Van Avermaet, winner among the losers

175 riders started stage 13 in Muret. Four of them rode away from the gun: Alexandre Geniez (FDJ), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Cyril Gautier (Europcar) and Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo). They were rejoined at km 5 by Nathan Haas (Cannondale-Garmin) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Bretagne-Séché Environnement). The members of the peloton didn't even have to wait until the 10th kilometer before the Giant-Alpecin team took the command to prevent the time gap from increasing significantly. Firstly, they didn't allow Perrig Quémeneur (Europcar) and Andriy Grivko (Astana) to bridge the gap to the six leaders. The maximum difference before the intermediate sprint at Laboutarié (km 92.5) was 3.40. The sprint of the peloton was won by André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) who virtually moved back into the lead of the points classification.

Serious crash for Péraud

The advantage of Alexandre Geniez (FDJ), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Cyril Gautier (Europcar), Wilco Kelderman (LottoNL-Jumbo), Nathan Haas (Cannondale-Garmin) and Pierre-Luc Périchon (Bretagne-Séché Environnement) went up to 4.45 with 84km to go. Giant-Alpecin set the pace of the bunch for 110km, after which Tinkoff-Saxo took over when they hit the hills in the remaining 70 kilometres. Crosswinds and tension in the bunch created some splits. Jean-Christophe Péraud (AG2R-La Mondiale) sustained a serious crash at km 137 but courageously restarted and made his way back to the peloton after 15km of chasing.

Kelderman, Gautier and De Gendt caught right at the end

As the bunch was led by Tinkoff-Saxo and occasionally MTN-Qhubeka and Orica-GreenEdge, Haas attacked with 24km to go. The double winner of the Japan Cup remained alone in the lead for six kilometers. Kelderman, Gautier and De Gendt made a leading trio 14km before the finish. They were caught with only 300 metres to go in the uphill finish. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) followed the right wheel when Greg van Avermaet (BMC) distanced the other sprinters, John Degenkolb and co, but in the last violent effort, the Belgian made the winning jump. Chris Froome (Sky), sixth on the line, retained the yellow jersey.