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So in full, the twelve man lead group consists of: Magnus Cort, Clément Russo, Anthony Turgis, Alex Zingle, Silvan Dillier, Mattéo Vercher, Richard Carapaz, Cristián Rodríguez, Toms Skujiņš, Paul Lapeira, Frank van den Broek and Stevie Williams.
This break still isn’t been le go by the peloton, though, which are bringing them back again, the gap back down to under 10 seconds.
There is one other rider in the break we didn’t notice – Stephen Williams. He’s a potential stage winner today, and will like the punchy climbs coming later on.
A mechanical for Felix Gall in the peloton.
Turgis was third in the points classification, and now moves up to third.
Turgis has jumped clear from the rest of the break, seemingly to gain maximum points at the sprint. He crosses the line first, and takes 20 points.
We’re only a few kilometres away from the intermediate sprint, which Girmay an Philipsen are aware of. Philipsen has tried to sneak away, but is being marked by the green jersey.
The gap is up to 20 seconds, but still new attacks are being made from the peloton, including one from Romain Bardet.
Toms Skujiņš, Paul Lapeira and Frank van den Broek have manage to join the leaders.
150KM TO GO
Multiple riders are pouncing out of the peloton trying to join this lead group, including Pidcock.
Very bad news for Cofidis – both Izagirre and Renard have both just abandoned. There’s clearly some kind of problem in the Cofidis ranks.
Magnus Cort, Clément Russo, Anthony Turgis, Alex Zingle, Sylvain Dillier and Mattéo Vercher are the riders who have joined Carapaz and Rodríguez.
This is the most promising things have looked for a breakaway group for a long time. Could this be the one?
Carapaz and Rodríguez have company About seven riders have joined them, and the peloton is 11 seconds adrift.
Izagirre isn’t the only rider struggling off the back today. His Cofidis teammate Alexis Renard is also adrift, as is Fred Wright.
We’ve been racing for an hour now, and still no break. This has been breathless! Things are looking good for Carapaz and Rodríguez though, who now have a lead of 15 seconds.
There’s a flurry of attempted counter-attacks in the peloton, but they remain together, 13 seconds behind Carapaz and Rodríguez.
Richard Carapaz and Cristián Rodríguez are the first riders in a while to get a gap. The pair has 10 seconds on the peloton.
Ion Izagirre is a rider who you might have expected to be in the mix today, but is off the back of the peloton and doesn’t look right – perhaps he is sick?
170KM TO GO
A new group of about ten has now formed, featuring none of those EF riders.
It’s EF who are the main agressors. Bettiol is no longer at the front, but Healy an Carapaz are taking turns at the front instead.
Again, the elastic hasn’t snapped, and they’ve been joined by multiple more riders.
And now Alberto Bettiol does exactly that, taking teammate Ben Healy an two others with him.
It’s calmed down a little, with no committed moves being made the last few kilometres. It’s only a matter of time though.
180KM TO GO
Laporte too has been brought back now.
The rest of the peloton is all together again, meaning Laporte is the only man out in front.
Christophe Laporte has jumped clear, and has a sizable gap of five seconds. With Van Aert attacking earlier, clearly Visma-Lease a Bike want a rider up the road.
Two Intermarché – Wanty riders are setting the pace, and going deep to try and make this move stick.
An 8 man group has now formed, a few seconds ahead of a 15-man chase, which is a few seconds ahead of the peloton.
It really seemed that we’d had our break of the day form earlier, until UAE Team Emirates decided to chase it down. With no GC rider present in it, we can only assume that they fancy the stage win today for Tadej Pogačar, and didn’t want to strong a break to chase down.
They too have been brought back.
His move came to nothing, but Lapeira an Bernard have a gap of a few seconds now.
The race is all back together, and thus begins the next round of attacks. Van Gils is the next to try.
Meanwhile at the back of the race, Goossens is receiving attention from the medical car.
Healy is pressing on at the front, with Vauquelin on his wheel.
The breakaway group has now split in two, with the latter half caught by the peloton.
They have now engulfed that trio, but the peloton are still charging after them. UAE have put Tim Wellens at the sfront, and brought them to within six seconds.
190KM TO GO
Lidl-Trek are trying to shut it down in the peloton, but are 20 seconds adrift.
