NIls Politt left the chaser with his mouth open and celebrated the greatest success of his career as he rushed to the Mediterranean. The classic expert won the twelfth leg of the Tour de France as a soloist in Nimes, thus ensuring the German team’s first victory of the day. At 159.4 kilometers from the castle of Saint Paul III to Nimes, Bora Hansgrohe’s professional cyclist entered a breakout team and gradually reduced the team as he bravely attacked. Twelve kilometers to the end, he hung up his last opponent and entered the history of the tour.
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Pollet played down his chances before the start of the game, and record-breaking record holder Mark Cavendish is expected to achieve a new victory. “Today and tomorrow will be good opportunities for outliers. The wind throws a wrench at work and it becomes very tense. Then it is not for outliers,” he said before the start of the stage from Provence to the Mediterranean.
On the tense stage, Spaniards Imanol Erviti and Harry Sweeny from Australia took second and third places. André Greipel, who has been in a heterogeneous group for a long time, can no longer keep up with the tense finale. Politt Sports Director Enrico Poitschke commented on ARD: “Niels did a great job.” This is the first German victory since Lennard Kämna in 2020.
“King Cav”‘s next chance
On the other hand, the Belgian cycling legend Eddy Merckx was able to take a deep breath. His old record of 34 victories in the world’s largest bicycle race will be kept temporarily because British veteran Cavendish (33 victories) has no further chances of victory on his way to Nimes-unlike in 2008. Since many other teams participated in the breakaway group with French world champion Julian Arafilip (Cavendish’s teammate), there was no follow-up. The group’s lead became bigger and bigger, and in the end Pollet deceived the game.
However, on Friday, the “Knight King” had his next chance at 219.9 kilometers from Nimes to Carcassonne. The contours are flat, Deceuninck-Quick-Step should do everything possible to bring the former sprinter Cavendish another large-scale final before the upcoming Pyrenees torture. Strangely, he has won for himself for three days.
If this is successful, the fast professional cyclist from the Isle of Man will also have one less participant in the final. Because three-time world champion and green shirt record holder Peter Sagan (Peter Sagan) left the tour on Thursday. “It was a difficult decision. My knees are swollen again, and I can’t bend my legs. If you can’t move your legs, it doesn’t make sense,” said Sagan from the Bora-hansgrohe team.
The forced end would hurt the Slovak, but it did not physically hit him like German veteran Tony Martin. He got out of the car on Wednesday and now described his physical condition to the Bild for the first time: “The scar from my elbow injury was cracked, and my collarbone was cracked. Fortunately, it didn’t hurt. And my knees were also cracked. Bleeding.” The Cottbus man nicknamed “Panzerwagen” also had loose teeth and had 15 stitches. Nevertheless, he still hopes to get back on the bike as soon as possible.
