Why is Everyone TERRIFIED of this TINY Climber? Tour de France 2026 Stage 12

A key 70 point stage in the green jersey battle. Little Trek not wanting a sprint at all and some rouleur action. Quickstep, NSN and Alpecin had their hands full today from Circuit Nouvelle Monaco to Chalon-sur-Sun. 179 kilometers long. Some light hills but mostly flat. We have two little hills like three minute, three and a half minute, four or five percent hills. 20km from the finish but because there's 70 points on offer, because Mads Pedersen has an advantage in the green jersey competition, they don't want it to be a sprint. They even jumped in break formation. INEOS, UNO-X wanting to get in the break. A lot of teams trying to get in the break today including UNO-X but teams not wanting them in. Quickstep, NSN. Every time a strong rider, Abrahamson was marked, Asgren was marked. There was an Astana, an Alpecin, a Quickstep and sometimes a Decathlon marking them. See here, Valentin Paripantret. He's my MVP of the day. The slender climber on Sudar Quickstep. He's got Asgren. He's marking. Marks him out of the races on the radio saying Asgren and Schmidt are going. Someone get across here. Bustroffer goes. Loads of guys jumped. Eventually got blocked up and that was that. He was in the breakaway and we thought okay this is going to be a sprint. You know we've got the intermediate sprint coming up. He's got one minute 40. The two hills at the end of the stage aren't that hard and in this intermediate sprint this might have been Mads Pedersen's green jersey bid over because he goes from the center line across. Philipsen has to stop pedaling. He gets blocked. It's obviously you know clearly should be a relegation. He isn't relegated and which would have been a disaster. More so that he won the sprint against Philipsen but that's only an eight point swing. Four points either way. Being relegated means he would have lost the full 20 which is like half of his lead at the moment after this stage in the green jersey competition. There's more attacks. Caruso, Costiu and Verchere go across. A bit of rain which maybe was welcome for the riders who've been you know enduring very hot temperatures for the last two weeks and then we get to the hill zone. It's still not that hard and we see that it's quick step on the front. The GC teams are suddenly in position and Quinn Simmonds sends it. He's got Wawaka chasing him on the wheel. NSN again. Watzek goes over the top and we get this mega strong split of rulers. We've got Ganner, Schmidt, Haganes, Kirsch, Marsman, Askey, Ballerini. It's incredibly strong. Fred Wright, British national champion but only half of them are pulling. Wismar aren't pulling with Haganes. Picnic aren't pulling. Askey and Marsman are blocking for Binnie and Philipsen respectively as well as Dan Holler for Olav Kui. So only about half the guys in here were trying to ride which was bad news for Ganner. I'd argue that this is actually the best chance for teams like Picnic, Wismar to get a stage result in this sort of stage but Quickstep have to react and look at where my MVP is. Valentin Peripanteri is on the wheel of Vingegaard. Van Wilders sending it. He has to save the day. This break was about to go. Quickstep running out of numbers. They'd used Van Baarle. Who do you know? Snap closes it on a false flight uphill at 50 k's an hour. A break with Vasek pulling full with Schmidt. Unbelievably strong. He was nearly gapping the confidence rider off his wheel. He's not done yet for the stage by the way. So yeah, Quickstep, Frigo as well for NSN. Frigo and Askey were outstanding shutting this race down. So Trek were really aggressive. They did not want to sprint mainly for the green jersey points to take the 70 points away. They jumped with Gee. They jumped with Shkelmoza. They jumped with Simmons again and Simmons, he drops basically everyone off the wheel. Very, very impressive attack. Kind of drops himself. He high-fives, I'm not sure if it's his dad, high-fives someone with an American flag on the side which was pretty cool whilst he was literally dropping guys out of his wheel. So Simmons very, very strong. Vasek bridges across to him but I think he went too deep and then he's also got guys not pulling with him afterwards because they were cooked even though like these guys were trying to cooperate. They were just cooked. The EF Cofidis, UNO-X guys. Gregoire goes across. Visma starts sending the descent and then Mads Pedersen himself begins to attack. Attacks on the descent. He's going to attack on the flat section. Shkelmoza himself is going to attack. So a very hectic finish to this stage. Look who it is marking Pedersen personally. Remember Pedersen's like a multi-time Genvevelham winner classics sprinter and VPP won the Mont Blanc 2 stage from the breakaway last year and he just snapped closest Pedersen and normally when a small guy does that he gets dropped out of the wheel after. That never happens. He is literally one of the most unique. I've never seen a rider that small do it. Ever. Like it's like Ivan Sosa if he was doing this. It's incredible what VPP does. He is a unique rider in what he can do for his size. Anyway, it was very exciting but we're going to have a sprint regardless. Astana lock it down. We're going to the last mile. Ascii on the front and then I think Carr did a pretty good job for Gaviria frankly putting him in the mix. Gaviria's been not bad in these sprints but Alpecin come left with Merlier when Sturvin tagged onto their train. They come with speed but Rousseau moving across. He and Merlier bump shoulders so Merlier loses the momentum and he doesn't get to the wheel or back to the wheel of Sturvin. He's a bit deep. Looks good for Alpecin. I thought they'd hit, you know, the risk is when you come from the back like that that you never get to the front with Philipsen. They did that. They came with the change of speed. They've got 700 meters left when the second last man's going. Plancart. Jasper Sturvin saves the day here for Merlier because he forces NVDP to go 50 meters earlier than he wanted to. If he doesn't do this, NVDP would have sat on Plancart for another 50 meters. He's forced to go at 450. I think it was or 500 and that means he's dropping Philipsen off at 220. I'll come back to the crash with Gaviria van Mechelen. Coy was affected by that as well. Coy comes. He surfs through the middle but look 200 I think and 20 meters to go. Philipsen hits wind. Merlier hasn't hit wind. Merlier has to sit down a little bit but he's just got I think it was five full seconds longer in the draft and he the space opens. He levers Pedersen out of his left shoulder and Merlier hits the open wind and he's the quickest to the finish. His third stage win. Here's the crash though. We've got a right hand bend. High speed bend. Van Mechelen's gone left with Coy because Ricard was coming back and then he's re-establishing his position. He goes right. Gaviria was going left a little bit. Van Mechelen got relegated for this for changing his line or I guess I don't know yeah in a sprint and everyone's held up. No one lost GC time but obviously a lot of guys pretty hurt. Gaviria and Berchmose but Tim Merlier wins ahead of Coy. Philipsen third here's what the Belgian had to say after the stage. Honestly yesterday we were a bit worried when we saw you in the last few positions and not sprinting as you normally are. Were you worried? True it was a different one also yesterday and today I was really focused on the guys who didn't move yesterday. That was the reason why I was boxed in so today I try all the time to stay in front of them and yeah today I found some space. It was just a little bit I need to calm down and then launch again and yeah already before in the meeting I know it was a kind of finish yeah who suits me. By the way good comment from Imo the other day here's the points classification Pedersen has a 40 point lead ahead of Binnie and a 46 point lead ahead of Philipsen. It's between those three we have two kind of sprint stages left 17 but that could be a break stage so it's going to be tricky for Binnie and Philipsen. They're going to want that to be a sprint and then it might come down to the Champs Elysees so really really tight. Pedersen is the favorite right now. Hope you enjoyed the video. See you tomorrow. Ciao ciao.