Belgian champion Wout van Aert made the most of the double dose of the Mont Ventoux originally set to suit the pure climbers. He rode away solo from a breakaway group in the second ascent to fend off Kenny Elissonde and Bauke Mollema in Malaucène. Despite an attack by Jonas Vingegaard 1.2km before the summit, Tadej Pogacar retained the yellow jersey.
Alaphilippe the most active rider in the first half of stage 11
Cosnefroy got dropped and swallowed by the peloton. At the bottom of the Mont Ventoux, the four leaders were reunited with the twelve remaining chasers with 99km to go while Ineos-Grenadiers kept pacing the pack five minutes behind. 12km before the summit, Alaphilippe, Durbridge, van Aert, Meurisse, Bernard, Elissonde and Perez rode away. Mollema came across to them with 1km to go to the top. Alaphilippe sprinted to take the KOM points before Perez and Mollema. With 50km to go, it was still Ineos-Grenadiers leading the peloton with the same deficit while David Gaudu was the only member of the top 10 overall to have been dropped, suffering the heat and the consequences of a very fast start.
Van Aert counters the Trek-Segafredo trio
Bernard upped the tempo as the front group headed back to the Mont Ventoux, paving the way for Elissonde to attack and go solo with 36km to go and 14km yet to climb. Van Aert came across to the Frenchman two kilometres further. While Mollema rode Alaphilippe off and tried to bridge the gap to the leading duo, van Aert went solo 11km before the summit. Ben O’Connor (AG2R-Citroën) was the first of the top 9 riders on GC to get distanced from the yellow jersey group still led by four Ineos-Grenadiers. Eventually, it wasn’t Carapaz but Vingegaard who launched an attack with 1.2km to go to the summit. While van Aert managed to retain in the descent the lead of 1’05’’ he had over Elissonde and Mollema at the Mont Ventoux, Vingegaard was brought back by Pogacar, Uran and Carapaz before the finish in Malaucène. It’s the fourth stage win for van Aert at the Tour de France after three bunch sprints in Albi, Privas and Lavaur.
“I am lost for words. I didn’t think of winning this stage coming into the Tour de France. I only started to believe in it yesterday: that, if I went on the breakaway, I might have a chance of victory. The Mont Ventoux is one of the most iconic climbs in the cycling world. This may be the best victory of my career. There was a big battle for the breakaway ahead of the climbs. Alaphilippe, par example, spent a lot of energy in those moments. But, above all, I guess everything is possible if you believe you can do it. It was very hard emotionally to reach this Tour de France on a proper level. Then, on the first week we had very bad luck. Even today, again, we lost Tony Martin to a crash. But we kept ourselves motivated and focused. If you believe, success ends up coming. I feel very proud of what I accomplished here.”
STAGE RESULT
- Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), in 5h17’43’’
- Kenny Elissonde (Trek-Segafredo), at 01’14’’
- Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), st
INDIVIDUAL GENERAL CLASSIFICATION
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) in 43h44’38’’
- Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-Nippo) at 05’18’’
- Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) at 05’32’’
