The Japan Times - Swiss rider Schmid wins Tour de France stage 13

Briton Tom Pidcock, who finished third two seconds back, was the big winner of the day as he climbed up the standings from 10th at the start of the day to fourth overall.

The Olympic mountain bike champion is now just 4min 15sec behind race leader Tadej Pogacar, and nine seconds off Remco Evenepoel in the final podium spot.

Jayco AlUla's Schmid and Astana's Tejada had broken clear of a 10-man group at the head of the race with 16km to ride and they held off their charging former breakaway companions to contest the sprint finish.

Tejada launched first but Schmid dragged him back and pipped him to the line after 205km from Dole in the Jura to Belfort in the Vosges.

Behind them, Pidcock edged out Maxim van Gils and Brandon McNulty to claim four bonus seconds for finishing third.

The peloton finished 7min 32sec after the stage winner, meaning Pidcock was able to jump six places in the overall standings, having begun the day almost 12 minutes behind Pogacar.

The first two-thirds of the race was all about the green jersey contenders battling for points at the intermediate sprint.

It meant that 57 riders got away from the peloton, building up a lead of over eight minutes at one stage.

Belgian Jasper Philipsen pipped category leader Mads Pedersen in the sprint but still trails the Dane by 41 points.

At that point, it was clear that Pidcock had a lot to gain from being in the breakaway beyond simply contesting the stage victory.

The group started to break up on the 5.1km-long Col des Croix climb and then exploded on the 8.9km-long Ballon d'Alsace.

Pidcock was amongst 10 riders to go over the top in the lead, with 30km still to ride, although a dozen or so other riders were within around half a minute.

Schmid made his move at the end of the descent, with Tejada the only man to react initially, and the two worked together until the final kilometre to ensure that one of them would take the victory.

Y.Mori--JT