Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) reignited his Tour de France challenge with victory on stage 11 from Évaux-les-Bains to Le Lioran, beating yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in a two-up sprint after a day in which the Slovenian had attacked with 31 kilometres to go and looked on course to extend his lead.
Vingegaard, the two-time defending champion, rallied on the penultimate climb of the day and caught Pogačar near the summit of the Col de Pertus before leading the pair into the finale with the yellow jersey in tow.
Pogačar, the quicker of the two riders on paper, looked to have the stage win within his grasp but there was no denying Vingegaard who took the victory and ten seconds in bonuses on the line. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) finished third after limiting his losses, while Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) crashed in the closing stages but remounted and took fourth.
In the battle for the yellow jersey, Pogačar now leads Evenepoel by 1 minute 06 seconds but Vingegaard has closed to 1:14, and Roglič sits in fourth at 2:45. The swing of just one second between Pogačar and Vingegaard in the Dane’s favour may not decide the race come Nice but this was still a crushing defeat for Pogačar and a morale-boosting win for the defending champion.
“It’s of course very emotional for me,” Vingegaard said at the finish. Referring to the horror crash at Itzulia Basque Country, which left him with several broken ribs and a collapsed lung, he added “coming back from the crash… means a lot and all the things that 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 Vingegaard concluded: “I’m just happy to be here. It means so much to win a stage and to win it for my family. They have supported me the whole time. I couldn’t follow the attack he had. I just had to fight and actually I didn’t think that I could make it back but I kept fighting and started relaying with him, and then I beat him in the sprint.”
How the race unfolded
After the sedate start to stage 10 on Tuesday there was a complete reversal as the race dipped into the Massif Central with a flurry of high-intensity attacks in the opening two hours of racing on stage 11.
Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) was among the first riders to try his luck but it wasn’t until a move that included Stevie Williams (Israel Premier Tech), Alex Zingle (Cofidis), Oier Lazkano (Movistar), Tom Pidcock, Michal Kwiatkowski (both Ineos), Bruno Armirail (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team), Valentin Madouas, Romain Gregoire (both Groupama-FDJ), Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Harold Tejada (Astana), and Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL) did the race split apart.
The break was snaffled back in by the main field and after 30km of action, the peloton was back together before Richard Carapaz and Cristián Rodríguez tried to snap the elastic once more.
A chase group soon countered, and with 140km to go the lead group swelled to include
Toms Skujiņš, Magnus Cort, Rodríguez, Clément Russo, Mattéo Vercher, Anthony Turgis, Zingle, Silvan Dillier, Carapaz, Frank van den Broek ,Paul Lapeira and Williams.
A split soon after saw the group carved in half before a new group formed that included Carapaz, Vercher, Ben Healy, Lazkano, Onley, Lapeira, Armirail, Julian Bernard, Guillaume Martin, and Romain Grégoire with 105km to go. This would be the final break of the day as UAE Team Emirates-controlled peloton and allowed the break to establish a lead of 2:26 with just over 100km remaining on the stage.
Heading onto the Col de Neronne the gap between the peloton and break stood at a slender 38 seconds as Nils Politt and Tim Wellens set the pace for UAE, and with 45km to go disaster struck for Van Aert with the Belgian crashing on the descent.
Up ahead and only Healy, Lazkano and Carapaz remained from the break as the race hit the formidable Puy Mary as back in the peloton UAE set a relentless pace and began to burn through their climbing domestiques.
One by one several top-ten contenders began to suffer, with Egan Bernal and Enric Mas both dropping before Pogačar kicked clear with 31.6km to go.
The Slovenian was alone over the top of the climb and started the Col de Pertus with 33 seconds over a group that contained Evenepoel, Roglič and Vingegaard.
The Dane began to find his rhythm on the ascent and quickly burned off his companions before making contact with Pogačar just before the summit. With the Slovenian visibly struggling and Vinegaard in ascendancy the pair traded turns on the final categorised climb before the Dane unleashed a vicious sprint that event Pogačar couldn’t handle.
RESULTS: TOUR DE FRANCE STAGE 11
1. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, 04:58:00
2. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates, at same time
3. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, +25s
4. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, at same time
5. Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Lidl-Trek +1:47
6. João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates +1:49
7. Adam Yates (Gbr) UAE Team Emirates
8. Mikel Landa (Spa) Soudal Quick-Step, at same time
9. Carlos Rodriguez (Spa) Ineos Grenadiers +1:55
10. Felix Gall (Aus) Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale Team +2:38
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE 11
1. Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates, in 45:00:34
2. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Soudal Quick-Step, +1:06
3. Jonas Vingegaard (Den) Visma-Lease a Bike, +1:14
4. Primož Roglič (Slo) Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, +2:15
5. João Almeida (Por) UAE Team Emirates, +4:20
6. Carlos Rodríguez (Esp) Ineos Grenadiers, +4:40
7. Mikel Landa (Esp) Soudal-Quick Step, +5:38
8. Adam Yates (Gbr) UAE Team Emirates, 6:59
9. Juan Auyso (Esp) UAE Team Emirates, 7:09
10. Giulio Ciccone (Ita) Lidl-Trek +7:36
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