The Tour de France from 2025 has delivered more than drama in the opening week, from unexpected victors to Ben Healy and organizes a daring raid to steal the yellow sweater from defending champion Tadej Pogacar’s shoulders.
The stage 11 of Wednesday contained a feel-good story as Jonas Abrahamsen, only four weeks later by breaking his collarbone during the Baloise Belgium tour, jumped into the escape of kilometer Zero and remained until the finish, winning a tight two-up sprint against Breakaway company Mauro.
It was a first Grand Tour -victory for the Intrepid Breakaway specialist -the best known for his long stint in the King of the Mountains Jersey last year -a first Tour de France victory for Norway since Alexander Kristoff phase 1 of the 2020 -edition, and a scoop for his Team Uno.
Abrahamsen and Schmid were part of a five-man group, including the British rider Fred Wright, who finally finished seventh, and who worked well to keep a quintet of pursuers, including Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert. Van der Poel attacked the last climb of the spicy stage of 157 km and dropped his companions, but despite his efforts, could not bridge to the pair of survivors at the front, who ended seven seconds before the Dutchman.
“I broke my collarbone four weeks ago [the Baloise] Belgium, I was crying because I thought I was not driving on the Tour de France, “Abrahamsen said at the finish and remembered how he came home the next day at his turbo trainer in a desperate attempt to go back to fitness to make the team on time.
“Every day I did everything I could to come back. It’s great to win a stage in the Tour de France. It was so hard to pass [Schmid] But I thought: “I have to win the stage.” “
Phase 11 was also remarkable for a late crash by defending champion Tadej Pogacar, who overlaps with Tobias Halland Johannes and the deck hit with 4 km. The Slovenian was quickly back to work when a neutral service technician helped repair his chain, but was confronted with a race to return to the Yellow Jersey group until they were rather the pace of the pace to let him go up again.
“I am completely okay. I have been beaten up a bit, but we have been experiencing worse days,” Pogacar said afterwards. “Really great respect for everyone at the front. It was clear that the race there was more or less, but they could still take the time – perhaps not to take too much time – but I should really go deep to come back.”
But after this opening week and a little skirmishes between the big guns, with phase 10 a test run for Visma-Lease a Bike’s strategy to insulate Pogacar as much as possible, real racing starts today.
That is because we finally reach the mountains: the riders are in the Pyrenees, with today’s route from 180 km from Auch to Hautacam, with 3,850 m heights on the road.
Four categorized climbs are on the menu: the Cat-Four Cote de Labatmale is a bit of a soft warm-up, before back-to-back ascents of the Kat-a Col du Soulor (11.8 km with an average of 7.3%) and the Cat-Twee Col des Borders (3.1 km with an average 7.7%), with only a short.
There is then a long, broken descent of the boundaries before the gradient rises to Hautacam: 13.5 km with an average of 7.8%, far away from the short, sharp climbs in Normandy and Brittany who littered the action of the first week.
De formidabele Hautacam is de eerste hors-categorie klim van de race en het is een topafwerking om op te starten, met veel punten die worden aangeboden in de King of the Mountains-competitie, maar nog belangrijker, het kan net zo goed aas zijn voor de plunderende Pogacar om zijn autoriteit te stempelen op de race op de race op de race te stempelen op de race, worstelt de gele trui en worstelt de Yellow sweater and struggles the yellow sweater and counts his already impressive Haul of 19 Tour tour.
That assumes that he will not feel the after effects of his stage 11 -Crash, and if Jonas Vingegaard does not get better from him on the Pyrenean slopes, as he did before.
Hautacam was where his team, then known as Jumbo-Visma, was the screw on his Slovenian rival in 2022, with the DANE achieving the stage victory on the top on the way to winning the first of his two titles. With that rich recent history in mind, and a lot of needle between the two teams so far this race, today’s stage should be an absolute cracker.
Road map and profile
Starting time
Phase 12 starts with the neutralized start at 1.10 pm local time (12.10pm BST), with an expected finish time at 5.30 pm local time (4.30 pm BST).
Prediction
This is the first Mountain Battle of this year’s tour and it feels impossible that the contenders of the general classification allow an escape to honor the honor. Everything we have seen in this Tour so far points to Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar in their own competition when the gradient kicks uphill.
Visma-Lease A bicycle will undoubtedly stack the pressure on Pogacar and his exhausted team (important mountain liternant Joao Almeida left the race on stage 10 after a broken rib in a crash earlier in the week), especially after the Slovenian himself felt down on stage 11 and felt a bit understood and knitted.
But even with that, it is difficult to look beyond the best rider in the world, Tadej PogacarFor the victory today: his spirits from Emerging from 2022 and the psychological momentum return from the team of his rival.
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