page_title: 2012 Tour de France
section_title: Pyrenees
hierarchical_section_title: 2012 Tour de France / Race overview / Pyrenees
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le maillot jaune Bradley WIGGINS (SKY) en action - 19e étape du Tour de France 2012, Contre la montre individuel entre Bonneval et Chartres (Eure-et-Loir) à Morancez (45 km) le samedi 21 juillet 2012 - © William Morice / MaxPPP.
context_page_description: The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Belgian city of Liège on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July. The Tour consisted of 21 stages, including an opening prologue, and covered a total distance of 3,496.9 km. As well as the prologue, the first two stages took place in Belgium, and one stage finished in Switzerland. Bradley Wiggins won the overall general classification, and became the first British rider to win the Tour. Wiggins's teammate Chris Froome placed second, and Vincenzo Nibali was third.
  The general classification leader's yellow jersey was worn for the first week by Fabian Cancellara, who won the prologue. Wiggins, second in the prologue, took the leadership of the race on stage seven, the first mountainous stage, which was won by Froome, and maintained his lead for the remainder of the race, winning the two longest time trials, and not losing time to his main challengers for the overall title in the mountains.
  The points classification was won by Nibali's teammate Peter Sagan, who won three stages.
context_section_description: In the first stage in the Pyrenees, the fourteenth stage overall, a large breakaway escaped 50 km (31.1 mi) in, and at one point amassed a lead of fifteen minutes. Of the five remaining riders from the final climb of Mur de Péguère, Luis León Sánchez of Rabobank attacked on an ascent with 11.5 km (7.1 mi) remaining and soloed to the finish in Foix. As the peloton (the main group) passed the Mur de Péguère, a large number of riders suffered tyre punctures; it was later discovered that the race course had been sabotaged with carpet tacks. Evans waited over a minute to get a replacement wheel, then had a further two punctures on the descent. As an act of sportsmanship Wiggins then forced the peloton to wait for Evans to return to the group. The next stage ran through the foothills of the Pyrenees. A five-rider breakaway made it to the finish in Pau, where with 6 km (3.7 mi) to go, Christian Vande Velde (Garmin–Sharp) and Pierrick Fédrigo (FDJ–BigMat) escaped with Fédrigo winning the sprint finish between the two cyclists. The following day was the Tour's second rest day.
  In the sixteenth stage, the race entered the high mountains with the queen stage crossing two hors catégorie climbs – the Col d'Aubisque and the Col du Tourmalet – followed by the first-category climbs of the Col d'Aspin and the Col de Peyresourde, completing the so-called "Circle of Death". A 38-rider breakaway crossed the Aubisque, before fracturing on the Tourmalet. Voeckler attacked on the Peyresourde and took the stage win with a margin of one minute and forty seconds. Voeckler's stage victory and maximum points over all summits put him in the lead of the mountains classification. Wiggins, Froome and Nibali came in seven minutes after Voeckler, while Evans lost almost five minutes to the trio, falling from fourth to seventh in the general classification. In the final stage in the Pyrenees, the seventeenth, after a number of attacks on the leading group containing the overall contenders, Alejandro Valverde moved clear over the hors categorie Port de Balès. He held his lead to the summit finish at the Peyragudes ski resort. In the group behind, Wiggins and Froome attacked their rivals to finish nineteen seconds later. Nibali came in seventh, a further eighteen seconds down. In the following stage, six riders from a breakaway were caught on the finishing straight in Brive-la-Gaillarde by the head of the chasing peloton, with Cavendish taking the victory ahead of Matthew Goss and Sagan respectively.
caption: Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky secured the general classification after the individual time trial in the penultimate stage, ahead of becoming the first British rider to win the Tour.
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