Tadej Pogacar was allowed to get better from a late crash on stage 11 of the Tour de France as Jonas Abrahamsen held on for his first Tour win.
As Mathieu van der Poel chased down Abrahamsen and Mauro Schmid throughout the closing 5km in Toulouse, Pogacar went down within the peloton, which was three minutes behind.
However the reigning champion swiftly obtained again on his bike – and his predominant rivals for the general victory eased as much as let him rejoin the group.
In the meantime, Abrahamsen edged out Schmid in a two-up dash to the road, with Van der Poel crossing seven seconds later having left his cost too late.
Eire’s Ben Healy nonetheless leads Pogacar by 29 seconds within the common classification (GC) having taken the yellow jersey from the three-time winner after stage 10.
Abrahamsen is competing in his third Tour at 29 and spent the primary 10 days of final 12 months’s race within the polka dot jersey, worn by the mountain factors chief.
However this was a primary stage win on the Tour for Abrahamsen and his Uno-X Mobility workforce, and got here simply 4 weeks after the Norwegian rider broke his collarbone within the Tour of Belgium.
Pogacar was unhurt after his crash 4km from the end of Wednesday’s flat 156km stage, which started and resulted in Toulouse.
The Slovenian fell after hitting the again wheel of one other rider and slid throughout a number of metres of highway earlier than struggling to place his chain again on.
It seemed as if he would lose 30 to 40 seconds however his predominant GC rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel sportingly waited for him to catch up.
After this 12 months’s first relaxation day, it was a dramatic resumption for the Tour, with Abrahamsen and Schmid attacking from the outset to ascertain themselves in a long-range breakaway.
The stage started at a fast tempo, averaging 52km over the primary hour, and splits repeatedly fashioned within the peloton whereas a chase group tried to reel in a five-man breakaway, which included British rider Fred Wright.
Wednesday additionally featured 5 categorised climbs, with two within the closing 14km, when Van der Poel attacked out of the 5 chasers to shut the hole.
Though the Dutch rider wore the yellow jersey earlier within the race, he’s now out of GC competition and in the end fell simply in need of claiming his second stage win this 12 months.
The race heads into the Pyrenees on Thursday for a 180.6km mountain route from Auch to this 12 months’s first summit end at Hautacam.-BBC
