Gallopin Wins Tour De France Stage Eleven

17 July 2014 02:32

Lotto's Tony Gallopin took victory on stage eleven of the Tour De France.

Back to racing after the rest day, the riders minus Fabian Cancellera started on a 187.5km hilly stage from Besançon to Oyonnax, close to the border with Switzerland.

None of the early attacks succeeded until Martin Elmiger (IAM Cycling), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis), and Anthony Delaplace (Bretagne-Séché Environnement). got away with thirty kilometres gone.

This trio took a lead of over six minutes on the peloton led by race leader Vincenzo Nibali of Astana, who has a 2.23 lead over Richie Porte.

Lemoine took the sprint at Charcier ahead of Elmiger with 98.5kms to go and a lead of 4.07, whilst Andrew Talansky of Garmin-Sharp started to drop further anf further back.

Talansky was 8.23 down as the trip up front started on the Cote de Rogna on a very warm day and witn 50.9kms to go, Talansky, who had been injured and done well to even start the stage, got off his bike, but after a chat and some tears, he got back on and continued.

Up front only, Lemoine and and Elmiger were left up front and were being chased by a group which included Nicholas Roche of Tinkoff Saxo before Nibali's Astana team closed them down.

Roche and Bakelants attacked again and having pased Lemoine, chased after Elmiger who had taken the the points on the Cote De Rogne.

Roche and Bakelants were 25 seconds behind Elmiger on the category three Cote de Coux which had ramps of 11%. This attack saw the yellow jersey group move to within thirty seconds of Elmiger, Roche and Bakelants with Herrada of Movistar and Gautier of Europcar joining them for the last 36kms.

On to the final climb of the day - the Cote d'Echallon and Nicholas Roche went away with 21.5kms to go. Cyril Gautier caught up to him.

There was a crash in the peloton with Astana's Michele Scarponi going down whilst on the front. Roche went away again and took the final climb with a fifteen second lead.

Tony Martin was amongst those who brought the Irishman back and this allowed former race leader Tony Gallopin to soar off the front.

Gallopin was caught with 4.3kms to go with a group containing Peter Sagan and Michael Kwiatkowski.

In to Oyonnax and Gallopin attackex again and this time, the Lotto Belisol rider was not to be caught and he won in 4.25.45 ahead of Degenkolb, Trentin, Bennati ,Gerrans, Rojas, Van Avermaet, Sam Dumoulin, Sagan and Reza.

Nibali keeps his leader's jersey by 2.23 from Richie Porte.

Source: DSG