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TOM Pidcock won his maiden Tour de France stage in style with a solo victory atop the iconic Alpe d’Huez.
Four-time winner Chris Froome and fellow Briton Pidcock were part of a five-man breakaway during stage 12.
And Pidcock, making his Tour debut aged 22 for Ineos Grenadiers, became the youngest winner on the Alpe d’Huez.
It sent the world cyclo-cross champion and Olympic mountain bike champion back into the top 10 overall, as Jonas Vingegaard retained the yellow jersey.
Four-time Tour champion Froome, 37, was challenging for a stage win for the first time since suffering severe injuries in a crash in 2019.
Pidcock is only the second Briton to win on the Alpe d’Huez after Geraint Thomas in 2018, when a stage last ended there.
“It’s not bad that, is it? If I get dropped every other day, I don’t care,” Pidcock joked.
“It was one of my best experiences in cycling, it was unreal – slaloming through people’s flags and fists [on the final climb, which was packed with raucous spectators].”
Thomas, who went on to win the Tour in 2018, finished seventh on Thursday to leave the 36-year-old Welshman third overall.
Two-time defending champion Tadej Pogacar finished fifth on the stage to move from third to second overall.
He lost the yellow jersey to Vingegaard on Wednesday, when both he and Thomas finished almost two-and-a-half minutes adrift of the Dane.
BBC SPORT.
A.I
Tags: Alpe d'Huez Jonas Vingegaard Tom Pidcock
