Tour de France Stage 13: Dani Martinez wins, Primoz Roglic drops Egan Bernal

Dani Martinez of EF Pro Cycling has won a tough Stage 13 of the Tour de France at Puy Mary, getting the better of fellow breakaway rider Lennard Kämna in a two-man sprint at the summit finish. On a brutal final climb, back in the overall contenders’ group, only Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates was able to stay with race leader Primoz Roglic of Jumbo Visma, with defending champion Egan Bernal of Ineos Grenadiers, 21 seconds off the yellow jersey this morning, losing more than half a minute.

A big shake-up on GC sees Pogacar move from seventh to second overall, 44 seconds behind his fellow Slovenian. They are followed by a quartet of Colombians, led by Bernal who is 59 seconds off the race lead, and who loses the best young rider's white jersey to Pogacar.

Simon Yates of Mitchelton-Scott lies seventh, 1 minutes 42 seconds behind  the race leader, while any French hopes of a home win are now ended with both Guillaume Martin of Cofidis and Roman Bardet of AG2R-La Mondiale, respectively third and fourth at the start of the day, dropping out of the top 10.

Today’s 191km stage from Châtel-Guyon was widely considered the toughest of this year’s race, featuring seven categorised climbs and 4,400 metres of climbing.

It also packed a brutal one-two punch in the finale, with the Category 2 Col de Neronne, covering 3.8km at an average gradient of 9.1 per cent, followed by the summit finish on the Puy Mary, covering 5.4km at 8.1 per cent, but averaging 15 per cent over the final 2km.

Max Schachmann of Bora-Hansgrohe crested the Col de Neronne alone, having earlier chased down a solo attack by Nielson Powless of EF Pro Cycling from what had been a 17-man break full of quality riders, with an advantage of around 30 seconds on his closest pursuers.

Those were another EF Pro Cycling rider, Dani Martinez, and his own team mate, Kämna, who with Schachmann up the road unsurprisingly sat on the Spaniard’s wheel.

Martinez caught Schachmann with 1.5km remaining, with Kämna immediately attacking, a move that distanced his struggling team-mate, though Martinez was able to respond.

Schachmann got back on briefly, before finally throwing in the towel around 600 metres from the line leaving Kämna and Martinez to fight it out for the stage win.

Reaction

Stage winner Dani Martinez

I was scared when I was along against the two Bora Riders. At the end of the stage when they were the only ones left with me and I saw they were close, I tried to follow for a bit. But then I worked and worked and gave everything on the climb. With 5km to go, I saw they were both struggling, and I could see that Kämna couldn’t hold his sprint and I knew that I could beat him.

When we knew that Neilson Powless was with Schachmann, I kind of relaxed. But then he got dropped and I had work hard to bring him back along with the other riders in the breakaway. Once I was alone with Kämna I decided to set my pace and go full gas until the very end. I felt like Max Schachmann would be quite a bit stronger than me in the flat and downhill sections, but I managed to bridge back to him with 2km to go. 

The team strategy was actually to support Rigoberto Urán until the very end but the circumstances changed early on. I saw that I had good legs and I saw a possibility to get into the breakaway and look for the stage victory. 

Overall leader Primoz Roglic

I am very happy with how it went today. I took valuable time on my rivals, except for Pogačar. He is very strong and he is a tough opponent. It’s no surprise to us that he’s doing so well. We saw that in the Vuelta last year.

But all in all it was a good day. As long as you gain time, it’s okay and to my advantage. Every second counts. The team was again very strong today. This is not only my performance, but that of the whole team. After all, we do this together.

It was a tough day and the final climb, above all the last two kilometres, was very steep. It was tough and everyone was riding at their limit. This has been a good day, but we are not there yet. The Tour is still long and a lot can still happen. We will continue to focus on our plan and then we will see where it takes us.

Second overall Tadej Pogacar

It was a great day, and now I find myself in the white jersey again. I am also happy to have reached the finish line with Roglic: pedalling uphill with Primoz reminded me of the sensations I experienced in last year’s Vuelta, it was an experience similar to that of the 13th stage of the Spanish race, when we arrived in Los Machucos. 

In the overall standings, I gained seconds on all the other riders, except Roglic, so I’m satisfied and I’d like to thank the team for giving me great support during the stage, I’m proud of my teammates.