Sam Bennett moves up to second to extend green jersey lead

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Caleb Ewan was victorious on stage 11 of the Tour de France in Poitiers, although Sam Bennett was second to keep his green jersey.

Deceuninck-QuickStep’s Bennett had hoped to repeat his Irish compatriot Sean Kelly’s victory the last time a Tour stage ended at Poitiers in 1978, but initially had to settle for third, with Peter Sagan second to cut his lead over him. 15-point green jersey.

However, the stewards reviewed the final and relegated Sagan to 85th place on the day for pushing Wout van Aert out of the way, moving Bennett to second and putting Jumbo-Visma’s Van Aert on the podium.

That also rocked the points standings, with Bennett’s lead growing considerably to 68 points.

The 167.5km Chatelaillon-Plage stage was shortened to the long-awaited final sprint with Ewan, a second close to Bennett 24 hours earlier, this time producing the speed to overtake Bennett just before the line for his second stage of the Tour.

A messy finish saw Van Aert open early in search of a third stage win, but Sagan made his way inside and appeared to have beaten Bennett with a bike throw on the line before the officials intervened.

“I really don’t know what happened,” Bennett said. “It was so hectic. (The team) did a fantastic job taking care of me, it’s just that in the final it was difficult to go from following a teammate to doing it alone, and I found myself too early too early.

“It was a bit late to back up, it was a total disaster. I tried to limit my losses and get the best result that I could. “

Sagan has won the points classification every year since 2012, with the exception of 2017, when his fourth-stage crash with Mark Cavendish disqualified him completely and sent him home.

Now another penalty could cost him an eighth crown in the competition, though the race returns to high ground where he has specialized in getting into breaks and scoring significant points in the intermediate sprints, many of which come before the major. goes up.

“I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold this green jersey,” Bennett said. “The race is going to get harder and harder, but we’ll see how it goes.”

There was no change at the top of the overall standings, with Slovenian Primoz Roglic from Jumbo-Visma continuing to lead defending champion Egan Bernal from Ineos Grenadiers.

“It was very, very hectic,” said Ewan, the Lotto-Soudal driver.

“I knew from the first stage that I had won just to stay calm and wait for the right gap to open. I really wanted to win today after yesterday and I am happy to reward my teammates with victory.

“I am very happy with two stage wins, but now I want a third in Paris.”



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