On Bastille Day, Lotto Soudal's Thomas De Gendt took the win on stage twelve of the 103rd Tour De France.
This was a stage that was due to finish on Mont Ventout. However, due to the weather conditions forecasted by Météo France atop the Mont Ventoux with gusts of wind likely to exceed 100km/h, Tour de France organisers ASO decided to modify the finale of stage 12 in order to guarantee optimal safety conditions. Therefore, the stage finish will be located at Chalet-Reynard, 6 kilometres before the initially planned finishing line and the stage from Montpellier to Mont Ventoux was reduced to 178kms.
With Jurgen Vandenbroeck (Katusha) not starting due to a broken shoulder, fifteen then fourteen riders in Bertjan Lindeman and Sep Vanmarcke (Lotto-Jumbo), Stef Clement (IAM), Serge Pauwels and Daniel Teklehaimanot (DiData), André Greipel and Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Bryan Coquard and Sylvain Chavanel (Direct Energie), Iljo Keisse (Etixx-Quick Step), Chris Anker Sorensen (Fortuneo-Vita Concept), Dani Navarro and Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis) launched an early attack and were soon 4.55 ahead.
After 19kms, they were 6.25 clear and 9.05 after 25kms whilst maintaining a three minute lead over Diego Rosa (Astana), Cyril Gautier (AG2R-La Mondiale), Tom-Jelte Slagter (Cannondale-Drapac), Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin) and Paul Voss (Bora).
47.8kms were raced in the first hour, the gap went out to 18.15 to the peloton which included Chris Froome who had a 26 second lead in the race after 61.5kms.
With 78.3km to go, the gap had fallen to 16.28 as Iljo Keisse took the twenty points for the intermediate sprint at Mollégès.
Angelo Tulik (Direct Energie) abandoned as the gap continued to drop and was down to 12.49 as they went through the feed zone.
Thomas De Gendt took the KOM at côte de Gordes and the point that went with it as the gap continued to fall to 8.34..
Simon Gerrans and Ian Stannard of Team Sky went down along with Luke Rowe before André Greipel went solo with 14kms to go, taking a thirteen second lead and a lead of 8.18 over the peloton on the lower slopes of Ventout.
Valverede put in an attack and then Nairo Quintana did the same.after Greipel had been reeled in.
Lindeman, Navarro, Pauwels, De Gendt led but it was only Serge Pauwels and Thomas De Gendt who were on the front with two kilometres to go.
Chris Froome led Porte and Quintana who could not stay with the duo whilst on the front, Dani Navarro joined them. However, Thomas De Gendt jumped at the right time and beat Pauwels and Navarro in a time of 4.31.51.
Chris Froome had his bike damaged when Porte hit a camera bike, which was impeded by spectators. Froome ran for a bit but got a neutral bike as up the road, Adam Yates crossed the line.
Froome finished 6.45 down and it was down to the commisaires with Yates provisionally named as the new race leader.
However, a Jury later decided that the finish was neutralised and Chris Froome keeps his leader's jersey and now leads the race by forty seven seconds.