Stage 13

The road

At the start

A transfer stage, everybody says

Nothing has changed since Mont-Saint-Michel: Froome by 3:25 from Valverde, 3:37 from Mollema, 3:54 from Contador. Today is a hundred and seventy-six kilometres from Tours to Saint-Amand-Montrond with under a thousand metres of climbing — everyone's idea of a quiet day before Mont Ventoux on Sunday. It crosses open, exposed country in a heatwave.

How it was won

1. 191 km to go

   The cornfields start to move

   A transfer stage, everyone said. Then the hot canicule crosswind puts waves through the wheat of central France, Omega Pharma-QuickStep hit the front, and the race splits. When the teams up front realise Marcel Kittel is not among them, they ride harder.

2. 286 km to go

   Valverde punctures out of the Tour

   Second overall, eighty-six kilometres from the line, and a flat tyre. Three teammates drop back and a fourth comes down from the front group, and none of them has the speed to bring him back. He will finish 9:54 down and sixteenth.

3. 331 km to go

   Saxo-Tinkoff, thirty-one kilometres out

   The front has settled, the tension has eased — and that is exactly when Saxo-Tinkoff hit it. Another split, and this time Contador is in it and Mollema is in it and the yellow jersey is not. Froome cannot get onto the back of the echelon and can only watch it go.

4. 421 km to go

   The elastic snaps

   For ten kilometres Sky and the other chasers hold the gap at a handful of seconds. Then it goes. Porte has already been dropped from the front peloton; there are three Sky riders left to save a Tour de France on a flat road.

5. 51 km to go

   Terpstra makes Sagan pay

   Fourteen riders come into the last kilometre thinking about the stage. Niki Terpstra goes solo for Omega Pharma-QuickStep, and Maciej Bodnar has to chase him down instead of leading out Peter Sagan.

6. 6At the line

   A flat stage that cost a minute

   Cavendish beats Sagan for his twenty-fifth Tour stage after a masterclass of racing in the wind. Behind, Froome comes in more than a minute down on Contador and Mollema. A day with no mountain in it has done as much damage as a summit finish.

The result