that were dangerous.

“After the climbs it slowed right down and it meant that the whole gruppetto with Bernie and Cav could catch up and help out so it all worked out.”

Points classification leader Peter Sagan, Liquigas-Cannondale:

"We can see in the video what [Matt] Goss did [in the sprint for sixth at the end of the stage]. It's up to the race jury to decide, not me but I think that it's obvious in the video. He did that because we are two riders who are going for the green jersey. He's the one who is doing battle with me but I hope I'm going to win that fight.”

Tour de France Stage 13 result  

1  MILLAR David              GARMIN-SHARP             05h 42' 46''
2  PERAUD Jean-Christophe    AG2R LA MONDIALE           + 00' 00''
3  MARTINEZ Egoi             EUSKALTEL - EUSKADI        + 00' 05''
4  GAUTIER Cyril             TEAM EUROPCAR
5  KISERLOVSKI Robert        ASTANA PRO TEAM
6  SAGAN Peter               LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE        + 07' 53''
7  GOSS Matthew              ORICA GREENEDGE
8  HINAULT Sébastien         AG2R LA MONDIALE
9  EVANS Cadel               BMC RACING TEAM
10 PAOLINI Luca              KATUSHA TEAM
11 SIMON Julien              SAUR-SOJASUN
12 WIGGINS Bradley           SKY PROCYCLING
13 MARCATO Marco             VACANSOLEIL-DCM
14 ROCHE Nicolas             AG2R LA MONDIALE
15 FROOME Christopher        SKY PROCYCLING
16 BRAJKOVIC Janez           ASTANA PRO TEAM
17 NIBALI Vincenzo           LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE
18 VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen     LOTTO-BELISOL TEAM
19 IMPEY Daryl               ORICA GREENEDGE
20 BELVANENDERT Jelle        LOTTO-BELISOL TEAM

Last man home on Stage 13  

164 KERN Christophe          TEAM EUROPCAR              + 19' 15''

General Classification after Stage 13  

1  WIGGINS Bradley           SKY PROCYCLING           54h 34' 33''
2  FROOME Christopher        SKY PROCYCLING             + 02' 05''
3  NIBALI Vincenzo           LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE        + 02' 23''
4  EVANS Cadel               BMC RACING TEAM            + 03' 19''
5  VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen     LOTTO-BELISOL TEAM         + 04' 48''
6  ZUBELDIA Haimar           RADIOSHACK-NISSAN          + 06' 15''
7  VAN GARDEREN Tejay        BMC RACING TEAM            + 06' 57''
8  BRAJKOVIC Janez           ASTANA PRO TEAM            + 07' 30''
9  ROLLAND Pierre            TEAM EUROPCAR              + 08' 31''
10 PINOT Thibaut             FDJ-BIGMAT                 + 08' 51''

Points Classification after Stage 13  

1  SAGAN Peter               LIQUIGAS-CANNONDALE          254 pts
2  GOSS Matthew              ORICA GREENEDGE              198 pts
3  GREIPEL André             LOTTO-BELISOL TEAM           181 pts
4  CAVENDISH Mark            SKY PROCYCLING               129 pts
5  EVANS Cadel               BMC RACING TEAM              100 pts

Mountains Classification after Stage 13  

1  KESSIAKOFF Fredrik        ASTANA PRO TEAM               66 pts
2  ROLLAND Pierre            TEAM EUROPCAR                 55 pts
3  SORENSEN Chris Anker      TEAM SAXO BANK-TINKOFF BANK   39 pts
4  KISERLOVSKI Robert        ASTANA PRO TEAM               37 pts
5  SCARPONI Michele          LAMPRE - ISD                  33 pts

Young Rider's Classification after Stage 13  

1  VAN GARDEREN Tejay BMC RACING TEAM                 54h 41' 30''
2  PINOT Thibaut FDJ-BIGMAT                             + 01' 54''
3  TAARAMAE Rein COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE             + 27' 55''
4  VALLS FERRI Rafael VACANSOLEIL-DCM                   + 35' 36''
5  KRUIJSWIJK Steven RABOBANK CYCLING TEAM              + 42' 28''