Rafal Majka led a solo breakaway to win the 11th stage of the Tour de France under a scorching sun yesterday, leaving behind a small chasing group on the hardest climb of Day 2 in the Pyrenees mountains, while Chris Froome easily retained the yellow jersey.
The stage victory by Majka, a Pole who won twice on last year’s Tour, provided a lift for a Tinkoff Saxo Bank team whose leader, two-time Tour winner Alberto Contador, has been struggling in this year’s race.
Tinkoff Saxo became the seventh squad to win a stage this year in a sign of well-distributed honours in a race otherwise dominated by Froome’s powerful Team Sky.
“I like this weather when it’s really hot. Many others suffer, but I prefer this to rain,” Majka said. “I think that to be a climber, you have to be born a climber. I like long ascents like this.”
Majka, 25, presented little threat to Froome. He had begun the 188-kilometre stage from Pau to Cauterets more than 44 minutes behind the British race leader.
Froome finished more than five minutes back along with the other pre-race favourites.
Majka, who last year took home the polka dot jersey awarded to the race’s best climber, burst out of a breakaway bunch on the way up the Tourmalet pass.
The day’s results had little effect on the overall standings, a day after Froome impressed his main rivals by winning Stage 10, which featured a tough uphill finish. He leads Tejay van Garderen of the United States while Nairo Quintana of Colombia is third. Contador is sixth.
Froome’s lead after 10 stages was the biggest at this point in the race since at least 2006 – the year after Lance Armstrong won his last Tour before his seven titles were stripped for doping.
Froome played down talk about the race being all but over. “A bad day in the mountains, and three minutes can disappear,” he said.
Froome’s margin is already creating doubts among fans in the doping-tainted race but the Briton said he was open to having independent physiological analysis to prove himself.
“Obviously, right here at the moment, my focus is on the race, but certainly I’m open minded to potentially doing some physiological testing at some point after the Tour,” he said.
The statement came at a time when data, apparently stolen when his Sky team’s computers were hacked, was published on the internet.
A video of Froome climbing to victory on Mont Ventoux when he won the Tour in 2013 apparently shows his heart rate stabilising at 160 beats a minute as he accelerated – similarly to Tuesday – away to victory.
But the 30-year-old Briton said that is normal. “I’ve put that data out there myself in my book. I said my maximum heart-rate is only 170,” said the Kenyan-born rider.
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