Stage 11

The road

At the start

Crosswinds on the road to Montpellier

Chris Froome leads Adam Yates by sixteen seconds, Dan Martin by nineteen and Nairo Quintana by twenty-three, and today reads like a gift to the sprinters: 162 kilometres from Carcassonne to Montpellier, two fourth-category hills early and nothing at all after them. The wind is the complication — it comes off the plains, and the roads keep changing direction under it. Sebastian Langeveld went home yesterday.

How it was won

1. 1142 km to go

   Crosswinds from the gun

   Attacks and a swirling wind off the plains split the race in the opening kilometres out of Carcassonne. On twisting country roads the direction changes constantly and nobody is allowed a rest day.

2. 212 km to go

   The yellow jersey goes with the green

   Twelve kilometres out, Sagan hits the front and digs. Bodnar goes with him — and so, extraordinarily, do Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas, four riders gone off the front of a bunch sprint stage.

3. 38 km to go

   Seventeen seconds

   With eight kilometres to run the quartet has seventeen seconds and a chase that cannot organise itself. Movistar and the rest have been caught cold on a day marked down for the sprinters.

4. 4At the line

   Sagan wins, Froome steals six seconds

   Froome tries to take the stage but the world champion outsprints him comfortably in Montpellier. The Briton settles for second, six bonus seconds and six more on the field — a day's GC gain from nowhere.

The result