Marcel Kittel wins his fifth stage into Pau on Stage 11
Quick-Step rider showed his sprinting strength and skills as the Tour de France reaches the foot of the Pyrenees
Marcel Kittel once again showed is pure sprinting strength, bike handling and team skils as he took another stage on the relatively flat stage to Pau, before the general classification heats up again in the second week of the Tour de France in the Pyrenees.
The day's breakaway was caught in the final kilometres as the sprinters team came to the front to prepare for battle.
In the final run in, Kittel once again powered ahead of his rivals, beating Dylan Groenewagen (Lotto-Jumbo) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Dimension Data) in second and third resectively.
BORA-hansgrohe show bravery as Maciej Bodnar’s stunning breakaway effort narrowly beaten on the line
242m: this was all that was remaining of stage 11 of the Tour de France when Maciej Bodnar was caught by the sprinters after riding the entire day in the break. Escaping at kilometre zero, the Polish time trial specialist rode the whole 203.5km stage off the front, before going solo with 23km remaining. While Maciej was cruelly denied the stage win, he took the day’s well-deserved combativity prize for his effort and gave the fans the most spectacular break of the race so far.
After a gentle 178km route on yesterday’s stage to gently ease riders back into the race after their first rest day, the distance was ramped up to 203.5km, making for a long day in the saddle. The route itself wasn’t going to cause any trouble, with only the one fourth category climb coming after 145km, but on days like these, the breakaway is always something to watch out for. With the race going back to the mountains tomorrow, the sprinters would be looking for the win, and the breakaway would be looking to deny them that.
For a breakaway to succeed, it has to have riders in it who are able to ride hard all day without the peloton to shelter them. Today, the perfect example of that rider made the jump, as BORA-hansgrohe’s Maciej Bodnar used the time trialling skills that won him the Polish national time trial championship in 2016 to power ahead of the bunch, taking two other riders with him. It was a constant back and forth between the break and the peloton – the gap rising to almost five minutes, before the peloton brought it back down to 1:30, only for it to go back out to 2:30. With 50km remaining, the break’s lead was a little over a minute, but Maciej wasn’t riding like someone who had spent almost 200km off the front, and seemed to have energy in reserve.
With just 28km remaining and as the gap hit thirty seconds, the Polish rider left his fellow escapees behind, pushing his advantage back out to a little under fifty seconds. Coming into the final 10km, Maciej had forty seconds in hand, riding out of his skin to hold the peloton at bay. Past the Flamme Rouge and with just over 200m of the race left, he was finally caught, bringing to an end the strongest breakaway effort of the Tour de France so far, after riding the entire stage off the front.
While Quickstep’s Kittel took the stage, the stage would be remembered for Maciej’s incredible effort.
2017 Tour de France Stage 11 Top Ten
1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Quick-Step Floors 4:34:27
2 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo
3 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Dimension Data
4 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb
5 Daniel Mclay (GBr) Team Fortuneo - Oscaro
6 Davide Cimolai (Ita) FDJ
7 André Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal
8 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits
9 Ben Swift (GBr) UAE Team Emirates
10 Danilo Wyss (Swi) BMC Racing Team
2017 Tour de France GC after Stage 11
1 Christopher Froome (GBr) Team Sky 47:01:55
2 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana Pro Team 0:00:18
3 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 0:00:51
4 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Cannondale-Drapac 0:00:55
5 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana Pro Team 0:01:37
6 Daniel Martin (Irl) Quick-Step Floors 0:01:44
7 Simon Yates (GBr) Orica-Scott 0:02:02
8 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar Team 0:02:13
9 Mikel Landa (Spa) Team Sky 0:03:06
10 George Bennett (NZl) Team LottoNl-Jumbo 0:03:53