Stage 11 of the Tour de France was one made for the breakaway, and the battle at the start of Évaux-les-Bains clearly proved it. It even took almost 90 kilometres for a group to really go clear towards Le Lioran. At the last minute, Romain Grégoire managed to join it, but all the efforts made were nevertheless reduced to nothing. Indeed, UAE Team Emirates never allowed the breakaway to get a big gap, and a fight between the big GC contenders eventually decided the day’s winner. Jonas Vingegaard claimed victory, while Groupama-FDJ is now looking forward to this weekend.
Two hundred and eleven kilometres, a very hilly finish, and 4000 metres of elevation gain. Everything was made for a furious start this Wednesday on the Tour de France. In Évaux-les-Bains, the first attacks certainly proved feeble, but then, two hours of intense and continuous fight followed. Yet, everything could have become clearer after ten kilometres of racing, when Quentin Pacher first entered a leading trio together with Kévin Vauquelin and Tobias Halland Johannessen, before being joined by a counterattack of around fifteen men including his teammates Romain Grégoire and Valentin Madouas. The gap even reached thirty seconds, but the bunch eventually chased them down as a few teams were caught behind. From then on, everything came back together, another race started, and the battle resumed until the first classified hills located after some 80 kilometres. Six men managed to clearly break away there, and while the peloton started to ease off, Romain Grégoire decided to use his last bullet.
“The mindset is very good”, Romain Grégoire
Alongside Julien Bernard, Bruno Armirail and Guillaume Martin, the Frenchman managed to reach the front of the race after one hundred kilometres. The gap gradually increased to two minutes but was then stabilized. Barely back in the lead, the Groupama-FDJ rider realized his chances of success weren’t high. “I think 80% of the peloton anticipated that the breakaway would make it today,” he said. “In the end, it is UAE who decides. Anyway, we really had to try. We still managed to put someone in front, but it was difficult.” “The guys tried a lot, and it was necessary,” added Benoît Vaugrenard. “We had aimed for this stage, but other teams had other plans.” Despite very good cooperation at the front, the breakaway was never really able to gain ground on the bunch and keep hope. The gap was even reduced to one minute at the bottom of the first of the four final climbs. The peloton did not ease off, quite the opposite, and Romain Grégoire was soon caught by a very small yellow jersey group.
About forty kilometres from the finish, the GC fight started, and Jonas Vingegaard eventually took the victory in Le Lioran. “In the end, I’m not that frustrated because I didn’t have the best legs today,” said Romain. “When I found myself in front, I was already cooked. I knew it was going to be hard for me to fight for the stage. On the other hand, it is frustrating for the team that the breakaway does not go to the end, especially since it is really our strategy in this Tour de France. We had to try. We will now wait for the Pyrenees with our climbers, and we will try to be in the mix. The mindset is very good, it’s a shame we didn’t provide confirmation on the bike for now, but it will come.” “We will have to recover, focus on the right stages and go for it again, simple as that,” concluded Benoît. “We will also have to stay united, as they were today.”
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