20.07.2007/ The Quickstep team benefited from a long chase of two escapees that was controlled by Lampre and Francaise des Jeux. It was only in the final three kilometers that Tom Boonen’s boys moved forward to set up a lead-out train that delivered the green jersey to the front at exactly the right time. The winner of stage six held off all the other sprint specialists to claim his second stage victory this year and the sixth of his career.

The 12th stage of the 2007 Tour de France, was a 178.5 kilometer long ride from Montpellier to Castre. There were 168 riders at the start. Two men abandoned during stage 11 – Calzati (A2R) and Anton (EUS) – and Zabriskie (CSC) finished outside the time limit. Stage 12 included four climbs: three cat-4 ascents – the cote de Cantagel (at 27.5km), cote du Mas-Rouet (58km), col du Buis (74.5km) and the cat-2 Montee de la Jeante (130.5km). The intermediate sprints were in Herepian (81.5km) and Olargues (101km).

As soon as the flag fell to signal the start, Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis) launched an attack. He was joined after 2 kilometer by seven other riders –  Axel Merckx (T-Mobile), Inaki Isasi (Euskatel), Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner), Mauel Garate (Quickstep), Ralf Grabsch (Milram), Daniel Navarro (Astana) and Félix Cardenas (Barloworld). The breakaway group was caught after 17 kilometer. There were several other attacks with Sylvain Chavanel as the main aggressor but the bunch was together at the first climb with Belgian rider Philippe Gilbert (FD Jeux) leading over the summit. The average speed was 43.4km/h. No escape gained any momentum after that and the bunch remained together until the 52km mark. Ongarato (Milram) crashed after 7 kilometer and abandoned the race soon afterwards.


After 52 kilometer Amets Txurraka (Euskatel) and Pierrick Fedrigo (Bouyges Telecom) attacked. There was no reaction to their move and they quickly gained a good advantage. After  60 kilometer the duo had a lead of 3’00” and no one bothered to try and bridge the gap until Marcus Burghardt (T-Mobile) started to chase the two attackers alone after 65 kilometer.  At the Col du Buis the advantage of Fedrigo and Txurraka was 6’25” over Burghardt and 8’35” over the peloton. After 85 kilometer the leading duo reached their maximum gain: 11’35” over the peloton (6’20” over Burghardt). Liquigas then sent rider to the head of the pack to start chasing. At the 96km mark, the advantage dropped: Burghardt was at 5’50” and the peloton at 10’05”.

The Liguigas team caught Burghardt with 65km to go. Txurruka and Fedrigo were still 6’40” ahead. The average speed for the third hour was 37.9km/h. On the approach to the Montee de la Jeante, the Predictor-Lotto team moved near the head of the peloton which was 5’15” behind the two escapees with 60km to go but Liquigas were still the ones responsible for the pace of the bunch. Caisse d’Epargne moved to the front of the peloton. All the riders in the top 10 of GC were nestled just behind Karpets who led until 500m from the summit. Soler attacked for points but was matched by Dekker and Popovych who claimed third-place points ahead of De La Fuente, Dekker and Soler who reduced his deficit to Rasmussen to just nine points in the climbing classification by collected 10 points. The deficit of the peloton was five minutes at the top. 

On the descent Lampre and FD Jeux  joined forces at the front of the pack. With 35km to go, the deficit to the two escapees was 3’20”… it then dropped steadily: 1’45” with 20km to go, 1’00” with 10km to go. With 7km to go, Quickstep also moved to the front. Most of the sprinters teams were vying for a good position but none could made a dent on the advantage held by Quickstep. They controlled the peloton, swallowed up the two escapees 1,200m from the line, and led the charge to the finish line. It was the traditional arrangment after the ’flamme rouge’: De Jongh taking charge until 500m to go, then Steegmans until 200m and then Boonen bolts ahead to finish off the job. Zabel and Hunter finished second and third respectively, about a bike length behind but only centimeters separated them.
Rasmussen finished 47th and will be the last rider to start the time trial in Albi for stage 13 as the leader of the Tour de France.

Tom Boonen said after the race: "It was a very fast finish. Everybody is so motivated and yesterday I was a little bit disappointed with the stupid crash 800 meters from the finish. I woke up this morning and told myself there are two ways you can handle it: negative or positive and I tried to do things the right way. The peloton passed the last climb in a fairly good situation and it was full speed ahead to the finish line.
"It was a nice lead-out. Everybody did a good job especially considering the headwind. It wasn’t easy but as soon as Tosatto started to work, the speed went up and then ‘Stevie’ [de Jongh] went and it was the same thing… everybody in my team was so motivated after yesterday after all the hard work we did yet still not being able to get any points because of a crash. Today was a good remedy.
"You try to win all the stages that you can, this isn’t really a revenge for yesterday. If you try 10 times and you win two, then it’s pretty good.
"I can still lose the green jersey even if I have a 20 point lead over Erik Zabel. Situations like yesterday illustrate that perfectly. It’s not hard to lose control and that’s the thing about the green jersey: it’s not science, if you have bad luck it’s possible to lose it. That’s why you have to fight for every point you get because there are going to be days like yesterday and it’s possible that will happen more than once. If Zabel was in the first group yesterday, the green jersey would probably have been gone. So it’s not a simple jersey to win; you have to work very hard to g et it and also be a bit lucky."