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Tour de France 2020 Stage 14 - As it happened

Tom Owen

Updated 12/09/2020 at 16:09 GMT

Relive our coverage from Stage 14 at the Tour de France as Soren Kragh Andersen claimed glory with a late surge and Primoz Roglic held onto yellow with little fuss.

Arrival / Soren Kragh Andersen of Denmark and Team Sunweb / Celebration / during the 107th Tour de France 2020, Stage 14 a 194km stage from Clermont-Ferrand to Lyon / #TDF2020 / @LeTour / on September 12, 2020 in Lyon, France.

Image credit: Getty Images

Sagan closes gap to green

Peter Sagan now has a total points tall of 219 to Sam Bennett's 262. He'll be a little glum at not finishing off the epic work of his entire team for a whoe 200-kilometre stage, you would imagine.

No change on GC

All the general classification men finished in the pack together, so there will be no changes in the placings overnight before the race returns to the true mountains tomorrow.
After Stage 14
  • 1. Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 61:03:00
  • 2. Tadej Pogacar (Svn) UAE Team Emirates 0:00:44
  • 3. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:59
  • 4. Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Pro Cycling 0:01:10
  • 5. Nairo Quintana (Col) Team Arkea-Samsic 0:01:12

Masterclass from the men in black and white

Sunweb threw absolutely everything at that finale, from the Benoot attack to the counters from Kragh Andersen and Marc Hirschi. Cees Bol even got involved.

Soren Kragh Andersen wins the 14th stage of the 2020 Tour de France

Sunweb's magical Tour continues. Behind, Mezgec of Mitchelton Scott takes second, with Simone Consonni in third and Sagan in fourth. That's so much less than the Slovakian was looking for today.

Flamme rouge!

Cofidis are battling to chase down Andersen, but it looks like it might be too late. The Danish Sunweb rider goes under the flamme rouge with 10 seconds of advantage.

3km to go – Under the magic 3km marker

This has, inexplicably, turned into a sprint between the GC leaders and Sagan. Hardly any of the GC men have team mates left and nor does Sagan. What a finale! Soren Kragh Andersen has a small gap off the front and it looks like they might be letting him go.

4km to go – Alaphilippe move is tagged

The peloton has caught those escapees and now Hirschi is having a pop. Sagan is in very close attendance.

5km to go – De Gendt lights it up, Alaphilippe follows

De Gendt knows he must go long and fires it up on the final climb. At the summit Kamna still leads by a few seconds, with the Frenchman absolutely soaring up the incline.

7km to go – Benoot back in bunch

Benoot was strong enough to stay away over the top of the first mini-climb, but Lennard Kamna eventually managed to reel him back for Bora-Hansgrohe before attacking himself. One more 1.5km climb to go. The peloton has been shredded by this finish.

10km to go – Super stressful run-in

Incredibly tough to watch this finale. There is so much infrastructure in the road that the peloton is swerving and diving all over the place. Pick the wrong side once and you lose position in the peloton. Make one mistake and it could be the end of your Tour.
Ineos Grenadiers are smashing this run-in now, led by Andrey Amador. The front group has been hugely whittled down by this torrid entry into the city of Lyon.
The first of two small climbs is here and immediately Tiesj Benoot is on the attack!

15km to go – The Martinator has logged on

Tony Martin has hit the front of the peloton and is doing what only he can do; absolutely thrashing the peloton to bits while barely breaking a sweat. Jumbo lead the bunch, with CCC behind and Bora also watching carefully.

20km to go – Jumbo-Visma sitting pretty

The men in yellow are sitting high up in the peloton and they will be delighted with the way this stage has played out. It's been an easy day – and brings them one step closer to Paris. It'll be interesting to see if Wout van Aert goes for it in this sprint today. He'd love to bag a hat trick of stage wins at this year's race, no doubt.
A small mechanical issue sees Alexey Lutsenko dropped. He might have been a candidate for a cheeky solo attack today, but it's probably now too close to the end for him to regain contact and pull that off.

28km to go – De Marchi on the mark

It's Alessandro De Marchi leading the peloton down this decline for his CCC Team. They are really booking it at the moment and have two small cat 4 climbs to contend with before the finish line. It's going to be a bumpy finale!
Meanwhile, we just had a time check on Caleb Ewan and he is now 17 mintues in arrears. Bennett is at 10. To be honest, these time gaps mean relatively little – both should easily make it home inside the time limit.

37km to go – Indefatigable Bora

One wonders what sort of impact this effort will have on the riders of Bora Hansgrohe. They have given absolutely everything for Peter Sagan and – barring any misadventure – he should finish the day about 40 points closer to the green jersey than he started. However, it's a big old stage tomorrow with an epic summit finish and you don't really want a crew of knackered domestiques heading into that sort of test.
We're into the final hour of racing now and – with no attacks yet – it's looking like being a sprint finish in Lyon. Matteo Trentin won the last time the Tour finished in the city, and he – unlike Bennett and Ewan – has made the front group.

