Hat-trick for Biniam Girmay at 2024 Tour de France as Wout van Aert is denied again

Biniam Girmay has made it a trifecta of Tour de France stage wins at the 2024 edition, with a thrilling bunch sprint win ahead of Wout van Aert and Arnaud Demare on stage 12.

There was some early drama on stage 12, with a crash in the peloton seeing the Maillot Jaune of Tadej Pogacar himself caught up. With 179 kilometres to the finale of the stage, the race leader had to stop for quite a few seconds as his chain had dropped. He regained his spot in the peloton quickly however, Fabio Jakobsen was not so lucky and abandoned the race as a result.

In the day's breakaway, four riders got themselves clear of the peloton including Jonas Abrahamsen, still in polka-dots despite the fact Pogacar has taken the lead in the King of the Mountains classification. Alongside the Uno-X Mobility man were Groupama - FDJ duo Valentin Madouas and Quentin Pacher, plus someone who has already won a stage this race, Anthony Turgis.

With around 115km to go, there was a second abandon of the day, with Bahrain - Victorious' Pello Bilbao stepping off the bike having been visibly struggling at the back throughout the first half of the stage, just a day after his teammate, Fred Wright had failed to meet the time cut, with both riders showing signs of illness.

With just under 70km to go, Turgis dropped out of the breakaway, whose lead was down to just 1:04 and returned to the peloton, leaving just three riders up ahead of the bunch. With 42 kilometres to go, the entirety of the breakaway was swept up by the peloton. Despite the relatively early catch usually drawing out counter attacks, on this occasion, all the riders seemed content to wait for other opportunities and let the sprinters have their day on stage 12.

As the stress levels began to rise before the inevitable bunch sprint, an Astana Qazaqstan Team man flipped scarily over his handle bars in the middle of the bunch with just over 10km to go, bringing a Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe rider down head over heels on top of him. Whether it was Primoz Roglic himself is not quite clear, but the whole of the Slovenian's team were caught out by the crash and were nearly two minutes down heading into the final 3km.

In the final sprint for the line however, it was Arnaud Demare who opened things up but in the finally, the Green Jersey Biniam Girmay made it a stunning Tour de France hat-trick ahead of Wout van Aert.