In this episode of The Cycling Podcast, join Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie and François Thomazeau in a bustling square in Nîmes to recap the 12th stage of the Tour de France.

A short, flat stage looked certain to finish in a sprint but the peloton allowed a break of 13 riders to get away. There was no chase from the most likely candidates, Deceuninck-Quick Step, and so Mark Cavendish’s bid to equal Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 Tour de France stage wins will have to wait for another day.

Instead, Nils Pollit of Bora-Hansgrohe produced a fine solo effort to escape the clutches of the breakaway and win his first Tour de France stage. It meant a happy end to the day for the team, who lost Peter Sagan in the morning. Sagan pulled out with a swollen knee but hopes to recover in time for the Olympic Games.

We hear from Sagan, Pollit’s former teammate Ian Boswell, our audio diarist Connor Swift and Michael Mørkøv on Deceuninck-Quick Step’s decision not to chase.

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