Sagan victorious in Valence to add to Tour tally

The Tour de France peloton took some respite on Stage 13 after a torrid day on Alpe d'Huez, with the 169.5km from Bourg d'Oisans to Valence ending in the expected sprint.

Peter Sagan (R) adds to his Green Jersey lead. Source: Getty

 World champion and points classification leader Peter Sagan timed his finish to win the stage ahead of Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates) and Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ).

Demare had been put in the box seat by his FDJ teammates and the Frenchman jumped first at the 200 metres to go point. Kristoff came off Demare's wheel to edge past, but it was Sagan who emerged the fastest, rounding up both to take his third win for the Tour.

"This is a fantastic victory," said Sagan. "I'm so happy to have won, it was something very good for me, personally. Once again, I have to thank my teammates for their dedication and work.

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"It was a flat stage after the tough mountains, so everybody recovered a little bit in the group.I think they all seemed happy to stay in the bunch and go through a more relaxed stage.

"My timing in the sprint might now seem perfect but I think I was probably a little bit late."

The general classification riders took the day off with no changes to the top-ten. Geraint Thomas continues to lead Sky team-mate Chris Froome by one minute and 39 seconds and Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin by one minute and 50 seconds.

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Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Tom Scully (EF Education First), Michael Schar (BMC) and Dimitri Claeys (Cofidis) formed the break of the stage after 29km of racing but were never given much wriggle room to go much beyond two minutes on the watchful peloton led by Groupama-FDJ and UAE Team Emirates.

De Gendt took the maximum points at the first KOM on the Cote de Brie then the intermediate sprint at St-Quentin-sur-Isère with Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin) claiming the bunch gallop. Scully then took the single KOM point at the Cote de Sainte-Eulalie en-Royans and from there the finish beckoned.

With the catch looking to come ahead of schedule the peloton kept the break under 40 seconds and in sight until De Gendt sat up and Schar pressed on alone as Scully and Claeys drifted off the back.

Schar resisted to the 5.5km mark when the teams with options for the sprint massed at the front for the run into Valence.