Tour de France 2022 - Mads Pedersen sprints to stunning Stage 13 victory in Saint-Etienne drama

In a dramatic three-way sprint, Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) stormed to victory on Stage 13 of the Tour de France in Saint-Etienne. The Dane seized the initiative as he took off with just over 12km to go, and he always seemed to have total confidence that he would be the one to emerge victorious from the final trio as he powered to the line for the win. Ad/> Britain's Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious) came in second place from the final trio's sprint finish, while Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech) of Canada rounded out the podium.

Tour de France'Oh no, horrible!' — Shock as Ewan and entire Lotto-Soudal team crash at corner2 HOURS AGO It was a stage that saw ultimately seven strong riders in the breakaway, going up a bunch containing only a few teams with the ambition and the energy needed to bring the race back a bunch sprint. When one of those teams — Lotto-Soudal — experienced catastrophe with 71km remaining, it was all but certain the stage would go to the break. A touch of wheels at a seemingly innocuous corner caused Caleb Ewan and several others in his squad to crash.

Fortunately, the Australian and his team-mates were eventually able to continue, but they would not return to the front of the race. Alpecin-Deceuninck could not do it all on their own and by the time BikeExchange Jayco took it upon themselves to take up the chase, it was too little, too late. After two brutal days in the high mountains, in which survival was the only game in town, stage 13 had originally offered something to the sprinters.

Not much, though. In fact, it must have seemed like sadism to expect the heavy-set men who made up the grupetto on Alpe d’Huez to find their finishing legs less than 24 hours later. The 2022 Tour de France has