![Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot - Aurillac, France - July 11, 2024 Intermarche - Wanty's Biniam Girmay celebrates winning stage 12](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385228631_17207108229330_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqPoURMoge4zyCm5RemNush76Xj2WECU5tGTp4vDMBGsY.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Biniam Girmay takes Tour de France stage 12 win as Primoz Roglic crashes
![Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot - Aurillac, France - July 11, 2024 Intermarche - Wanty's Biniam Girmay celebrates winning stage 12](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385228631_17207108229330_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqPoURMoge4zyCm5RemNush76Xj2WECU5tGTp4vDMBGsY.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Primoz Roglic lost more than two minutes to his rival Tour de France contenders after crashing near the finish where Biniam Girmay won a third stage on Thursday.
Roglic hit the tarmac with some 12 kilometres left after a rider in front of him hit road furniture and lost control of his bike. Roglic could not avoid the crash and went down with several others.
It was the second accident in 24 hours for Roglic, a four-time Grand Tour champion. He got back on his bike but struggled at the back and was helped to the stage finish by his Bora-Hansgrohe teammates. He crossed 2min 27sec after the winner according to provisional results and dropped to sixth place overall.
![Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe team's Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic, with visible injuries sustained in a crash in the final kilometers of the stage, cycles past the finish line of the 12th stage of the 111th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, 203,6 km between Aurillac and Villeneuve-sur-Lot, southwestern France, on July 11, 2024](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385230533_17207123737080_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqA7N2CxnJWnYI3tCbVBgu9T0aesusvN1TE7a0ddd_esI.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Girmay, who became the first black rider to ever win a Tour stage this month, edged Wout van Aert and Arnaud Démare to extend his lead at the top of the rankings for the green jersey.
Two-time Tour champion Tadej Pogacar kept the yellow jersey. Pogacar has a lead of 1min 6sec over Remco Evenepoel, with two-time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard in third place, 1min 14sec off the pace.
The crash disturbed preparations for the final sprint, with Mathieu Van der Poel also missing from the main group and unable to lead out team-mate Jasper Philipsen.
Stage 12 took riders on a 204-kilometre (126-mile) route from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwestern France without major difficulty.
There was an early breakaway but Jonas Abrahamsen, Quentin Pacher and Valentin Madouas were caught after 162 kilometres.
Stage 12: Birmay wins as Roglic crashes – as it happened
A tough day for poor old Roglic
He’s had a few of them in his career.
![Slovenian rider Primoz Roglic (L) of Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe crosses the finish line during the 12th stage of the 2024 Tour de France cycling race over 203km from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France, 11 July 2024. Tour de France 2024 - Stage 12](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385229639_17207110807990_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=350)
He has now dropped down to sixth in the general classification and is 4min 42sec behind his compatriot and race leader Tadej Pogacar and nearly 3min 30sec behind the final podium spot, Jonas Vingegaard.
Pain for Roglic
Another angle shows that the Slovenian has some of his jersey missing on his right shoulder and is going to lose a significant chunk of time today, through no real fault of his own.
Cavendish shakes his head as he crosses the line. He’s still seeking that 36th stage victory. He crossed the line in fifth, I think.
STAGE 12 - RESULT
- Biniam Girmay (Intemarche-Wanty)
- Wout Van Aert (Team Visma-Lease A Bike)
- Arnaud Demare (Arkea-B&B Hotels)
- Pascal Ackermann (Israel-PremierTech)
- Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan)
- Jasper Phillipsen (Aplecin Deceunick)
- Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny)
- Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility)
- Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-Victorious)
- Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)
GIRMAY WINS STAGE 12
The sprint gets going... Demare begins the sprint. Wout Van Aert is in there somewhere, Cavendish on Girmay’s wheel somewhere... it’s very close but Biniam Girmay, the green jersey has the power at the death to win a third Tour de France stage... and not by a great deal!
![Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot - Aurillac, France - July 11, 2024 Intermarche - Wanty's Biniam Girmay celebrates winning stage 12](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385228829_17207107174400_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqN7kF8Fb6ID_G1m99xXXMyw86FZi7jdCgGe52rJgwubU.jpeg?imwidth=350)
12.1km to go - Crash in the pack...
And there’s a crash in the peloton. It was Astana Qazaqstan’s Lutsenko who drifted right over the central reservation and went down, causing a kerfuffle behind him. Probably 10 or so riders went down in the end, but a lot of those were just going over stationary, clipped in unawares.
Roglic was caught up in it and now his Bora Hansgrohe team have to work to get him back in the peloton. He looks to be fairly unscathed and is moving well enough.
71km to go and the peloton have reduced the gap to under a minute
Still a good effort in the four-man breakaway, with a message coming through to one of them that the chasing bunch “will have to slow down”. It is a pretty rapid pace with the breakaway reaching the Cote de Montclera, which is a 2km climb at 4.8 per cent average gradient.
The current state of play on stage 12...
We have roughly 100km until the stage finish. There is a four-man breakaway of Madouas, Pacher, Abrahamson and Turgis but their advantage is slowly being closed down by the chasing peloton. The gap is now a tad under two minutes.
![TotalEnergies team's French rider Anthony Turgis (L), Groupama - FDJ team's French rider Quentin Pacher (C) and Groupama - FDJ team's French rider Valentin Madouas (R) cycle in a breakaway during the 12th stage of the 111th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, 203,6 km between Aurillac and Villeneuve-sur-Lot, southern central France, on July 11, 2024](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/cycling/2024/07/11/TELEMMGLPICT000385209517_17207031885540_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Stage 12: Aurillac—Villeneuve-sur-Lot
Good afternoon. Stage 12 of the 2024 Tour de France is well under way as Tadej Pogacar looks to defend his 1min6sec lead over Remco Evenepoel and the 1min14sec he has on Jonas Vingegaard. Dane Vingegaard took victory on yesterday’s stage 11, beating the yellow jersey and fellow two-time tour winner in a sprint finish in Le Lioran.
Clearly, Pogacar did not surrender any real time to his rival and the defending champion, but the stage win will surely feel important for Vingegaard who crashed heavily, puncturing a lung, fracturing his ribs and collarbone to boot, earlier this year. Will it kickstart his bid for the general classification?
Today is a flat stage, so is set up for the sprinters. What chance, then, of Mark Cavendish extending his record 35 stage wins in this race to 36? Well, he has suffered a bit of a blow with veteran (albeit barely three weeks older than the Manxman) team-mate Michael Morkov has withdrawn from the race because of Covid-19.
The 39-year-old Dane tested positive on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning, the Associated Press reports.
“Despite the rider feeling good and doesn’t have essential symptoms, the medical staff of Astana took a decision to stop the rider,” Astana said.
He won a stage on the 2013 Spanish Vuelta and the gold medal in the Madison track race at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. He is set to compete at the Paris Games.
Cavendish spoke to broadcaster ITV earlier today about the withdrawal:
“We have to adapt. It’s really unfortunate. On a professional level he’s a big part of the team, as road captain he’s my final lead-out man.
“On a personal level he is one of my closest friends and for that reason I would rather he is healthy and right. For me, above any bike race, is that his long term health is not compromised.”
Stage 12 is a 204-kilometer (126-mile) flat stage from Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot in southwest France.