Martinez takes 13th stage, Roglic stays ahead

PRIMOZ Roglic tightened his grip on the Tour de France overall lead as he dropped defending champion Egan Bernal in the final ascent of the 13th stage in the Massif Central yesterday.

Colombian Dani Martinez prevailed from the breakaway at the end of a 191.5km trek from Chatel-Guyon before the big guns battled it out in the finale of the short, yet brutal climb up to the Puy de Mary, where the average gradient rose above 11%.

Ineos- Grenadiers Colombian leader Bernal could not sustain the pace when Tadej Pogacar accelerated, with fellow Slovenian Roglic the only rider able to follow.

The duo crossed the line 38 seconds ahead of a grimacing Bernal, who slipped to third in the general classification, 59 seconds off the pace.

The 21-year-old Pogacar, the most aggressive of the main contenders who was already the best man in the Pyrenees last weekend, is now second, 44 seconds behind Roglic.

The stage signalled the end of French hopes as Romain Bardet, who started the day in fourth place overall, 30 seconds off the pace, ended up 2:30 behind Roglic after the 2016 runner-up took a heavy tumble earlier.

Guillaume Martin, third overall at the start, cracked in the penultimate climb and crossed the line 2:46 after Roglic. Bardet and Martin are now just outside the top 10, 3:00 and 3:14 behind Roglic, respectively.

Martinez, one of the dark horses before the start in Nice after winning the Criterium du Dauphine, outsprinted Lennard Kamna for the stage win. Kamna’s Bora-Hansgrohe teammate and fellow German Maximilian Schachmann was third.