Tour de France 2022 – Tom Pidcock wins atop Alpe d’Huez, Chris Froome third, Jonas Vingegaard defends yellow

Britain’s Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) became the youngest winner in history on Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France after lighting up Stage 12, with Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) snuffing out an attack from Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) to keep yellow.

Pidcock was unleashed with 128km remaining of the queen stage as he quickly hoovered up the day’s break with some terrifying descending, taking compatriot Chris Froome (Israel–Premier Tech) with him.

He attacked to whittle the front group down to five, with Froome still in the mix, before setting off decisively with 10.5km to go on Alpe d’Huez. Louis Meintjes (Intermarche–Wanty–Gobert Materiaux) set off in pursuit with Froome close behind, but neither could live with the 22-year-old from Leeds. Froome put in the biggest performance since his return from his horror crash in 2019 to take a heroic third.

Back down the climb, Jumbo-Visma set an infernal pace on the front of the peloton with super-domestiques Wout van Aert, Primoz Roglic and Sepp Kuss ensuring Pogacar could not launch a revenge attack on Vingegaard until late on. All his moves were lively and daring; all were snuffed out by Vingegaard.

More to follow.

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