Geraint Thomas has won Stage 11 of the Tour de France and with it takes the yellow jersey on a day when Team Sky seized control of the race, with Chris Froome moving second overall and most of the other contenders for the overall win losing time on the first mountain summit finish of this year’s race.
Thomas attacked with a little more than 5.5 kilometres left of what was a pulsating 108.5 kilometre stage from Albertville to La Rosiere, which included four categorised climbs, the first two of those classified as Hors-Categorie.
The Welsh rider quickly bridged acorss to the second group on the road, which included Team Sunweb’;s Tom Dumoulin, leaving only Mikel Nieve of Mitchelton-Scott ahead at the front of the race.
Inside the final kilometre, Thomas kicked again and swept past Nieve with a couple of hundred metres remaining to the line as the Spaniard faded.
Thomas’s attack laid to rest any question of whether he would be riding for Chris Froome in this year’s race, although the defending champion was clearly stronger than other overall hopefuls in the group including Bahrain-Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali, Romain Bardet of AG2R La Mondiale and Movistar’s Nairo Quintana.
Froome himself would subsequently follow a move from UAE Team Emirates rider Dan Martin and finished third, crossing the line just behind Dumoulin, both riders 20 seconds behind Thomas.
The new race leader has an advantage of 1 minute 25 seconds over Froome, who moves to second overall, with Dumoulin a further 19 seconds back in third place.
More to follow.
26 thoughts on “Tour de France Stage 11: Geraint Thomas wins stage and rides into yellow”
Yet again another brilliant
Yet again another brilliant stage, delighted for him.
The question now is whether G can cope with week 3, or is he actually just there as an ultra-dom for Froome?
kil0ran wrote:
This raises a number of troubling images in my mind.
The way Domoulin looked at
The way Domoulin looked at the finish, he won’t be a threat tomorrow. Sky blew away all challengers today. I still expect Froome to win overall, Geraint, does look strong currently.
CXR94Di2 wrote:
Or maybe he will
Will tomorrow be a procession
Will tomorrow be a procession with a breakaway winning the stage or will Movistar go for it and try and close the gap on G and Froome….whichever way it goes one thing is for certain it will be a cracker.
Bloody brilliant stuff from
Bloody brilliant stuff from Geraint!
“Thomas’s attack laid to rest any question of whether he would be riding for Chris Froome in this year’s race”
I don’t think so. He told Matt Rendell on ITV that Froome is the leader and he will enjoy yellow while it lasts. Which IMHO is a shame as it was Thomas who had the best legs today (though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll have the best legs tomorrow or in a week’s time). I want to see how far he can go with it.
That was an absolutely
That was an absolutely amazing stage! The way it all unfolded on that last climb was unreal!
This has similarities to the
This has similarities to the 2016 Vuelta, Froome coming off a heavy season including the TdF and the Olympics, was clearly still heavy legged and yet none of his competitors took advantage just sitting back and waiting to see what he was going to do.
Quintana still hasn’t learnt, sending Valverde up the road just was not going to work, absolutely played into the hands of SKY. When G and then latterly Froome went he needed Valverde, except he’d used him up with some stupidly dumb sending him up the road nonsense.
Froome is most definitely the leader but it would be a real poke in the nose of everyone and absolutely fucking hilarious IF G was still there at the end of all the mountains and Froome let Thomas win by a second!
Really good stage, now let
Really good stage, now let the fun begin on Alp D’Huez,
Fun stage. Must suck to get
Fun stage. Must suck to get that close to a stage win and then some guy literally motors past with what looks like fresh legs.
It’s certainly narrowed the field of potential winners down.
Jeannie Longo was on the FR2
Jeannie Longo was on the FR2 after-Tour programme and commented that if Froome were French they would have been no criticism of him over the past few months. This remark was met with stony silence …
meh salbutamol fuelled
meh salbutamol fuelled cheating no doubt
SteveAustin wrote:
Says you!
Well done Geraint.
Well done Geraint.
https://www.captiongenerator.com/1039122/G-takes-Yellow
Makes me wonder if they’ll
Makes me wonder if they’ll set it up for a big attack by Froome in the third week, with G hopefully having enough time in hand that he can just follow on those who are forced to chase and still end up in second.
I guess from the team’s point of view Froome’s not done the Tour follwing the Giro before so knowing how he’ll go in the third week is hard, having G as possibly his only major threat works great for them. Hats off to Kwiatkowski for burying himself yet again for the team, my wife thought they were showing the clip in slow motion when he came to a standstill, that can’t have been a very pleasant last few km to ride.
I really expected better from some of the others, I thought Bardet might not be at full strength following his nightmare sunday, but Movistar really dropped the ball, three leaders who don’t appear to be capable of leading isn’t great, if Dumoulin isn’t totally spent after this stage then maybe he’s still there, but he did look like he was digging very deep.
And so here we go again,
And so here we go again, another Sky borefest, sit on the front and grind everyone down with power meter climbing, with a side order of salbutamol, the tour looks like its going to over before the end of the second week
dreamlx10 wrote:
So you didn’t watch the stage then ?
dreamlx10 wrote:
They only sit on the front because no one else is capable of doing it. Blame the other teams, like Movistar, for not getting their team to gel. They have the riders to do exactly the same as Sky.
For me, seeing them on the front dishing out punishment, is brilliant after the attitude of the French towards them.
The interview with Bardet after the stage was lush, he had to say he made the mistake of not following Martin rather than accept Froome and G were just simply streets ahead of him.
dreamlx10 wrote:
If it’s that easy, I wonder why the other teams don’t do it?
srchar wrote:
Well exactly. The other teams must know Sky’s tactics if it’s that predictable and yet they still can’t counter it.
dreamlx10 wrote:
Congratulations! Despite stiff competition you have surely made the most pointless, ill-informed post of the week (so far).
Will be interesting to see
Will be interesting to see who has the legs today, especially amongst the Domestiques.
My thoughts are that Froome allowed G to win yesterday’s stage by not going with him. That was pre-planned I reckon – if and when G gave the signal he felt strong enough then he would be allowed to go whilst Froome played games with any other GC contenders.
They can ride together now, G as a Super Dom allowing Froome to catapult off for the stage win and bonus seconds today. Maybe….
Oh, and p.s. – Chapeau Cav, sad to see him out but completing the stage out of self-respect and respect to The Tour only earns him more respect from me.
Stage 12 to Alpe D’Huez, deja
Stage 12 to Alpe D’Huez, deja vu, the borefest continues, looks like the Kenyan gringo mountain biker will win again
dreamlx10 wrote:
Oi! No spoilers! (just seen last 5kms and its a cracker!- get off the internet / social media now if you plan to watch the highlights)
I noticed that Froome didn’t
I noticed that Froome didn’t wait for Nibali when he crashed, can you imagine if Nibali had done that, the Sky fan boys would be choking on their Rapha coffee
(No subject)