A day out front for Stevo in the Tour

British champion in time trial and road race, Steve Cummings says it felt good to be out front of the Tour de France

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A day out front for Stevo in the Tour

Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka’s Steve Cummings put in a huge performance on stage 12 of Tour de France. Cummings was on the attack the whole day and he almost managed to hold off the top favorites all the way to the line.

With its 214.5 km and six categorized climbs, today’s big mountain stage in the Pyrenees was set to be one of the most challenging stages of this year’s Tour de France. However, the profile didn’t scare Cummings who made it into the early breakaway after a very fast start to the day.

Cummings and his 11 breakaway companions worked well together but as the riders started on the steep climbs, the front group began to split up. Ultimately, only Cummings and Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) remained at the front.

With three kilometers to the top of Port de Balès, Cummings decided to go solo. The British national champion dropped De Gendt and took on the whole peloton in the difficult mountainous terrain. As Cummings started on the penultimate climb of the day, Col du Peyresourde, he had 2:10 minutes on the group of favorites chasing behind.

However, as Team Sky upped the pace and the gradients started to get extra steep, the gap quickly came down. Cummings fought courageously but with 8.5 km to go, he got caught by the overall favorites.

Cummings finished the day on the podium as he was awarded the combativité award for this impressive performance on the stage. ”From the beginning, Serge [Pauwels] and I tried to be at the front. Ultimately, I made it into the front group and it was all good. I felt I had the breakaway under control but I still can’t control what happens behind me. Unfortunately, they wanted to chase today. However, the legs are good. I will try again”.

“I thought it was a bit beyond me this morning but you never know and I wanted to try. I probably needed six minutes at the bottom and then maybe we would have had enought time. I gave it my all though and it was quite nice being in front across those climbs, it’s a good feeling.”

“The level is so hard here, you can’t be so selective that you can say that is my day sometimes. It is hard to get in that break so if you do and today I managed to get in it without much difficulty and it was a good combination. Everyone was rolling through. It was just the length of the stage and I think Sky kept the gap quite low so I’ll I guess I try again in a few days.”

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