Stage 11 of the Tour de France served up a thrilling battle between the top two favorites for the overall title. Race leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) soloed clear from the field with a huge attack on the Puy Mary Pas de Peyrol with just over 30 km to go, but Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) gradually clawed him back on the next climb.
The duo came into the finishing town of Le Lioran together, and Vingegaard narrowly bested Pogačar in the sprint to the line to take his first stage win of this year’s race. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) arrived 25 seconds later in third, while Roglič took fourth after sliding out in a corner in the final kilometers. He was ultimately given the same time as Evenepoel.
Pogačar retained his overall lead on the day, with Evenepoel still in second and Vingegaard in third.
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How it happened
- The fight to get into the breakaway was fierce on a stage that seemed like a good one for the early move. EF Education-EasyPost’s Richard Carapaz and Ben Healy were among the big names in a group that got clear with some 130 km to go, and a chasing group ultimately joined them to make for a 10-rider breakaway. UAE, however, had other plans.
- Pogačar’s team set a high tempo in the bunch to keep that gap from growing much past two minutes, and they did not let up over the course of the day. The break’s advantage started to come down inside the last 50 km, and by the early slopes of the Puy Mary, the third-to-last climb of the stage, all of the escapees had been reeled in.
- Shortly after the catch was made, Pogačar put in a massive surge, dropping the rest of the already whittled-down GC group and pressing on solo. He immediately built up a gap on those chasing going up and over the climb.
- Vingegaard, Roglič and Evenepoel were the next three riders on the road, and they road together briefly before Evenepoel lost touch on the next climb, the short but steep Col de Pertus. Then, Vingegaard dropped Roglič and started making major inroads into Pogačar’s gap. He caught up to the yellow jersey before the top of the climb.
- The pair tackled the final climb together, and then Vingegaard led the way onto the finishing straight. Checking back behind him constantly inside the last 400 meters, he launched his sprint with 150 meters to go. Pogačar nearly pulled even but could not quite get there, with Vingegaard taking a close victory at the line.
- Behind, Evenepoel and Roglič linked up in pursuit. Roglič, however, crashed on a corner near the finish – but the race commissaires gave him the same time as Evenepoel in the end.
All the things I went through in the last three months, it makes you think of that. I would never have been able to do this without my family.
—An emotional Jonas Vingegaard after his victory
Brief analysis
- As was so often the case at the Giro d’Italia, UAE dashed the hopes of the breakaway on a stage that looked so good for those in the early move – though the fact that it didn’t lead to a Pogačar stage win in the end could make them reconsider the tactic in intermediate stages to come.
- Given his skillset, Pogačar could have considered saving his big push for the latter moments of the stage, but he opted to go from afar instead. He dropped everyone with his initial surge, but Vingegaard doggedly chased him down in a strong sign that he is very much in form even just three months removed from the serious injuries he suffered at the Itzulia Basque Country. Even then, Pogačar seemed like a good bet for the sprint, but at least based on appearances, Vingegaard looked fresher in the final seconds of the stage.
- UAE started the day with two riders just a hair over a minute behind Vingegaard in the general classification. Now, they have no one within three minutes of him, lessening the potential impact of sending riders up the road to apply pressure to the defending champ.
- For Evenepoel and Roglič to have limited their losses to just 25 seconds was a solid achievement after Pogačar and Vingegaard left them behind so far from the finish. For Evenepoel in particular, it was a matter staying within himself and riding his own tempo from the moment that Roglič and Vingegaard dropped him and then linking back up to Roglič. As for Roglič, that his GC loss was the same 25-second margin as Evenepoel’s was a product of a seemingly unusual application of the 3 km safety rule, but EF sports director Charly Wegelius told Escape Collective that teams had been informed over race radio during the stage that the 3 km rule would indeed be in use.
Up next
Stage 12 of the Tour de France will take the peloton southwest from Aurillac in the Massif Central to Villeneuve-sur-Lot in Aquitaine. The first half of the 203.6 km stage features some up-and-down but the latter kilometers are flatter, making this one likely to end in a bunch kick.
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