After Tour's longest stage, contenders face a steep challenge into Puy Mary

After a sweet-tasting victory for young Swiss rider Marc Hirschi (Sunweb) - and chocolate pun lovers everywhere - the battle for the maillot jaune should occupy take stage once again on Friday afternoon.

Stage 13 of this year’s Tour de France, from Chatel-Guyon, just outside Clermont-Ferrand, to Puy Mary, back in the Massif Central for the second time in two weeks, features no less than seven categorised climbs, and ends with a nasty 5.4km ascent to the summit of Pas de Peyrol.

The final two kilometres, in particular, have an average gradient of over 11 per cent with ramps of 15 per cent. More than enough, as Egan Bernal [Ineos Grenadiers] pointed out, to produce splits on the general classification.

“The last two kilometres are really steep and really hard,” said the Colombian, who sits second on GC, 21 seconds behind race leader Primoz Roglic [Jumbo-Visma]. “We have seen the stage when we did the recon. We need to arrive there as fresh as we can and try to do our best because for sure there will be a difference [between the GC riders]."

Bernal added that the peloton would be “feeling it in the legs” after Thursday's 12th stage, the longest of the race at 218km.

Hirschi, who has been arguably the revelation of this Tour so far, eventually took victory in the stage from Chauvigny to Sarran, attacking in the final 30km after brilliant work from Sunweb and then holding off a formidable chase.

It was a popular and hugely deserved win for the 2018 U23 world champion following his second place finish behind Julian Alaphilippe [Deceuninck-QuickStep] on stage two and then his agonising near miss in Laruns last weekend, when he rode for 80km on his own only to be caught by a select group of GC favourites on the final run-in.

Hirschi, a protege of Fabian Cancellara, was furious with himself that day, not for being caught, but for failing to win the ensuing sprint, which he felt he ought to have done. Having laid that ghost to rest on Thursday, he was understandably emotional. As was Cancellara. "The way he won today shows that he’s not just a talented bike rider," he told Eurosport afterwards. "He won the World Championship as an U23 rider in an amazing way and today, he never gave up.

"He has always said to me the day will come. I think if he won in Nice, it would be too early because then he will never learn from it. "Today, he gave it everything, especially the mental side of it. There is no holding him back now, the future is coming and he will be part of it."

Behind Hirschi, it was a long hot day for the bunch. "Bora [Hansgrohe] was pulling really hard for Sagan trying to fight for the green jersey,” Bernal observed. “It was a really hard day and, for sure, tomorrow we will feel it in the legs.”

If it is impossible to predict how Friday's stage is going to pan out, there is at least a little more certainty regarding the Covid-19 exclusion rules.

Four teams – Ineos, Mitchelton-Scott, Cofidis and AG2R – returned one positive Covid test each at the last round of testing around Monday’s rest day. And there was some confusion as to whether they would be thrown off the race at the next round of testing if they produced a second. The pre-Tour rule was any team found to have two positive cases in a ‘seven-day period’ would be asked to leave.

• Tour de France 2020, stage 12 – full results and standings

However, Tour organisers ASO and the UCI, in consultation with the French government, have clarified the matter, deciding to “reset the counter” before the next round of testing, which will take place on and around the second rest day in the Alps next Monday. A spokesperson did confirm that a second positive test from any of those four teams in the interim would still require them to leave.

Meanwhile, British Cycling has announced an extension of its sponsorship agreement with HSBC UK into next year.

In what was a huge blow for cycling’s UK governing body, it was announced in February that the partnership would come to an end in 2020, HSBC UK having decided to trigger a break clause in its eight-year sponsorship deal. It left British Cycling with an estimated £30 million funding hole to fill from next year.

British Cycling now has a bit more time to secure a new partner. In a statement on Thursday, the governing body said: “The decision to continue the partnership into next year comes at a unique moment with the Prime Minister promising a ‘golden age for cycling’ and as British Cycling begins building a coalition of partners to harness the country’s new passion for getting around on two wheels.

“The extension enables HSBC UK to continue their support of the Great Britain Cycling Team on their journey to the rescheduled Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games and helps British Cycling to capitalise on the wave of enthusiasm for cycling as people return to work and school, ending the partnership on a high in 2021.”