Stage 11

The road

At the start

Cabo de Gata, and the sprinters' day

Evenepoel put 48 seconds into everybody in Alicante and now leads Primož Roglič by 2:41 and Enric Mas by 3:03. Eight riders did not start the time trial, Sam Bennett with COVID among them, and twenty-seven have gone in all. Today is 191 flat kilometres along the Andalusian coast to Cabo de Gata with crosswinds the only threat. Mads Pedersen has finished second three times and has still not won.

How it was won

1. 126 km to go

   Bol's tree-planting mission ends

   The three attackers battled a hot headwind all afternoon at barely 39kph. Bol pushed on alone for a minute's worth of glory and is swept up with twenty-six kilometres left, the peloton turning its mind to the coastal crosswinds ahead.

2. 210 km to go

   Pedersen takes twenty more

   The late intermediate comes with no real aggression and the Dane accelerates briefly for twenty points and three bonus seconds, then sits up. The green jersey is quietly becoming a formality.

3. 3At the line

   Groves times it perfectly

   Onto the beachfront with the Mediterranean breeze off the right, BikeExchange sit protected on the left along the salt plains. Meurisse, Degenkolb and Molano all open too early; Kaden Groves waits, uses their slipstreams, and comes past everyone — a win for a team that lost Simon Yates to COVID that morning.

The result