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La Rosière (AP) – With impressive power, Team Sky shocked the competition at the 11th stage of Tour de France and put his co-captain Geraint Thomas in the yellow jersey.
Super-champion reigning champion Chris Froome defeated major rivals' attacks, allowing Thomas to win the day's win over fellow Tom Dumoulin and Froome favorites. The powerful team supported the claim of the sixth triumph of the Tour in seven years. Thomas took after 108.5 kilometers at La Rosière ski resort the leading jersey of Belgian Greg Van Avermaet, who fell as expected far behind.
"Winning the mountain is special, I did not expect it," said the Welshman, "wearing the yellow jersey is always a great honor." After a brilliant attack shortly before the finish, Thomas is the new leader of the last part of the Alps, Thursday, during the spectacular ascent of Alpe d 'Huez. He was 1:25 minutes ahead of teammate Froome and 1:44 minutes over Dumoulin, who was the only best driver to follow the stars of the sky. Other podium contenders like Romain Bardet, Vincenzo Nibali and Nairo Quintana lost time on the first mountain tour.
After the challenger did not attack on the first mountain stage on Tuesday, the eleventh section should be eventful. Nibali, Tour Champion in 2014, had justified the failed attacks of the previous day by saying that the Froome team had run so fast and dominating over the mountains and that there were headwinds, that He was just desperate to risk something.
The excuse did not move anymore. On the second heavy mountain of the day, the Movistar team of the captains trio Alejandro Valverde Quintana and Mikel Landa took the initiative and set the tone. Leader Van Avermaet quickly retreated – his days as a yellow carrier were counted as planned. The second total of last year, Rigoberto Uran, of Colombia, could not follow.
Immediately after the acceleration, the Spanish veteran Valverde dared to go it alone, leaving behind the peloton. Meanwhile, he took a two-minute lead and could dream of the first yellow jersey after a ten-year break. But the 38-year-old was overtaken at the start of the final climb.
Dumoulin had already tried during the last descent and had pioneered a path up to La Rosière before the last climb. The Dutchman wants to split after his second place at the Giro d'Italia behind Froome and finally the domination of the Sky. But the two Sky-Stars have not yet shown any weaknesses – on the contrary!
The sprinters once again had big problems keeping backlogs that they did not like. "Yesterday was a brutal step," said André Greipel before the start of the 11th section. "I had to fight to stay there, it's going to get worse today." While the Rostocker has again struck remarkably, the former series winner, Mark Cavendish, was at the beginning of the fight against the isolated qualifying time in the last place and had to face a big backlog. Also Marcel Kittel a little further ahead of the British has suffered tremendously.
Itinerary Tour de France 2018
Etappenwertung and appreciation
starting field
List of early failures
Tour de France welcome page with news
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