Stage 11 - Civil War

Only one man can beat Bradley Wiggins at this year’s Tour de France. Sadly that man is teammate and fellow Brit Chirs Froome. Wiggins showed his first sign of weakness at this year’s Tour on Stage 11, an epic 148km trek from Albertville to La Toussuire. However the weakness was generated by an attack from Froome, and when Sky realised that they quickly called their lieutenant back to help drag Wiggins up the climb. The day was another triumph for France – they went 1-2 on the stage as Pierre Rolland won by almost a minute from Thibaut Pinot. Wiggins and Froome also went 1-2 on GC as Cadel Evans was cracked on the final climb. In his defence he had at least tried to animate the race on the earlier Cold de la Croix de Fer, attacking and trying to put Wiggins and Sky under pressure and paid for his attempts at the finish. Not much more can be asked of Evans – he has tried everything in his power to stay within touching distance of Wiggins but just does not have the legs to match his Commonwealth companion this year. Wiggo had a subtle dig at Cadel's attack in the post race press conference - a laughable call when your own teammate would have blown you out of the water had he not been called back to haul your anemic ass up the mountain because you were floundering as badly as The Falcon does on the Alpine passes in Winter. Wiggo - you are a grade A douchebag. Wiggins now leads Froome by over 2 minutes, with Nibali the closest non-Sky rider at 2:23 in third.

But the major interest on the stage will be the team dynamics as Sky – it would appear that Froome is the more inform rider (excluding the time trials) and if left to his own devices he would be potentially be able to challenge Wiggins for the title. In fact Froome’s ride but back memories of a young Andy Schleck toying with his rivals on L’Alpe d’Huez while teammate Carlos Sastre rode to a solo victory up the road. But it just won’t happen. This EXACT same situation occurred at the Vuelta last year, when Froome had to pace Wiggins up climbs DEPSITE WEARING THE LEADERS JERSEY!!! As a result Joaquin Rodriguez was able to steal the race from under their noses. And I would like to see Vincenzo Nibali do similar here I just can’t see it happening, not with Wiggo having another 50km time trial up his sleeve. I would also like to see Froome just ignore team rules and ride for himself ala Contadar with Astana and Armstrong in 2009, but given the massive lovefest that appears to be Team Sky I can’t see this happening either.

Props must also go out to the French who have had a banner three days in the lead up to Bastille Day on Saturday – Pinot on Stage 9, Voeckler on Stage 10, and then the Rolland-Pinot quinella overnight. The future for French cycling looks very promising and if either of those two can learn to put in a decent time trial the whispers of the next French tour winner will be growing into a dull roar. One disappointment for France was their loss of the Polka Dot Jersey – with so many big climbs on the stage the jersey was always going to pass to someone in the days’ break, and that turned out to be former wearer Frederick Kessiakoff who now leads the classification by 11 points from Pierre Rolland – hopefully Rolland can pull him back over the next week to take the title for France. France did move up to second in the Youth Classification however, thanks to Pinot’s performance – he now trails Tejay van Garderen by just under 2 minutes. This competition is now a race and 2 as Rein “pea-heart” Taaramae absolutely blew up and lost over 20 minutes on the day.

Yellow Jersey – Bradley Wiggins

Green Jersey – Peter Sagan

Polka Dot Jersey – Frederick Kessiakoff

White Jersey – Tejay Van Garderen

Brock Mclean Tweet of The Day

@whityost – Froome might want to consider starting an anonymous Twitter account so he can continue attacking Wiggins after the stage