Tour de France | Pogacar crashes; Vingegaard attacks; Jonas Abrahamsen wins WILD stage 11 as Van der Poel and Van Aert miss out

Stage 11 of the Tour de France delivered action on all sides. We've had Jonas Vingegaard attack Tadej Pogacar early on the day; Pogacar crashing; a breakaway with Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert but at the end of the day it was Jonas Abrahamsen who stole the spotlight to win after an impressive breakaway performance.

The flattest stage of the second week, albeit rather hilly, proved to be an incredibly exciting day of racing. No-one would've expected at first how fast the day would go, ending much earlier than the scheduled forecast as the Tour peloton once again rode full speed the entire day without rest.

Without major climbs at the start of the stage there were several attempts to form a breakaway, with a small group standing out in the front of the race but ultimately not being able to get full freedom as dozens of riders at the same plan behind. The main classics riders, sprinters and some GC riders were involved in the action.

It was an incredibly fast start and five riders ultimately stood out from the rest: Jonas Abrahamsen, Mauro Schmid, Fred Wright, Davide Ballerini and Mathieu Burgaudeau. There was serious GC action behind as Jonas Vingegaard and Ben Healy attacked the GC group with 65 kilometers to go, forcing an unexpected reaction from Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar. The peloton had been split to bits after Visma tried to outsmart the competition with Wout van Aert playing a tactical role.

The peloton settled but not before an incredibly strong group went up the road including Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Quinn Simmons, Arnaud de Lie and Axel Laurance. The two quintets would go on to fight for the stage win whilst initially Israel - Premier Tech and Groupama-FDJ tried to keep the pace in the peloton lively - but couldn't chase with success.

The fight for victory would be in front and the gap between the two groups would stabilize in the 30-second mark, with the chasing group unable to close down the gap. In the penultimate ascent Jonas Abrahamsen attacked with Mauro Schmid following and the duo would roll off the incredibly steep final ascent still in the race lead. Quinn Simmons initially attacked in the chasing group to try and bridge across, unseuccessfully, but on the final climb Mathieu van der Poel unleashed a strong attack to drop the likes of Van Aert and De Lie and set off in pursuit of the front duo with 25 seconds of disadvantage over the summit with less than 10 kilometers to go.

Van der Poel's heroic efforts would not go rewarded as he was close to closing the gap to the front but did not succeed by a few seconds. Jonas Abrahamsen won the sprint against Mauro Schmid, taking the biggest win of his career.

The day would not go without it's drama however as in the peloton Tadej Pogacar crashed with 4 kilometers to go, a dramatic and very tense moment whilst the race was on out front. However, there was the collective decision to do a stalemate, even in the face of the man to beat potentially losing time. He regained position in the peloton who arrived a little over 3 minutes after the day's winner