Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen won stage 11 of the Tour de France in Toulouse on Wednesday while defending champion Tadej Pogacar emerged largely unscathed despite crashing 4km from the line.
Pogacar fell after hitting the back wheel of another rider but his rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel sportingly waited for the Slovenian to catch up after he got back on his bike. Ireland’s Ben Healy retained the leader’s jersey.
Pogacar sheepishly laughed off the tumble.
“I’m a bit beaten up, I’ve been through worse days, but yeah that was unexpected,” he said.
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He was also swift to thank his rivals.
“Big respect,” he said of the gesture. “The race was nearly over but I doubt I would have been able to catch up.”
Pogacar said he had feared the worst when another rider rode across the front of him.
“He completely cut me off. I saw my head going toward the sidewalk and I was worried I’d get hurt. Luckily I’ve just lost some skin,” said the three-time champion.
Norway’s Tobias Johannessen was the rider in question and apologised for the incident.
“I am terribly sorry for what happened,” he wrote on X.
“I was trying to follow a move and I can see that I was too close,” he added. “I made a mistake… I hope he is as good as he can be after a crash like that.”
Pogacar said he felt the fall would hurt him on Thursday’s mountain stage.
“We are ready as a team for Hautacam,” he said of the main obstacle on stage 12. “But a day after a fall like that you are never at your best.”
Healy was next to Pogacar when he fell and narrowly missed coming down with him.
“I didn’t see him fall. I’ll be honest I was looking somewhere else. That’s possibly what happened to him,” said the 24-year-old Healy, who took the lead at the end of stage 10 in the Massif Central.
Healy retained the overall lead on his first day in the fabled yellow jersey, while Pogacar remains second at 29sec and Evenepoel third, another minute off the pace.
The peloton next heads into the Pyrenees where the first real mountains will test their legs on the legendary Hautacam climb.
“I’m not sure I’ll still have the lead tomorrow night,” said Healy. “It’s a large task but I’ll fight all the way. Either way this has been a real whirlwind for me.”
Sprinters foiled
Anyone who expected a quiet day was instead treated to a thrilling stage over 156.8km from Toulouse and back, which was unexpectedly won by Abrahamsen.
Abrahamsen also won the combativity award as he was at the origin of the long-range breakaway that foiled the ambitions of the sprinters.
Abrahamsen then contested a cat-and-mouse duel down the home straight with Swiss Mauro Schmid as the cunning Mathieu van der Poel crept up on them and finished third at 7sec.
The Norwegian fractured a collarbone two weeks before the Tour.
“Thanks to the team who did everything to get me ready in time,” said the Uno-X rider. “They are very good people and I’ve been here since 2017.
“I like to have pain in my legs, I’ve been like this since I was 15,” said Abrahamsen.
Following Tuesday’s rest day, Wednesday’s run was billed as a likely sprint finish with 70 points at stake in the sprint standings in Toulouse.
The stage did however feature five small climbs along the route making sure it was constantly fast and nerve-wracking.
When Pogacar fell late on he struggled to put his chain on after sliding across several metres of tarmac, and it looked initially as if he would lose 30 to 40 seconds.
Diminutive French climber Lenny Martinez is in the king of the mountains polka dot jersey as the race heads into the Pyrenees and will be the focus for home fans all weekend with further blockbuster crowds expected