Impressive in the sprint, Mads Pedersen won the thirteenth stage of the Tour de France between Bourg-d’Oisans and Saint-Étienne on Friday July 15. The Trek-Segafredo rider finished ahead of Briton Fred Wright and Canadian Hugo Houle. The yellow jersey remained the property of his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo), who finished this stage in the peloton, a few minutes from the breakaway.
For the victory, Pedersen settled his last two breakaway companions in front of the Geoffroy-Guichard stadium, the lair of the “Greens”. The 2019 world champion scored Denmark’s third victory of the week after Magnus Cort Nielsen and Vingegaard.
The peloton came out of the Alps at high speed despite the heat significantly above 30 degrees. A breakaway of seven riders formed in two stages: Ganna, Küng and Jorgenson from the 30th kilometer, then Houle, Pedersen, Simmons and Wright 21 kilometers further. The Lotto teams, until the fall of its Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan, and Alpecin devoted themselves to controlling the gap of around two minutes. The chase stopped 47 kilometers from the finish before BikeExchange decided to pick up the pace and then capitulated at 15 kilometers.
Up front, Pedersen brought the first attack twelve kilometers from the line and kept Wright and Houle with him. In the sprint, the Dane clearly disposed of Wright to achieve his first victory in the Tour. The Dane gleaned the 24th success of his career which includes a peak, the world title in 2019 in Harrogate, in the cold and the rain, quite the opposite of the conditions encountered on Friday in Saint-Étienne.
