Australia's Michael Matthews was the unlikely winner of stage 10 of the Tour de France 2016 on Tuesday. Stage 11 of the tour is a relatively comfortable one for the riders, as the 182.5 km stretch from the fortified French town of Carcassonne to Montpellier in southern France is a flat one.
Britain's Mark Cavendish, who has the most stage wins so far in the Tour de France this year, is the favourite once again to bag the honours and get back his green jersey from Peter Sagan. However, he has to be wary of André Greipel, who hasn't won a stage as yet this year but will be up for a steady performance.
The sprinters have a chance now, more than ever, to clinch at least a stage. Defending Tour de France champion Chris Froome, currently with the yellow jersey, is expected to go through stage 11 in a relaxed manner as his full focus now remains on the mountainous stages.
The real race for the yellow jersey and the general classification battle will resume from Stage 12 on Thursday when the tour moves from Montpellier to Mont Ventoux.
"Tomorrow [Wednesday] we are hoping for a similar day to today, another day we can tick off and get through without too much happening. Ventoux is definitely the next big thing we have our sights on now," said Froome to Sky Sports. "I'm already focused on the Ventoux on Thursday and the time trial on Friday.
"If you look at the GC [general classification] battle, the top 10 are separated by around a minute pretty much. The days at Ventoux and the time trial, the gaps will open up and be significant," the 31-year-old Briton added.
Where to watch live
Stage 11 is on Wednesday, July 13.
In India, the 21-day race will be LIVE on Ten 1 (7 p.m. IST), with the option of LIVE streaming on tensports.com
Viewers in the UK can catch it on Eurosport 1 (1 p.m. - 4.45 p.m. BST) and ITV4 (2 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. BST). Live streaming: British Eurosport, ITV4.
Viewers in the US can catch it on NBC Sports Gold from 7 a.m. EST. Live streaming: NBC Sports.
