Tour de France | Jasper Philipsen wins chaotic stage 13 at Tour de France with plenty echelons and withdraw of Roglic and Ayuso

Primoz Roglic and Juan Ayuso abandoned the Tour de France on stage 13 but it was ultimately one of the most exciting days of racing in the year. Incredible breakaway action, vicious echelons, constant attacks from start to finish; but in the end it was a reduced bunch sprint to decide the outcome of the day with Jasper Philipsen taking the win.

It was a stage that was at full speed from very start to finish. Right in the first kilometers of the stage a group of 21 riders went up the road including Mathieu van der Poel, Arnaud De Lie, Matej Mohoric, Jonas Abrahamsen, Oier Lazkano and many more. Among those 21 was Adam Yates, which rang alarm bells in the peloton and Team Visma | Lease a Bike did not intend on letting the group go.

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Them and Jayco AlUla who missed the move put on a strong pace to bring the group back, but unsuccessfully. At a certain point Visma went on an all-out crosswind attack with several riders. Tadej Pogacar, João Almeida and Remco Evenepoel were among the very few riders that managed to respond. A few kilometers later, as they were unable to catch the breakaway, they were caught by the peloton which quickly organized itself.

At first Visma, Jayco, INEOS Grenadiers and Soudal - Quick-Step committed to the chase, with different goals. However with time other teams such as Cofidis, Arkéa and Israel also joined the fun and kept the gap below a minute, whilst in front the collaboration continued to be strong.

This changed with 95 kilometers to go as in the front group Magnus Cort Nielsen attacked, taking with him Julien Bernard, Michal Kwiatkowski and Romain Grégoire. Whilst the main group continued to work, as the kilometers passed by a few riders started to be reluctant in the chances, and with a few riders skipping turns eventually the group stopped working efficiently and were reeled in by the peloton.

With 60 kilometers to go the peloton split again in the crosswinds, but with a larger peloton - although at certain points, even Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel looked to put Visma in trouble. With 50 kilometers to go the four survivors of the breakaway were caught. Visma and Israel kept working to prevent chasing groups from catching up, but soon after the final climbs of the day would start and more attacks ensured.

With 40 kilometers to go Richard Carapaz and Tobias Johannessen attacked in the first fourth category ascent, making the difference as a few sprinters dropped in the peloton. The duo worked well but were caught by Lotto Dstny's hard work with 22 kilometers to go. Soon after Brent van Moer, Jasper Stuyven and Fabien Grellier went up the road, but were caught by a few riders coming out of the peloton - mainly Christophe Laporte who started counter-attacking moves so as to help Wout van Aert's chances in a sprint. Stuyven was to try again in a few kilometers but with Laporte directly marking him.

Then Jonas Abrahamsen attacked again with 3 kilometers to go but a few sprinter teams remained in the peloton to close it down. A crash in the final kilometer took a few riders down including Arnaud De Lie. Visma launched Wout van Aert but Christophe Laporte dropped him off too early; Van Aert did not have the speed to match Jasper Philipsen when the Belgian launched his sprint. Pascal Ackermann sprinted to third.

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