The decisive moment

Here's the moment a dejected and exhausted Sam Bennett gave up today for a bad job. He's now 9'25" and thinking about conserving energy for tomorrow.
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‘An emotional moment!’ – Bennett looks dejected as Bora's plan works

50km to go – Official announcement of Covid protocols

It has been announced that there will be no fans allowed at the roadside on either the Col du Grand Colombier or the Col de la Biche tomorrow. You can find more detail here.
The peloton continues to take it easy. We're seeing a few riders coming back from comfort breaks, a sure fire sign that things are pretty relaxed.

58km to go – All quiet, for the moment

It has been very uneventful in the past 10 kilometres, with the teams taking advantage of this chance to refuel and rest a little before they contest the finale.
It's still Bora, followed by CCC, on the front of the bunch.

69km to go – Bennett gives it up for the day

Bora's aggressive strategy has paid off. Bennett has quit chasing and he and the members of his team who were helping him will roll it in relatively easy. They do still have a long way to go in the stage, but the hardest parts of the day are behind them.
Now Sagan just needs to deliver some big points in the finale to repay his team's efforts – and avoid being relegated, of course. Remember that on stage 11 the former world champ did this and forfeited all the points he won for the stage.
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Sagan barges Van Aert, Ewan triumphs in stunning sprint finish

Let's not forget, Julian Alaphilippe is still in the front group and could so something in the finale to limit Sagan's points gain.

79km to go – Kung, done.

You never like to see a daring breakaway caught, but that is a really harsh one for Stefan Kung, who has been brought back as a kind of 'collateral damage' in this war between Bora & CCC and the Deceuninck team chasing on behind.
Amid all this, the riders are taking a feed from the roadside. We've just seen a couple of near misses where the rider taking a bag has almost come acropper. The peloton is now the front group on the road, with 1'32" back to the green jersey group.

88km to go – Panic mode?

The gap between peloton and the green jersey group is stable at around 1'30", but Bennett has actually joined in with the chasing now to give his domestiques a bit of a rest. When your 'protected rider' is doing his own protecting, that's usually a bad sign.

102km to go – Bennett in arrears

The Hansgrohe lads continue to hammer on and their hard work has extended the gap back to Bennett to a full minute now. This next few kilometres could be seismically important for the green jersey competition. Bennett has lots of team backup, but if they start to get tired it could have a knock-on effect and see them cut totally adrift.
Let's not forget, it's a mega mountain day tomorrow and damage done today could prove decisive in 24 hours time.
Interestingly, CCC Team have now put a man onto the front of the peloton to help Bora in stretching out this gap.

Pierre Latour abandons

Now that's a shame. Pierre Latour has not reached his top level at all in this race and perhaps that's to do with an underlying injury. He has decided to knock things on the head in the last few minutes, perhaps after that blistering pace set by Bora up the Col du Beal.

113km to go – Lone leader with two-and-a-half minutes

It has been a truly enthralling stage today – and I don't always get to say that. The dynamics between the green jersey teams have dominated so far, and we're over the biggest climb of the day. With so long left and just one rider in the breakaway, we might yet see some counter-attacking from some of the names that were so anxious to get in a break at the very start.
We've seen Thomas De Gendt launch such an attack once before in this race, and Marc Hirschi looked like he fancied it too at the départ réel. We'd love to watch that pair in a two-up TT vs the peloton.

123km to go – A bloc at the top

Bora lead the peloton under the KOM kite and things are tortuously strung out behind them. There's a wee gap that has opened up to Bennett, but he can see the GPM now and has almost his entire team around him to help get him back in touch.
Bora are racing this stage as hard as they possibly can. Is that out of desperation? Or pure determination?
Kung has parted company with Theuns and leads the race solo, but Bora's charge up that mountain has cleaved his lead in half. It's 2'40" now.

128km to go – Big lads out the back

We're seeing Nils Politt going backwards, with Sam Bennett on the very tail of the peloton. Mads Schmidt departed quite some time ago. This is a punishing pace being set by Sagan and co.
By no means a 'big lad', but third placed for green, Bryan Coquard, has also consciously uncoupled from the peloton.

132km to go – More of the same from Bora?

It looks as though Bora Hansgrohe are going to try and get rid of Sam Bennett again on this climb, presumably with the aim of taking a Bennett-free peloton all the way to the finish in Lyon. If they can do that, Sagan doesn't need to beat the Irishman in the sprint and he can roll it in somewhere in the top five and still make major gains back in the green jersey classification.

Wiggins on Bernal's lost time

Yesterday was a chastening one for Ineos Grenadiers after defending Tour de France champ, Egan Bernal, was distanced by the dynamic duo of Roglic and Pogacar. The guys on the Bradley Wiggins show discussed that – and plenty of other subjects – last night.

138km to go – Beal and end all

Next climb is the biggest of the day, the Col du Beal. It's just a category 2, but it's a long old beast at 11.9km long. The break currently has a lead of 5'04", but part of me hopes they get caught and we see some more promising attacks launched over the top. If we plod on like this for the next 130 kilometres, it's going to be an arduous day, particularly for the live bloggers.

149km – Gap is growing

Kung and Theuns continue to plough on and they have built a lead of almost four minutes. They'll need more than that if they are to have any hope of staying away and there are a lot of kilometres still to be ridden.

158km to go – Sagan claws back some points

As expected, Sagan used his team to distance Bennett and crossed over the KOM point ahead of Bennett, who has now given up the ghost. That means Sagan can scoop a hatful of points unopposed when he goes through the intermediate sprint in a handful of kilometres time.
It has been said before, but we finally have a real fight for green on our hands! Sagan was 66 points behind when the day began. He should get back within 60 with this effort.

164km to go – Ramping up!

Finally! The leaders hit the first categorised climb of the day. The gradients get up to 9%, which should force a separation in the peloton of the climbing sprinters like Peter Sagan and the not-so-climbing sprinters like green jersey holder, Sam Bennett.
Bora Hansgrohe are chugging along on the flat at the moment but they are definitely going to put the hammer down once they hit the lower slopes of the climb.

170km to go – Cruel fate

What has happened is this...
The break of two became four, then went back down to two. They have realised that trying to win this long stage with such a small group is hopeless, and have tried to sit up. However, the peloton is happy with a small group in the lead and they have also sat up. In the gap between break and bunch are two riders from Sunweb (Bol and Casper Pederesen), who might as well be smoking cigars for all the apparent effort they are putting in. They have clearly had orders from the team car to abandon the break.
In the lead now are Stefan Kung (Groupama FDJ) and Edward Theuns (Trek Segafredo) and it's a very tough situation for them. Nobody wants to be out there for nearly 200 kilometres, but they can't really stop riding either. There is an intermediate sprint coming soon, which hopefully should change the complexion of the race.

184km to go – Fierce competition

As we expected, the battle to get in the break has been ferociously fought. At the moment there are just two leaders out front, but there is a constant churn on the front of the peloton as different riders try and make it across to the move of the day.
The two leaders are Edward Theuns and Cees Bol. Bol has had a fairly patchy Tour de France thus far, having failed to finish off a pretty-much-perfect leadout on a couple of occasions. Is he trying to repay the work of his team today by getting up the road, or have the Sunweb team directors simply lost faith in his ability to deliver in a sprint?

About last night

Yesterday we were treated to one of the pengest finishes of the race so far with teeny-tiny Colombian Dani Martinez out-muscling a couple of Bora Hansgrohe riders on the final climb of the day. Martinez had hoped to do big GC-type things this year, but some early time losses meant he switched his focus to laying waste to the breakaway and shattering Lennard Kamna's dreams.
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Watch the stunning finish to Stage 13 as Martinez and Kamna battle it out

All aboard!

Good morning all and welcome to the Stage 14 Tour de France Live Blog Bus!

I am your conductor, Tom Owen, and I’ll be steering us – do conductor’s steer the bus? – through today’s stage. We’ll be stopping at ‘Breakaway Bingo Boulevard’, the ‘Avenue des Broken GC Dreams’, before arriving at our finish in Lyon some time around 4:45pm.
You can find me on Twitter if you have questions, comments or observations about the stage. You'll also find Insightful Analysis like the following.


Yes, I have had three coffees already today. Why do you ask?

Top five on GC

Here's how things look in the general classification:
After Stage 13
  • 1. Primoz Roglic (Slo) Team Jumbo-Visma 56:34:35
  • 2. Tadej Pogacar (Svn) UAE Team Emirates 0:00:44
  • 3. Egan Bernal (Col) Ineos Grenadiers 0:00:59
  • 4. Rigoberto Uran (Col) EF Pro Cycling 0:01:10
  • 5. Nairo Quintana (Col) Team Arkea-Samsic 0:01:12

Stage 13 recap - Martinez wins on Puy Mary as Roglic breaks Bernal

Primoz Roglic strengthened his grip on the yellow jersey with an emphatic climbing display on the double-digit ramp of the Pas de Peyrol to distance rival Egan Bernal after Dani Martinez won a thrilling Stage 13 from the break.
Slovenia's Roglic paid back his Jumbo-Visma teammates for their indefatigable protection during the challenging stage in the Massif Central by riding clear of his key rival on the Tour's first ever summit finish on the Puy Mary.
The only rider who could keep up with Roglic's stinging accelerations was his compatriot Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates, who finished in the yellow jersey's wheel to rise five places to second in the general classification at the expense of Bernal.
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Stage 13 was a classic Tour de France day, it had everything – Bradley Wiggins

How to watch on TV and livestream details

Stage 13 will be broadcast live on Eurosport 1 from 10:50 and you can also watch an uninterrupted feed on Eurosport Player and right here on eurosport.co.uk.
Dan Lloyd, Bradley Wiggins, Orla Chennaoui and the team will bring you all the best post-race analysis and reaction on The Breakaway, which will be available to watch on Eurosport Player before 7pm.
And don't forget, we are bringing you daily podcasts from the Bradley Wiggins Show - check in with your podcast platform of choice this evening...
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