While the stage 11 climb to the Col de Granon at the Tour de France totally blew apart the race for yellow at the top of the standings, it was a mixed day for Ineos Grenadiers.
Team leaders Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates outclimbed yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) but ended the 152km stage further from yellow than when they had set out from Albertville four hours earlier.
It was perhaps the most surprising stage of the Tour de France since Pogačar’s stunning ascent to yellow back on the penultimate day of the 2020 race, as Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) put almost three minutes into the Slovenian and a minute into everyone else.
Ineos deputy principal Rod Ellingworth sounded a positive note following the stage, pointing out that Thomas, who finished at 1:38 and remained fourth overall, and Yates, who came home 32 seconds later and dropped to sixth, are still in the running.
“What a day of bike racing. That’s the main thing,” he said at the Ineos Grenadiers team bus at the bottom of the Granon. “It was fantastic racing and I’m sure that’s what everybody wanted to see. It’s good to see the lads still in the running.
“It was a good day for the team and in particular for the way Geraint rode. He’s a smart guy, isn’t he? He never put himself in the red and went at his own pace. He’s dropped down to fourth overall but in the grand scheme of things, I think he’s in a strong position.
“Adam did well. He had some kind of trouble on the Télégraphe but he crawled his way back up as well. It was a good ride. Just the way he came back later suggests he was suffering earlier in the stage. He held his own on the final climb which is pretty good.”
Granon was ‘just’ the first part of an Alpine double-header, too, with another ride up the Galibier followed by the Croix de Fer, and finally the Alpe d’Huez, coming on Thursday.
Ellingworth said that stage 12 will be about recovery for the big GC contenders, noting that Thomas, who lies 2:26 down on Vingegaard and 10 seconds away from the second step of the podium, will be feeling strong after his result on Granon.
“There’s a long way to go and tomorrow’s going to be tough for everybody to recover. It’s about who recovers best. I’m sure there’s going to be some sore legs out there tomorrow.
“Geraint is a real stayer, he plays a long game, he’ll be pretty strong after that, mentally he’ll be really strong after being in a good place for all the race. We’re happy with this result, we’ll take it.
“I think tomorrow will be a big, massive day again. Jumbo have got a strong team, so they’ll control quite well, I think. So, I don’t think we’ll see the same sort of day, that’s for sure.”
Ellingworth also took time to evaluate Pogačar’s performance on stage 11, a crack that almost nobody expected as Jumbo-Visma took the battle to him early on the Galibier before Vingegaard’s finishing blow on the Granon.
He said that he didn’t expect the 23-year-old to drop so dramatically, either.
“I didn’t think Pogačar would go like he did. I thought it’d be a bit later in the race. You never know, as we’ve been saying all along. He’s only human,” observed Ellingworth.
“But I never thought it would go like that. I mean I obviously thought that at some point Jumbo were going to go with the strength in numbers on the climbs. But it was a bit surprising, wasn’t it?
“I thought that would happen – as in there’d be a lot of attacks early on. That’s what I thought Pogačar was going to do – slim the group down, but I think he really isolated himself. I’m sure there’ll be some lessons learnt for those boys tonight.”
Daniel Ostanek is production editor at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired as staff writer. Before Cyclingnews, he was published in numerous publications around the cycling world, including Procycling, CyclingWeekly, CyclingTips, Cyclist, and Rouleur, among others. As well as reporting and writing news and features, Daniel runs the ‘How to watch’ content throughout the season.
Daniel has reported from the world’s top races, including the Tour de France, and has interviewed a number of the sport’s biggest stars, including Egan Bernal, Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Mark Cavendish, and Anna van der Breggen. Daniel rides a 2002 Landbouwkrediet Colnago C40 and his favourite races are Strade Bianche and the Vuelta a España.