Lots of very strong riders in this group – as well as Healy and Van Aert, there is Williams, Zingle, Lazkano, Pidcock, Kwiatkowski, Armirail, Madouas, Gregoire, Carapaz, Tejada, Onley.
There are about a dozen riders in this chase group.
Ben Healy was that EF rider, and Van Aert is still one of the riders with him with a gap on the peloton.
Those two riders were in a group right at the front of the peloton trying to go clear, behind an EF rider leading the descent.
Two riders have gone down on a descent – Kobe Goossens and Frank van den Broek Both are back up and riding, but Goossens looks quite badly bruised.
Van Aert has four other riders with him.
This is interesting – Wout van Aert is attacking.
Carapaz is involved in that group again, but it too has been brought back.
More attacks being made from the peloton, with a group of about 8 trying to go clear.
200KM TO GO
They have ten seconds on the peloton.
Now a first group has formed: Quentin Pacher, Kévin Vauquelin and Tobias Johannessen.
The pattern remains the same, with moves being made constantly but nobody able to gain even a bike length.
He’s sat up for now, and the peloton is back together.
Richard Carapaz is the first rider to get a gap, but it’s only of a few bike lengths, ahead of swathes of riders trying to join him
Lots of attempts being made by many different riders, but nobody had managed to get any sort of gap yet.
Surprise, surprise, Jonas Abrahamsen is already one of the riders at the front trying to go clear. That man can’t stop attacking.
211KM TO GO
Now Jan Tratnik has a rear wheel change. He’ll likely be on defensive duty, marking out any dangerous moves for Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Jonas Vingegaard.
Warren Barguil has a puncture. As a strong climber a long way down the GC, he’s one of the men we might see try to get up the road after the racing starts in a few minutes.
The riders are moving, as the 4.4km neutralised section begins.There will be some wanting to make their way to the front, to launch attacks right from the off.
There are six categorised climbs in total today, including the category one Puy Mary. This is seriously tough terrain, and whoever wins the stage will have to have very good climbing legs – and it could also be a day certain GC contenders are seeking to gain time on.
With a breakaway victory expected by many, this could be chaos at the start of the stage, as multiple riders try to get up the road – and therefore a hard one for the GC teams to control. It could be a smart move for them to get some of their own riders into the break, and force their rival teams to chase.
The riders will be setting off in about half an hour, for the unofficial start. Unlike yesterday, expect many to be preparing themselves for a fast start, and to try and get into the day’s break.
Today could be the first serious shake up of the GC for a while. Remind yourself here of what the current rankings are.
Could Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) possibly double up on stage wins today? There will be great support for him today in central France.
With the mental and physical duel between Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel only developing as the days go on, read more from Barry Ryan on the yellow jersey’s thought about racing with intelligence and how the second week at the Tour might unfold:
If you missed yesterday’s sprint stage, catch up with all the action from the race report here. It was a quiet day until the final sprint, where Mathieu van der Poel and Alpecin-Deceuninck put on the perfect lead-out display to finally get their sprinter Jasper Philipsen to the line in first:
Just over an hour away from the départ fictif and neutralised roll-out from Évaux-les-Bains at 11:20 local time in France (CEST).
Visma-Lease a Bike have extended Bart Lemmen’s contract, with the former military man staying with the Dutch squad until at least 2027. He’ll be on protection duty today for Jonas Vingegaard, as the two-time defending Tour champions continued his battle with race leader Pogačar.
Today’s stage finish in Le Lioran brings back memories of Greg Van Avermaet’s terrific breakaway win on stage 5 of the 2016 Tour de France, when he soloed to the line in the Massif Central to take his second Tour stage win and moved into the yellow jersey.
Lidl-Trek will start the day a man down, or two if you think about all the work he does, with Tim ‘El Tractor’ Declercq unable to take the start in Évaux-les-Bains due to illness.
Make sure to read Alasdair Fotheringham’s preview of stage 11, with comments from EF Education-EasyPost’s head DS Charly Wegelius and UAE Team Emirates sports manager Joxean Fernández Matxin. Also, take a look at the profile underneath with Wegelius predicting it will allow a strong break to get up the road and fight for victory.
It’s an earlier start on today’s stage, with a brutally tough and long mountain stage on the menu for the 171 remaining riders. 211km, over 4000 metres of elevation gain and six categorised climbs line today’s testing route through the Massif Central.
Bonjour and welcome to Cyclingnews‘ live coverage of stage 11 of the 2024 Tour de France!
