Stage 11: Albertville to Col du Granon (mountains)

Jonas Vingegaard winning stage 11 — Jonas made everyone hurt on the Col du Granon

If you can only watch one race this year, make it Stage 11 of the Tour de France. You know it’s going to be an exciting day when before lunchtime Wout van Aert and Matthieu van der Poel go up the road to form the breakaway. The Belgian superman ploughed on up the mountains and waited to drive his team to the foot of the final Col du Grandon, while the off-colour Dutchman fell away and stepped off his bike.

Lacets de Montvernier, Col du Telegraphe. There was haute-categorie racing all over the mountains, as up front there was strong competition for each summit, as Warren Barguil took the KOM jersey. Then the favourites started to knock lumps out of each other on the slopes of the Col du, Galibier with 60 km to go as Jumbo-Visma ganged up on the Maillot Jaune, until the last brutal ascent. Was Barguil going to hang on? Surely Quintana couldn’t do it? Than Jonas Vingegaard justified the efforts of his team to put Pogacar to the sword, and rip the race jersey off his back! Perfect plan, perfect execution.

Team of the Day

Top points on this exciting stage was David’s Thin Fat Boys with 763 through Bardet (3rd), Thomas (4th), Gaudu (5th) and the vanquished Pogacar (7th). But my Team of the Day is Paul’s Bad Knees who also recorded four top 10 finishers: stage winner and new GC leader Jonas Vingegaard (1st), Gaudu (5th), Pogacar (7th) and Barguil (10th) who also won the Souvenir Henri Desgrange.

Stat du Jour

By special request of DS Paul M, today’s chart shows the total velopoints for each fantasy team, and colour coded for each stage.

There is a close grouping of just 156 points separating 3rd from 7th

Postcard from Hautes-Alpes

postage stamp of Togo (2020) marking the 80th anniversary of the death of Henri Desgrange — 80th anniversary of the death of the founder of Le Tour, Henri Desgrange

mercredi 13 juillet 2022 Albertville

The Souvenir Henri Desgrange, awarded to the first rider (today Warren Barguil) over the Col du Galibier, recognises the “Father of the Tour”. Those are the words on his obelisk that the riders pass on the way down from his favourite summit. Here is Desgrange on a postage stamp from Togo, to mark 80 years since his death in 1940. He was a hard man and wanted the Tour de France to be very hard.

“Le Tour idéal serait un Tour où un seul coureur réussirait à terminer l’epreuve.“ [The ideal tour would be one in which only one rider would come through the test.]
Henri Desgrange