Stage 11 was a huge day for the Jumbo Visma team, whose leader Jonas Vingegaard took over the race lead after an impressive personal ride and an equally impressive performance by his entire team.
It’s also day one English fan will never forget! Wout Van Aert was coming back down the mountain after the stage when he noticed he had a flat tire, with no team mechanics around him.
Amateur cyclist Michele Pelacci was stopped on the road with his brother, who’d also just had a puncture. He took the photos of the English guy literally taking the jersey off WVA’s back, all thanks to handing him a pump.
“We stopped to change the inner tube,” said Pelacchi. Guess who stopped next to us 5 minutes later? Wout Van Aert!”
“I said ‘Hey there’s liquid coming from your tires. He asked for a pump and an English guy handed one to him.”
Pelacchi was a little annoyed with himself that he didn’t hand his pump to the Green Jersey first.
“What did I learn from it all? Be the first to pass a pump to Wout Van Aert because in exchange he could give you a special souvenir.”
WVA wrote on his Twitter feed later:
“I swapped my green podium jersey with an unknown fan for some ‘life-saving’ air. Today was a good day.”
