Sprint opportunities are few and far between in this year's Tour de France, and stage 13 looked to be one of them, but a number of factors worked against the peloton and put it in the hands of a breakaway group.

The late arrival of BikeExchange-Jayco in the chase was one of them.

In the early stages of the rugged 192.6-km journey from Bourg d'Oisans to Saint-Etienne, Lotto Soudal and Alpecin Desseuninck tried to hold off the breakaway at the front. But then Caleb Yuan crashed, and although Alpecin Deceuninck's team car attempted to return to the peloton to help him, Yuan was able to escape.

Alpecin Deceuninck then struggled to find an ally in the chase. Jumbo Visma had a bigger goal than a stage win, although he had his sights set on Wout Van Aert in the green jersey. Fabio Jacobsen of Quick-Step Alfa Vinyl seemed to struggle on the climbs. Also absent was Bike Exchange-Jayco, and stage 3 winners Dylan Groenewegen and Michael Matthews appeared to have two solid options for the day if the climbs proved too tough for the pure sprinters.

Mads Pedersen (Trek Segafredo), Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers), Stefan Kung (Groupama FDJ), Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Fred Wright (Bahrain Victorious) and Hugo Houle (Israel Premier Tech) took advantage of this hesitation.

They made it up the Côte de Saint-Romain-en-Garde climb with just over 40km to go, and the gap was now 3.5 minutes. Convinced that they had a chance to contend for the stage win, they pushed forward at speed.

Bike Exchange-Jacco eventually chased to the front after the climb, hoping that Groenewegen would win the sprint, but his chance was gone.

"It was a tricky race. We had to wait and see if Dylan would make it through the Category 3 climb," said Matt White, sport director of Bike Exchange-Jayco. [A lot of things happened on today's stage, including Caleb Yuan crashing and disrupting the chase. And we thought we'd try to make up for it."

The team was able to win the stage, but not by a long shot.

The team lined up at the front after the Côte de Saint-Romain-en-Gard, led by Amund Grondahl-Janssen, Chris Juul-Jensen, and Jack Bauer. They pushed the pace at the front and pulled away to within two minutes.

Luka Medjeck and Matthews then followed, and with 15 km to go there was still more than two minutes separating them.

White admitted, "We didn't have the horsepower to get it back."

"But the racers gave 100% and got us down to 2 minutes.

Pedersen won the breakaway, but the long-awaited group sprint did not happen, and the stage to Carcassonne on Sunday will have to wait.

"The breakaway group is really strong, and when this breakaway is going, you will find it hard to catch them back," said Groenewegen in a post-stage interview.

"I tried my best at the end, but maybe I was a little too slow.