Tour de France: Geraint Thomas wins stage 11 at La Rosiere, takes yellow
18 July 2018 04:40
If the first Alpine outing of the 2018 Tour de France had seen something of a stalemate, the second helping on Wednesday's stage 11 duly saw the race explode for the first time. Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) took the stage victory in La Rosière and moved into the yellow jersey, with his general classification rivals scattered down the mountain below him. Thomas had played down talk of an internal rivalry within Team Sky on the rest day, but he produced a real statement of intent when he accelerated away from Chris Froome and the rest of the GC group six kilometres from the top of the final climb – the first summit finish of the race. Not that Froome looked any weaker; he played the obvious games with the rest of the overall contenders before riding away from them in the final few kilometres. The four-time champion placed third on the stage, pipped at the line by Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb), who had attacked ahead of the final climb and who had been joined by Thomas for a few kilometres before the Welshman ripped away for the line in the final kilometre.ADVERTISEMENT Mikel Nieve placed fifth, having come so close to surviving from the day's breakaway. Fellow escapee Damiano Caruso came around him for fourth, but ultimately this stage was all about the GC riders. Dumoulin and Froome finished 20 seconds behind Thomas, while Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates), whose counter-attack had helped Froome to drop many of his big-name rivals, finished at 27 seconds. Next in was a group containing Romain Bardet, Nairo Quintana, Vincenzo Nibali, and Primoz Roglic. Fifty-nine seconds was the damage for them on what must be a significant dent to morale. Mikel Landa finished at 1:47, the Movistar hierarchy becoming increasingly clear on a day that saw Alejandro Valverde animate the race with a 60km attack before eventually losing more than three minutes. Ilnur Zakarin lost another 1:51, while the damage was more fatal for others –Jakob Fuglsang, Adam Yates and Bob Jungels both losing 4:42. In Yates' case, it must be pointed out that when he was dropped with 10km of the final climb remaining, his teammate Nieve was making his play for the stage win. The writing was already on the wall for Rigobero Uran, Bauke Mollema, and Rafal Majka, but they all lost more than 10 minutes and plummeted definitively out of contention. How it unfolded Col du Pré and Cormet de Roselend Summit finish
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