Tour de France 2022 - Mads Pedersen sprints to stunning Stage 13 victory in Saint-Etienne drama

In a dramatic three-way sprint, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) stormed to victory on Stage 13 of the Tour de France in Saint-Etienne.

The Dane seized the initiative as he took off with just over 12km to go, and he always seemed to have total confidence that he would be the one to emerge victorious from the final trio as he powered to the line for the win.

Britain's Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious) came in second place from the final trio's sprint finish, while Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech) of Canada rounded out the podium.

It was a stage that saw ultimately seven strong riders in the breakaway, going up against a bunch containing only a few teams with the ambition and the energy needed to bring the race back to a bunch sprint. When one of those teams - Lotto-Soudal - experienced catastrophe with 71km remaining, it was all but certain the stage would go to the break.

A touch of wheels at a seemingly innocuous corner caused Caleb Ewan and several others in his squad to crash. Fortunately, the Australian and his team-mates were eventually able to continue, but they would not return to the front of the race. Alpecin-Deceuninck could not do it all on their own, and by the time BikeExchange Jayco took it upon themselves to take up the chase, it was too little, too late.

After two brutal days in the high mountains, in which survival was the only game in town, Stage 13 had originally offered something to the sprinters. Not much, though. In fact, it must have seemed like sadism to expect the heavy-set men who made up the grupetto on Alpe d’Huez to find their finishing legs less than 24 hours later.

The 2022 Tour de France has given the likes of Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl), Dylan Groenwegen (BikeExchange Jayco) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal) little since Denmark. Moreover, what there has been has been often snatched from under their notes by Wout van Aert and friends.

Hopes may have been raised by Christian Prudhomme’s programme notes which described “a profile without any significant difficulty [that] should, in theory, allow the teams that are focused on sprint finishes to make hay today". The words “in theory” were doing a lot of heavy lifting, as a glance of their own at the stage profile on the buses this morning will have dashed said hopes significantly. Three categorised climbs, none lower than a two, and many uncategorised rises in between, offered plenty of opportunities to put the non-puncheurs under pressure.

It did not, on paper, have the makings of a true breakaway day, either. Although heavily favouring Van Aert - “if in doubt, Wout” - the bookies gave Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck) a fighting chance, another rider who would favour a selectively fast finale.

It certainly wasn’t a case of one and done on the downhill start out of Le Bourg d’Oisans, at the foot of Alpe d’Huez. A long, hard battle began at the gun and continued all the way through Grenoble. In the shadow of the Alps, a group of five made it clear on the descent, before being reabsorbed on the first climb, the Cote de Brie.

Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) used it as a launch pad, taking with him Stefan Kung (Groupama FDJ) and Matteo Jorgensen (Movistar). The two accomplished time trialists were able to use the terrain to their advantage, and soon Trek-Segafredo weren’t happy to have missed out, sending Quinn Simmons up the road with Mads Pederson on his wheel. Hugo Houle and Fred Wright also fancied a day in the break, and the trio efficiently formed a septet. An octet was not to be, as Owain Doull (EF Education Easypost) found himself in no-man’s land and was obliged to sit up and return to the bunch.

Lotto-Soudal and Alpecin-Deceuninck did most of the pace-setting in the bunch to keep the breakers on a reasonable length leash.

The Belgian teams were aided by the arrival of the hint of the whisper of the echo of crosswinds, which brought Jumbo Visma and Ineos Grenadiers to the front. This extra firepower reduced the break’s lead, which had been comfortably over two minutes, back within 90 seconds.

Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) did not appreciate the extra effort required, nor the warm winds blowing across the course, and struggled to maintain contact with the back of the peloton.

With 71km of the stage still to ride, the calculations changed again as Lotto-Soudal caused their own sprinter, Ewan, to crash. A team-mate went straight on at a left-hand bend causing the Australian to clip a rear wheel, and go down, clutching his knee.

Despite hopping straight back onto this bike, it cost him a good two minutes and, more importantly, reduced the strength of the chase by a factor of an entire team. It was a void QuickStep-AlphaVinyl were surprisingly prepared to fill, with Florian Senechal and Mattia Cattaneo moving up to the front.

The final categorised climb, the Côte de Saint-Romain-en-Gal, was not steep, at 4.7%, but as it went on for more than 7km it presented significant challenges and big opportunities. The latter moreso for the breakaway.

It was too much for Ewan, who slowed to a crawl, and Simmons, whose work on behalf of Pedersen was done.

Towards the summit, as Alpecin Deceuninck could do no more, and with no other prepared to take over, a truce appeared to be called in the bunch. The main GC teams rolled to the front, effectively blocking the road, and allowed the breakaway’s advantage to increase by a minute in a stroke.

Too little, too late, Bike Exchange decided to take over at the front. Although they were able to inject enough impetus to take a minute off the break’s advantage, even riding on the limit a minute was the most they could manage.

A two-minute advantage going into the final stages was almost the perfect amount for the breakaway, as it didn’t afford them enough time to mess around, play games, or begin to attack each other too early.

Indeed, the breakaway kept their cards to their chests until 13km from the finish.

Pedersen picked his moment to perfection, almost moments after BikeExchange had thrown in the towel. Just as the road rose again, with Ganna reaching into his pocket for a gel, the Dane surged from behind. Wright was ready and waiting, leaping right on the Trek rider’s wheel, Houle a magnet to his own.

Pederson, confident he would be fastest of the three in the finale, was happy to have them as hitchhikers. They quickly formed a collaboration leaving Ganna, Jorgensen and Kung in their wake.

At 3km from the finish in St Etienne, on one of the final rises, Wright tried an attack. Then Houle, the slowest sprinter of them, went himself. Pederson would not be dropped. Nor would the fastest sprinter, and firm favourite, be outfoxed.

Into the final straight, Houle riding on the front, watching his wheel, Pedersen was confident. He could have left it late, but opted to sprint first. Wright tried to stay in his slipstream but he could not hope to match Pederson’s turn of speed.

“It’s incredible to finally take a win," Pederson said afterwards. "I knew the shape was really good, and definitely missed out the opportunities in the first week. The last two weeks here there’s not a lot of chances for a guy like me, so to take the chance today and get the reward is really nice, not only for me but the whole team. We came here with riders only for stages, now we have one, so it’s a relief.”

Pederson admitted to at times questioning the day's tactics: “For a long time I thought it was a mistake to be in the break because we only had two minutes, but in the end it paid off. Today was super hard for everyone, it was such a warm day.”

Describing the finale, it played out precisely as Pederson planned: “I didn’t want to be in the sprint with six riders. It would be too many guys to control, so I tried to attack and luckily we split and it was only three guys, a lot easier to control. From there on, I just wanted to make the gap as big as possible, slow down and gamble a bit in the last few kilometres.”

The peloton came in as one, Van Aert adding a few points to hill commanding lead in the sprints competition. No-one was prepared to threaten Jonas Vingegaard's (Jumbo-Visma) commanding lead of 2'22" in the general classification.

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