Eritrean cyclist Biniam Girmay wins Tour de France Stage 12
Sign up now: Get the biggest sports news in your inbox
Intermarche-Wanty's Eritrean rider Biniam Girmay, wearing the sprinter's green jersey, racing to the finishing line to win ahead of second-placed Team Visma-Lease a Bike's Belgian rider Wout Van Aert (left) on the 12th stage of the 111th edition of the Tour de France between Aurillac and Villeneuve-sur-Lot on July 11.
AFP
VILLENEUVE-SUR-LOT – Biniam Girmay won Stage 12 of the Tour de France in a mass dash for the line on July 11 to extend his lead in the sprint points race with his third triumph so far, while Primoz Roglic was left bloody after another fall.
Girmay said: “Today, from the start of the Tour, I feel, I knew, I could do a good result if I had the right time, the right wheel.
“I proved in the last three sprints that if I’m in the right position, I am able to win...
“From now on, I will continue full focus on sprinting and the green jersey. As soon as I started wearing the green jersey, I felt the fastest.”
Girmay became the first black African to win a stage on the Tour on the third day of the 2024 edition at Turin and was first again in Stage 8.
He then proved fastest in a bunched sprint finish in Stage 12 as he topped the podium ahead of Wout van Aert and Pascal Ackermann.
Girmay of Eritrea now has 328 points to Jasper Philipsen’s 221 with few real sprint stages remaining, with the exception of the one on July 12.
Title pretender Roglic had been fourth overnight but trailed home 2min 27sec behind Girmay after a fall that left his shoulder bleeding.
Overnight leader Tadej Pogacar remains 1min 06sec ahead of Remco Evenepoel in second, with Jonas Vingegaard 1min 14sec behind.
Pogacar’s UAE Emirates teammate Joao Almeida is now fourth (4min 20sec) in the overall standings, with Ineos Grenadiers rider Carlos Rodriguez in fifth (4min 40sec).
Roglic looked haggard as he crossed the line after struggling home over the final 12.5km.
The fall happened outside the zone where late crashes are overlooked for overall times.
Roglic was involved in a crash for a second consecutive day after an Astana Qazaqstan rider failed to see a slender traffic island and took down some dozen riders.
The 34-year-old took a couple of minutes to get back in the saddle.
The Tour lost two further participants on July 11.
First, the Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen found it too hard to keep up with the swift 2024 Tour pace and fell off the back to retire.
Spanish rider Pello Bilbao was also ill in the 33 deg C heat and pulled out halfway through the stage, unable to maintain the pace.
Four early attackers opened a gap of almost four minutes after getting away at 34km and only being reeled in at 164km.
Jonas Abrahamsen is level with Pogacar in the mountain classification on 36 points.
However, the nominal leader is to be the Slovenian due to his higher standing.
Stage 13 is one of the last obvious sprint stages on a flat run on July 12 from Agen to Pau, the gateway to the Pyrenees.
“Between Pau and Nice there is hardly any flat terrain at all,” said route architect Thierry Gouvenou. AFP
