Stage 11

The road

At the start

Pedersen goes home

Nothing moved at Elche de la Sierra and nothing has moved on classification since the Aitana: Mas by 1:18 from Roglič, 1:39 from Gall. What has changed is the sprint. Mads Pedersen, beaten by a photograph on Saturday and dropped on Socovos yesterday, has not taken the start, and eighteen are now home. Today is 155 kilometres to Lorca with one gentle climb, the Alto de Aledo, topping out thirty-three from the line.

How it was won

1. 1100 km to go

   A crosswind, and thirty gone

   The day is drifting along behind four escapees on ninety seconds when the wind turns side-on with a hundred kilometres left. Tudor, Bahrain and Astana all hit the front at once and a group of thirty comes off the back — Hofstetter among them, and Jarno Widar, who can afford it least. It comes back together inside ten kilometres, but the flurry has killed the breakaway it split.

2. 243 km to go

   Hayter, out again, at Totana

   Ethan Hayter was in the first break and lost it in the echelons, so he simply goes and gets himself another one, this time with Larry Warbasse for company. Their advantage is never more than modest. Hayter leads through the sprint at Totana and behind him Van Aert springs out of the bunch for fifteen more points, a habit that is quietly turning the green jersey into a rout.

3. 333 km to go

   Van Aert polices the Aledo

   Ten kilometres of gentle third-category road is enough for Pinarello to make it hurt, and two kilometres from the top Dunbar accelerates. Van Aert comes out of the Visma line to sit on him, the pair briefly ride away, and that panics three other teams into launching riders of their own. What arrives at the summit is stretched and thinner, with Van Aert sprinting over it first for the mountain points, and he goes on marking moves the whole way down the far side.

4. 4At the line

   Brennan makes it three

   Uno-X take the centre of Lorca with four riders and Visma look beaten until Laporte surges them back in a single move. Van Aert hits the front for the near-hairpin inside the last five hundred metres and overcooks it; Brennan has to ease to let his lead-out man back through; and from there it is perfect. The twenty-one-year-old opens up with under two hundred metres to go and wins his third stage of his first Grand Tour, with Van Aert's lead-out strong enough to place the Belgian himself fifth.

The result