Total mayhem, Toulouse edition: Stage 11 Domestique Debrief

After ten stages in northern France, the Tour transitioned south to begin a new phase of racing on Tuesday. Stage 11 featured a circular route beginning and ending in the city of Toulouse, and on paper it looked like it might come down to a tricky sprint. Few could agree how the stage might unfold, with many overlooking it as they thought ahead to the high mountains that would begin to show us a different dimension to the GC battle. None predicted what would turn out to be one of the most dramatic, unpredictable and high-octane days of the Tour so far.

Pro cyclists would have you believe their job is hard and requires immense amounts of grit, determination and endurance, but you could have fooled us as stage 11 began with a vim and vigour akin to a junior crit race. Following just one single day off, the entire peloton seemed to be up for a good old-fashioned punch-up with anyone and everyone launching attacks, and settlements never lasting longer than a few minutes before everything kicked off once again.

Could one day of rest really have been enough to revitalise a tired peloton, after what had been ten solid days of high-paced, frenetic racing? Often, riders return from a rest day a little sluggish, which may have been part of the reason why many commentators didn’t expect a great deal from stage 11.

On the contrary, the peloton came out all guns blazing, and though the rest must have helped a bit, the finely poised race situation and ingenious route design is what ultimately drew the racing instincts out of all and sundry, as attacks fired relentlessly up the road, and chaos reigned around the city of Toulouse.

Stage 11 felt like a sandbox experiment with the hypothesis: what would happen if you took away the notion of ‘control’ in the peloton? With EF Education-EasyPost in the position of defending Ben Healy's yellow jersey, arguably the responsibility should have fallen on their shoulders, but for one, they are not a traditional GC team, and don’t expect to carry the jersey all the way to Paris, and furthermore, today looked as though it might potentially be one for the sprinters, on paper.

The sprinters’ teams clearly thought otherwise as they were non-existent in the early stages of the race, and though one or two briefly showed willing when the break had finally been established, they quickly realised what they were up against, and called it a day. Given all the information everyone had about the race situation, and the profile ahead of them, it seemed no-one could predict the outcome of the stage accurately enough to try and figure out who should take responsibility. With none of the ‘big’ teams needing to do anything about controlling a stage which ultimately was never going to contain major time gaps, we were left with a situation in which not only did no one team really want to control the race, but in which no-one really needed to. And oh my goodness, what fun ensued. It was a mad, hare-brained, no-holds-barred day of all-out aggression, and it was completely brilliant.

The experiment did seem to lead to a pushing of boundaries, vis-à-vis the unwritten rules of the sport. After a protracted early breakaway formation, it seemed as though everything would settle down, but as riders took to the sides of the road to take comfort breaks, yet more attacks rolled off, and Mark Renshaw could be heard on the XDS-Astana team radio proclaiming ‘there's no rules any more in cycling’ – whether in exasperation or encouragement is yet unclear. 

The lack of the traditional patron figure to calm down proceedings was noticeable – with Tadej Pogačar not in yellow, it was not his problem to police the madness, and the irony of the day was that the moment the unwritten rules finally came back into play was when Pogacar himself crashed, and the GC bunch unanimously (we assume) agreed to wait for their unofficial leader – despite him not wearing the maillot jaune. It was a gracious display of sportsmanship that seemed to reset the fractious relations between the two protagonists and their teams - for now at least.

Once again, the tactics of the two primary teams of the Tour de France were worthy of note on yesterday’s stage, albeit mostly towards the end of the stage. 

With the yellow jersey shipped off to EF and Ben Healy, UAE Team Emirates-XRG were free to sit back and allow the stage to unfold without their intervention – they were happy to take a back seat and were pretty much invisible for most of the day – a sensible decision. 

By contrast, the ever more aggressive Visma | Lease a Bike were busy once again, though perhaps in a slightly different way, with Wout van Aert going for his own interests, and Victor Campenaerts busy early on just doing Victor Campenaerts things, which seem to amount to playing the role of agitator and general chaos pirate, popping out to rile things up now and again, whenever they settle down - of course, there wasn't much call for this, yesterday.

