The eleventh stage in the Tour de France has become a prey for Søren Waerenskjold. The Norwegian from Uno-X surprised the favorites in the mass print after the 161.3 kilometers from Vichy to Nevers, with only two fourth category climbs along the way.

Olav Kooij (Decathlon-CMA CGM) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) had to settle for second and third place. The Belgian was initially declassified due to an elbow in the last kilometer, but the jury reversed this after a complaint from his team.

Huub Artz (Lotto-Intermarché) sprinted to fifth place. The Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE), who finished in the peloton, retained the yellow leader’s jersey.

Speed ​​record

The ride to Nevers will go down as the fastest Tour stage ever. In 1999, the peloton raced at an average speed of 50.36 km/h from Laval to Blois (194.5 kilometers), where Mario Cipollini was the first to push his wheel across the line. That record has now been tightened to 50.91 km/h.

A day after the next blow that yellow jersey wearer Tadej Pogacar delivered to his competitors for the overall victory, the sprinters in the peloton knew that their days had come again. Stage eleven was the first of two in a row in terms of course.

Mathieu van der Poel had different thoughts about that. While it was raining lightly, he attacked from the start, but Van der Poel and his fellow escapees were twice unable to gain space from the peloton.

The Portuguese Nelson Oliveira (Movistar), the Dane Anthon Charmig (Uno-X) and the French Mathis Le Berre (TotalEnergies) and Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor), the instigator of the escape, had more luck after 13 kilometers. The quartet took a lead, which constantly fluctuated between one and two minutes.

The leading group and the peloton raced at a high pace towards Nevers, where the finish line has been crossed three times before and the fast Belgian Eric Leman (1971) and the Italian sprinters Guido Bontempi (1986) and Alessandro Petacchi (2003) were victorious.

On the second and last slope of the day, 1.4 kilometers at 6% with the top just under 40 kilometers from the finish, six-time Tour stage winner and two-time world champion Alaphilippe had to let his three companions go. Charmig, Oliveira and Le Berre accelerated again, but saw their lead over the peloton slowly but surely shrink.

Just after a dangerous turn 6 kilometers from the finish, which everyone got through unscathed, the three front runners were thanked for their efforts and the ambitious teams were able to advance their trump cards.

Cees Bol started the sprint ahead of Kooij and came away from the peloton. Waerenskjold launched himself, found Bol’s wheel and was just unable to be caught by Kooij and Philipsen, who were left behind.

Kooij thought Bol was going to win

“We were really in a good position,” Kooij, the winner of stage 5, recovered the last hundreds of meters. “It looked perfect. Cees took over and then I tried to let Stuyven in between. But he was actually ready. I was not immediately on Cees’ wheel. I thought: he is going to win. He had a nice gap.”

That was without Waerenskjold, the 26-year-old Norwegian who was the last to cross the line in Tuesday’s stage after a fall. “It’s a big surprise for myself,” the stage winner responded. “I thought I was too far back, but then a gap opened up on the right side. It’s unreal, unbelievable.”