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After 15 years without a Tour de France stage win, Cofidis are making up for lost time, with Ion Izagirre escaping on the final climb of a medium mountains stage and holding firm ahead of a strong breakaway to secure the victory, their second of this year's Tour de France.
“It’s incredible. For the whole Tour so far I tried to break away and it didn’t work out but today yes," said Izagirre. "We were going well with Guillaume Martin all day. I attacked in the last climb from very far out and I could maintain the time difference to get the victory for myself.
"I was confident in my strength. I knew that if I earned enough lead, my adversaries wouldn’t have me in sight and it would play in my favour.
"I felt strong in the last kilometres. Many things went through my mind. It’s all very emotional."
Izagirre fought his way into the breakaway, which took a long time to form, with a lot of teams keen to make the move with a potential stage win in the offing. The move only escaped after 80 kilometres run of the stage at breakneck pace, with many riders dropped up the early climbs.
Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the first to attack from the move, going solo with 53 kilometres left in the race, hoping to steal a march on the climbers. However, he was caught and dropped on the final climb of the Col de la Croix Rosier, and soon after Izagirre launched what would prove to be the winning move.
The Spanish rider quickly built a gap, and by the top of the climb it was over half a minute, he built it out on the descent and then the flat sections into the finish, to cement his victory, the second of his Tour de France career.
Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) led in the race behind to claim second, with Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) in third.
Thibaut Pinot gained the most in the general classification battle, jumping up from 15th to tenth and taking just over three minutes on his rivals after finishing in the splintered group behind Izagirre.
Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) retained the yellow jersey on a day where Jumbo-Visma were quite aggressive in trying to get a rider into the breakaway.
Stage 12 results:
