Tony Gallopin, the French cyclist from Lotto-Belisol, has won stage 11 of the Tour de France from Besancon to Oyonnax.

About 1.5km from the end Gallopin broke away from the pack and stayed ahead. German John Degenkolb claimed second place in a sprint finish just ahead of Italian Matteo Trentin. However, the results have left the top of the general classification leaderboard unchanged.

Vincenzo Nibali has kept the yellow jersey as the overall leader, two minutes and twenty-three seconds ahead of Team Sky’s Richie Porte.

In a surprising turn of events, Andrew Talansky, who last month won the Criterium du Dauphine and had been considered an outside contender to win the Tour, was almost eliminated. Talansky is suffering from a back injury and was left behind by the peloton with about 80km to go. He had to stop by the side of the road for a while to discuss the possibility of quitting with his team manager Robbie Hunter. In the end he continued in tears and thanks to encouraging cheers from the team car and spectators managed to finish the stage inside the time limit, albeit thirty-two minutes and five seconds after Gallopin.

Green jersey holder Peter Sagan was doing well in the race as it reached its final kilometres, but while he still remains far ahead in the green jersey standings, he has so far been unable to win a stage. He was part of a group that caught leader Gallopin with less than five kilometres to go but was unable to overtake him after the rest of the group eased off the pace.

Overall it was an excellent day of cycling showing that while Nibali is comfortably in the lead there are others capable of catching him up.