Jonas Vingegaard made a big coup at col du Granon as he dropped Tadej Pogacar off 5km before the summit, overtook lone leader Nairo Quintana and crossed the line almost three minutes before the yellow jersey who completed the race with difficulty. The Dane is the new leader of the Tour de France.
VAN AERT AND VAN DER POEL ON THE ATTACK FROM THE GUN
161 riders started stage 11 in Albertville at 12.33. Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) attacked from the gun. He was quickly joined by Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck). Van Aert won the intermediate sprint at Aiguebelle (km 16.5) to extend his lead in the points classification. Mattia Cattaneo (Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl) joined the two superstars at km 29 before a counter-attack formed a leading group of 20 riders at km 31: Christophe Laporte, Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Mikaël Chérel (AG2R-Citroën), Nils Politt, Max Schachman (Bora-Hansgrohe), Andrea Bagioli, Cattaneo (Quick Step), Simon Geschke, Ion Izagirre (Cofidis), Kamil Gradek, Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious), Van der Poel, Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Jonas Rutsch (EF), Warren Barguil (Arkéa-Samsic), Mads Pedersen, Tony Gallopin (Trek-Segafredo), Maciej Bodnar, Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies), Krists Neilands (Israel-Premier Tech).
LATOUR FIRST AT COL DU TELEGRAPHE, BARGUIL ALONE AT COL DU GALIBIER
Van der Poel who’d eventually pull out was dropped from the breakaway group on the ascent to Lacets de Montvernier where Latour passed first at the top in front of Geschke and Barguil. The latter upped the tempo en route to col du Télégraphe. His action reduced the front group by half of its original size. Latour also managed be first atop the Télégraphe but it was Chérel who rode away solo in the ascent to the Galibier with 63km remaining. In the yellow jersey group, Primoz Roglic sped up in the downhill, followed by Jonas Vingegaard, Christophe Laporte, Tadej Pogacar and Geraint Thomas. In the ascent to the Galibier, Roglic, Pogacar and Vingegaard attacked many times, one after another while Van Aert, Geschke, Latour and Barguil created a leading quartet 9km before the highest summit of the 2022 Tour de France. Barguil rode away solo with 7km of climbing remaining. The Frenchman crested with an advantage of 40’’ over Geschke and 4’25’’ over Pogacar and Vingegaard.
QUINTANA SHAKES UP THE RACE IN THE FINAL CLIMB
18 riders formed the yellow jersey group at the bottom of the col du Granon 3’30’’ behind Barguil. 10km before the end, Quintana sped up and overhauled the riders in between while Roglic couldn’t hold the pace of the yellow jersey group. Quintana overhauled Barguil with 5km to go but he was himself overtaken one kilometre further by Vingegaard who had attacked the yellow jersey. The Dane passed the Colombian and forged on to make the maximum profit of his final effort while Romain Bardet, riding in between Quintana and Pogacar, gave it all to move up to second place overall. Not visited by the Tour de France since 1986, the gruelling col de Granon has played the role he was assigned as it turned the race upside down at half way into the 109th edition.
