Stage 12

The road

At the start

Bastille Day, and Alpe d'Huez

Jonas Vingegaard is in yellow and Tadej Pogačar is 2:22 down, behind Romain Bardet. "Today I lost three minutes, maybe tomorrow I will gain three minutes," the Slovenian said at the top of the Granon. Today is Bastille Day and the exact route of 1986: the Galibier, the Col de la Croix de Fer and Alpe d'Huez, three hors catégorie climbs in 165 kilometres. Mathieu van der Poel went home yesterday.

How it was won

1. 1132 km to go

   Pidcock descends like nobody else

   A latecomer to the break, Pidcock throws himself off the Galibier, passing Louvel on a cliff edge and cutting inside Froome on a hairpin. He waits for Froome, uses the Telegraphe to rejoin, then goes straight past the whole escape and out the front again.

2. 255 km to go

   Damage on the Croix de Fer

   Five kilometres from the top Pidcock lifts the pace and only Ciccone, Meintjes, Froome and Powless hold on. Behind, Van Hooydonck and then Van Aert do the real damage, cutting the bunch to forty and stripping Pogačar of Brandon McNulty.

3. 314 km to go

   Pidcock rides away on the Alpe

   Two kilometres into the twenty-one hairpins the break stalls; Pidcock stops pedalling to invite someone else to work, gets no answer, and simply attacks. He eases clear immediately and the group shatters — a 22-year-old on his debut Tour, alone on the most famous mountain in cycling.

4. 48 km to go

   Fed by the crowd

   Seven and a half kilometres from the summit the road narrows to a corridor of bodies and Pidcock finds another gear inside it, pushing Meintjes back and dropping Froome towards a minute.

5. 55 km to go

   The yellow jersey group falls to five

   Kruijswijk hands to Roglič, Roglič to Kuss, and the group is gutted. Bardet, second overall, cannot hold the wheel; Yates backs off moments later. Five kilometres from the top only Kuss, Vingegaard, Pogačar, Thomas and Mas remain.

6. 6At the line

   Pidcock wins at Alpe d'Huez

   He hits the two-kilometre banner thirty-five seconds up on Meintjes and rides the last hairpins in the certainty of it, arms to the sky at one of cycling's sacred sites.

The result