Stage Winner: Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike)
GC Leader: Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)
After a rest day (and a 10th stage that wasn’t much more strenuous than a rest day), Wednesday’s stage 11 took an absolutely brutal turn in the Massif Central.
What the 211-kilometer stage lacked in one massive, peloton-quaking climb, it more than made up for in sheer volume. After an intermediate sprint stage at kilometer-sixty-five, the day pitched up and didn’t stop, covering a grand total of six categorized climbs. Those included one category four, two category threes, two category twos, and one category-one climb, the 5.4-kilometer, 8.1% Puy Mary Pas de Peyrol.
In total, the day boasted a punishing 4,350 meters of elevation gain, more than any stage thus far in this year’s tour.
A sizeable 12-man break spent time off the front early in the stage, being caught before reaching the day’s first climb.
However, EF Education-EasyPost’s Richard Carapaz and TotalEnergies’ Mattéo Vercher attacked again, gapping the peloton immediately. A four-man chase group consisting of Carapaz’s teammate Ben Healy, Movistar’s Oier Lazkano, dsm-Firmeninch-PostNL’s Oscar Onley, and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale’s Paul Lapeira eventually reeled the duo in. Within a few dozen kilometers, Groupama-FDJ’s Romain Grégoire, Lidl-Trek Julian Bernard, Cofidis’ Guillaume Martin, and Decathlon’s Bruno Armirail caught the lead group, setting up the day’s biggest break, which settled around two-minutes over the bulk of the day’s climbs.
With 45 kilometers remaning, Wout van Aert took a hard spill while navigating a hard corner. He was at the pointy end of the peloton, who, at the time, had taken forty-five seconds back from the peloton.
Meanwhile, Lazkano and Healy took the lower slopes of the Col de Neronne to gap the lead group.
One minute behind, UAE Team Emirates was in complete control of the peloton, with Pavel Sivakov, Adam Yates, and João Almeida all working in service of the current yellow jersey, Tadej Pogačar.
Half-a-kilometer from the top of the Mary Pas de Peyrol and a full two categorized climbs away from the finish line, Pogačar launched a vicious attack on the steepest part of the climb. As he’s been doing for the last three Tours de France, Jonas Vingegaard did his best to respond. And though Pogačar landed the first punch, Vingegaard steadfastly worked to reel the yellow jersey back in, gapping Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel in the process.
However, Roglič caught Vingegaard on the descent, the two working in tandem to try and stay with the mad-descending Pogačar, who was around sixteen second clear for most of the descent. Twenty seconds behind them was Evenepoel.
By the time Pogačar reached the bottom of the next climb, his lead was up to thirty seconds. However, Vingegaard at long last displayed some of his true form, completing an astonishing chase as he and Pogačar neared the summit of the Col de Pertus. In a final summit sprint, Pogačar nipped Vingeggard at the line, nabbing the eight bonus seconds on offer.
The two worked together up the final climb, the Col de Font de Cére, putting forty seconds into Roglič and Evenepoel.
Neither Vingegaard nor Pogačar could put an earnest attack into the other down the descent, which was full of tight switchbacks and minimal straightaways. Meanwhile, a few seconds behind, Primož Roglič slid out on one of the corners, hitting the pavement with just a few kilometers to go.
Toward the finish line, it was a game of cat-and-mouse, as Vingegaard constantly peered over his shoulder, waiting for Pogačar’s attack. Finally, the Slovenian launched, the Dane answered, and the two battled shoulder-to-shoulder to the finish line, where Vingegaard held on, besting Pogačar by less than half a wheel for his first stage win in this year’s Tour.
25 seconds later, Evenepoel crossed in third, thirty seconds clear of Primož Roglič.
“(The win) is very emotional for me,” Vingegaard said, fighting back tears. “Coming back from the crash. It means a lot. All the things I would do in the last three months, it makes you think of that. I would never have been able to do this without my family. It means so much to win a stage; to win it for my family. They were there supporting me the whole time.
“I would never have thought this three months ago.”
Michael Venutolo-Mantovani is a writer and musician based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He loves road and track cycling, likes gravel riding, and can often be found trying to avoid crashing his mountain bike.
