Thursday, July 19, 2007

Robbie Hunter of South Africa has won stage 11 of the 2007 Tour de France. Hunter edged out Fabian Cancellara and Murilo Fischer in a tight sprint.

Michael Rasmussen of Denmark retained the overall lead finishing the stage with the first peleton. The biggest change in the chase for the yellow jersey was Christophe Moreau losing more than three minutes on the leaders and dropping out of the top ten.

For a good portion of the stage, Wegmann, Florencio, Gilbert, Millar and Fofonov had the lead. The five-man breakaway group was gobbled up by the peleton. With 30 km to go the peleton split into two clearly defined main groups with about 1:40 separating them. The gap grew to two full minutes with 20 km to go. The second peleton finished 3:17 behind Hunter’s time.

The 182.5 km stage 11, from Marseille to Montpellier, is the first of two transition stages between the Alps and the Pyrenees, with no major climbs.

In the wake of the doping test of Patrik Sinkewitz, German networks ZDF and ARD ended their live coverage of the Tour. In response, Tour organizers, Amaury Sport Organisation, signed deals with Sat.1 and ProSieben, so that German fans can continue to watch.

“With the agreement of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) a replacement solution has been found. We have leased the TV rights to Sat.1 and ProSieben,” Yann Le Moenner of ASO told Reuters.