Nils Politt (Bora-hansgrohe) has taken victory on stage 12 of the Tour de France today, when the large breakaway he was in was over 15 minutes up the road at the finish.
The 159.4km stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux to Nîmes was billed as one for the sprinters. Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) was tipped to win again and take his Tour career tally to 34 stage wins, equaling the all time record of Eddy Merckx.
However, a 13-man breakaway went clear early and the attacks from it started with almost 50km to go. Politt looked the strongest of the group during the stage and he eventually got clear Imanol Erviti (Movistar), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Harry Sweeny (Lotto Soudal).
An attack by Sweeny, a 22-year-old Australian who spent the 2019 season with Irish Continental team EvoPro Racing, managed to drop Küng, before Politt attacked and rode clear alone with 12km remaining.
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He took victory, on the day his team leader Peter Sagan abandoned, by 31 seconds from Erviti, who beat Tour debut rider Sweeny in the two-up sprint for 2nd place. The breakaway men mopped up the first 13 placings on the stage.
Sweeny is the first rider who has passed through the ranks of Irish team EvoPro Racing to go on and compete at the Tour. While riding with EvoPro in 2019 he took one of its wins that year, with a stage victory at Rhône-Alpes Isère Tour (2.2) in France.
There were no major changes in the overall at the Tour today, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) still leading. Ireland's Dan Martin (Israel Start-Up Nation) finished in the bunch today, 15:53 down on the stage winner.
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