It's become a theme at this Tour de France. Alpecin-Premier Tech keeps bossing the final kilometer of sprint stages, with superstar Mathieu van der Poel hammering into the closing meters for Jasper Philipsen. Their former teammate Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quick Step) keeps winning anyway.
"It's so hectic, we have to take a hundred decisions in the last 10 k, and the good sprinters always take good decisions," Soudal-Quick Step sports director Tom Steels, who won nine Tour stages in his own career, told Escape Collective on Thursday.
Dane Cash
While "always" may be a bit of an overstatement (more on that in a moment) it's certainly true that Merlier managed to deliver yet another victory on stage 12 after overcoming one challenge after another in the finale. At the end of a 179.1 km stage from the Magny-Cours motor circuit to the town of Chalon-sur-Saône, Merlier dealt with technical issues even as Lidl-Trek was busy throwing everything they had at trying to deny the purer sprinters their opportunity.
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