Abrahamsen wins Tour de France stage as Pogacar survives scare

TOULOUSE, France: Norway’s Jonas Abrahamsen won stage 11 of the Tour de France in Toulouse on Wednesday while defending champion Tadej Pogacar emerged largely unscathed despite crashing 4km from the line.

Pogacar fell after hitting the back wheel of another rider but his rivals Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel sportingly waited for the Slovenian to catch up after he got back on his bike. Ireland’s Ben Healy retained the leader’s jersey.

Pogacar sheepishly laughed off the tumble.

“I’m a bit beaten up, I’ve been through worse days, but yeah that was unexpected,” he said.

He was also swift to thank his rivals.

“Big respect,” he said of the gesture. “The race was nearly over but I doubt I would have been able to catch up.”

Pogacar said he had feared the worst when another rider rode across the front of him.

“He completely cut me off. I saw my head going toward the sidewalk and I was worried I’d get hurt. Luckily I’ve just lost some skin,” said the three-time champion.

Norway’s Tobias Johannessen was the rider in question and apologized for the incident.

“I am terribly sorry for what happened,” he wrote on X.

“I was trying to follow a move and I can see that I was too close,” he added. “I made a mistake... I hope he is as good as he can be after a crash like that.”

Pogacar said he felt the fall would hurt him on Thursday’s mountain stage.

“We are ready as a team for Hautacam,” he said of the main obstacle on stage 12. “But a day after a fall like that you are never at your best.”

Healy was next to Pogacar when he fell and narrowly missed coming down with him.

“I didn’t see him fall. I’ll be honest I was looking somewhere else. That’s possibly what happened to him,” said the 24-year-old Healy, who took the