Watch highlights from stage 12 of the Tour de France below.
Briton Simon Yates completed his Grand Tour stage win collection when he claimed victory in today’s Tour de France stage which ended in Bagneres-De-Bigorre.
The Mitchelton-Scott rider finished ahead of Pello Bilbao (Astana) and Gregor Mühlberger (Bora-Hansgrohe).
He was the first to launch his sprint to win the 209.5km 12th stage, which he added to his earlier Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana palmarès.
“So far I’ve been saving energy until we got here in the mountains,” said Yates.
“This was my first chance to try something. Normally I’d be back in the peloton helping Adam [Yates], but today I had my own chance and I grabbed it with both hands.”
Earlier, Yates and Mühlberger led the race as they made their way to the summit of the Horquette d’Ancizan, 40km from the finish.
Simon Yates won stage 12 of the Tour de France in Bagneres-De-Bigorre today. Photo: ASO/Alex Broadway
They were nearly caught by Bilbao but pushed on into the final kilometre of the climb before he closed the gap on the first part of the descent.
The leading trio remained together until Yates launched his final surge for the line.
Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) retained the yellow jersey ahead of tomorrow’s 27.2km individual time-trial in Pau.
“I had a quiet day but it’s still incredible to have the yellow and so I will start last in the time-trial. Whatever the outcome and final result, it’ll be a special moment,” he said.
In other news from today’s stage, Bahrain-Merida stated in a post on Twitter that they had launched an immediate investigation into why their rider Rohan Dennis had pulled out of the race 80km from the finish.
Dennis went on the attack at the start of the stage and was the favourite for the ITT.
🇫🇷 #TDF2019
Our priority is the welfare of all our riders so will launch an immediate investigation but will not be commenting further until we have established what has happened to @RohanDennis.
Meantime we continue to support our riders who are mid-race.
— Team Bahrain Merida (@Bahrain_Merida) July 18, 2019
