Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) claimed the win on stage 11 of the Tour de France, the Australian beat Dylan Groenewegen (Jumbo-Visma) and Elia Viviani (Deceuninck-Quickstep) into the minor placings.
After yesterday’s rest day, Stage 11 was a relatively flat course marked for the sprinters. The 167km course running from Albi to Toulouse had only 2 categorised climbs.
Four riders made it up the road, but their time gap was controlled by the sprint teams, and they were caught with just under 10km of racing left.
With 30km to go, Team Dimension Data’s suffered a big blow, when Giacomo Nizzolo crashed heavily on his left side. Unfortunately the crash meant Nizzolo would no longer be able to contest the final sprint.
In the final, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg tried to implement a plan B and made a late surge down the right side of the peloton in the final kilometer. A sharp chicane would prove to be their undoing though as they ran out of road space for the encroaching barriers.
Fortunately, Nizzolo was still able to make it to the finish and should be able to take the start tomorrow, while our GC hope, Roman Kreuziger, finished with the bunch today and is now 17th on the general classification.