Two key moments showed the intent of the Dutch team to continue on with their apparent plan to niggle and tire their main rival, physically and mentally. Firstly, with 67 kilometres to go, Jonas Vingegaard put in an attack from a shredded bunch to move across to a large counter-attacking group that included his teammate Wout van Aert. This move was missed on some broadcasts, which cut to ads, but Van Aert immediately sat up and began to drop back for his teammate. Notably, Pogačar was nowhere to be seen at that point. It was only Ben Healy, prominent in yellow, marking the move of the Dane, that seemed to alert the chasing GC group to the danger, and it was actually Remco Evenepoel who did the work to close down Vingegaard and co. Pogačar will want to learn from this kind of error, as though sitting and chilling in the bunch will help him recoup some of the energy he has expended in a busy race thus far, Visma are clearly seeking any and every opportunity to drop or isolate him. He got lucky this time, and arguably would have had his team close the gap just fine, but the point bears repeating.

The second moment was just before the summit of the final steep kicker, the Côte de Pech David, when first Vingegaard, then Matteo Jorgenson, put in digs which forced Pogačar to accelerate. The moves came too late in the climb to ultimately drop the Slovenian, even if such a feat were possible, but they are continuing their tactic of trying to fatigue the world champion, by forcing him into explosive efforts – here, it would have better if Pogačar could have deployed a teammate in his service, but he seems hellbent on making his point himself.

These efforts were rendered academic when Pogačar crashed shortly afterwards, and though it seems the damage - to the body at least - is superficial, there may be a longer lasting impact from the crash, which would render all of this conversation, and Visma’s probing and ‘annoying’ efforts, effectively moot. 

One of the heroes of last year’s Tour de France, it’s hard to believe that this is in fact the third consecutive appearance at the race for the Norwegian. Winning the combativity prize on yesterday’s stage was a reflection of the hard work he put into getting away and staying away all day – the first rider out in the break, and the first rider over the line. To add to this, another first – the first win for his team, Uno-X Mobility, at the race. To add to his own first victory at the race, of course. He also became the first Norwegian rider to win a stage of the Tour de France in five years.

If you remember Abrahamsen as an attacking rider last year, you would be correct. But if you only follow the Tour and don’t follow ALL THE RACES, you may not be aware of the broader narrative surrounding Abrahamsen’s participation at this year’s race. Selected for the Tour once again by Uno-X – the first team to announce their squad, in mid-June - Abrahamsen went on to fracture his collarbone at the Baloise Belgium Tour a couple of days later, on 18 June, just two weeks prior to the race. His tears at losing out on his opportunity were heart-breaking, but miraculously, Abrahamsen healed so quickly from the injury he was deemed fit to race, surprising his many fans with the good news ahead of the Grand Départ in Lille.

To be fit enough to race at all is a feat in and of itself, but to have the strength and courage to forge clear and go for the win - and succeed - that's the stuff dreams are made of.

There were a great many valiant efforts on today’s stage, almost too many to note. Honourable mentions go to the following riders for their guts and daring: Mauro Schmid, who dared to roll the dice, committed to the early move, took his chance head-to-head with Abrahamsen and rode all the way to the line to keep van der Poel and the rest at bay. Second will feel like defeat, but it was a win for team breakaway, which we all love to see, even if it will be a tough one to take for Schmid.

Van der Poel himself, who was closing ominously on the lead duo having launched a devastating attack up the final climb to drop Van Aert and the rest, but missed out on a second stage victory after believing he was winning – he has expended more energy than most other riders put together at this Tour. Perhaps with the exception of Quinn Simmons who tried yet again, and surely has a stage win in his future. 

Arnaud de Lie, who won the sprint from the chase group and proved he is still here hunting a stage win and feeling better than ever. All the others who rode in the early break but couldn’t quite hang on. And finally, the entire bunch for putting on a collective show and proving that you never can tell what is going to happen, at the Tour de France. More of this, please!