(MENAFN- Arab Times) Poland's Rafal Majka, last year's king of the mountains, won the 188km 11th stage of the Tour de France after a solo breakaway in the Pyrenees on Wednesday. Ireland's Dan Martin came home second a minute later with German champion Emmanuel Buchmann in third at 1min 23sec. Briton Chris Froome finished ninth in a 10-man group just over five minutes back to maintain the race leader's yellow jersey.
American Tejay Van Garderen kept hold of second spot at 2min 52sec with Nairo Quintana third at 3min 09sec.
It was Majka's third Tour stage win after a pair of successes in the mountains last year as he won the polkadot jersey for the race's best climber.
He was part of an eight-man breakaway earlier in the day but attacked his companions on the hors category Col du Tourmalet climb with 50km to ride and never looked back.
Martin, who was not part of the initial seven-man breakaway but made up almost four minutes on his own to join the others, was initially dropped on the Tourmalet but came back strongly to overhaul Serge Pauwels for second spot.
Belgian Pauwels cracked completely on the short third category climb just before the finish and was also overtaken by Buchmann.
After Froome's decimation of his rivals on Tuesday it was a much calmer day in the saddle for the overall contenders, until a frantic last climb of the 6.4km third category climb on the way into the finish in Cauterets.
An acceleration by Bauke Mollema saw reigning champion Vincenzo Nibali dropped from the yellow jersey group and the Italian, who suffered badly on Tuesday, lost almost a minute to drop out of the top 10, replaced by Mollema.
French hopes suffered another miserable day as Jean-Christophe Peraud and Thibaut Pinot - second and third overall last year - were again distanced on the lower slopes of the day's toughest climb.
Chris Froome said he was open to undergoing independent physiological analysis to prove he's riding clean as Rafal Majka won stage 11 of the Tour de France on Wednesday.
Froome decimated his rivals on Tuesday's tough stage 10 finish at La Pierre-Saint Martin and both his remarkable acceleration when attacking just over 6km from the end, and the amount of time he put into some of his main rivals, provoked new suspicions about doping.
It came at a time when data, apparently stolen when his Sky team's computers were hacked, was published on the Internet.
A video of Froome climbing to victory on Mont Ventoux when he won the Tour in 2013 apparently shows his heart-rate stabilising at 160 beats per minute as he accelerated - similarly to Tuesday - away to victory.
But the 30-year-old Briton says that's normal.
"I've put that data out there myself in my book. I said my maximum heart-rate is only 170," said the Kenyan-born rider.
"After two weeks of the Tour on Ventoux it's quite surprising it's 160, it's normally a bit lower than that.
"That's normal, two weeks into a Grand Tour, 10 beats off my maximum when I'm going as hard as I can - for me anyway."
Having suffered from incessant doping speculation following his Tour victory in 2013 and again this year, Froome said he would consider undergoing extra testing to try to silence the critics once and for all.
"Obviously, right here at the moment, my focus is on the race, but certainly I'm open-minded to potentially doing some physiological testing at some point after the Tour," he said.
"There would be some interesting things to come out of it, as a team we might even learn something from it, but at the moment I'm focused on the race.
"I've certainly not planned to just start releasing data into the public. I can see the effects of the supposedly leaked file, it doesn't do any good, it doesn't prove one thing or another, that's pointless.
"But if I can find an independent expert to analyse, or an expert from a physiological point of view, I'm open to doing that with someone."
Froome's Sky manager Dave Brailsford suggested the answer would be to follow the model of a biological passport and have a power passport as well.
But he said amateurs analysing power data was useless.
"We must leave that to the experts, we've given all our data to UK anti-doping but as we do with blood - the biological passport - why not have a power passport and give it all to the experts and then everything's clear," he said.
Brailsford, though, suggested the anomaly for Tuesday's performance was not Froome's dominance but his main rivals' failures - pointing to the fact that a modest climber such as Tony Gallopin finished ninth, ahead of the likes of Alberto Contador and Vincenzo Nibali.
"Yesterday, the surprise was the performance of the others, which wasn't to the level we expected," he said.
"It's true Chris had a good day but the others weren't really on top form. The big performance yesterday was Gallopin coming seventh (actually ninth).
"He had a great performance, or young Adam Yates did great (finishing seventh). We didn't see a great Contador or Nibali but (Nairo) Quintana was ok, if not brilliant."
Tour de France Results/Standings
CAUTERETS, France, July 15, (AFP): Results from the 11th stage of Tour de France a 188km ride from Pau to Cauterets on Wednesday:
Rafal Majka (POL/TIN) 5h02min 01sec
(average: 37.3 km/h)
Daniel Martin (IRL/CAN) at 1:00.
Emanuel Buchmann (GER/BOA) 1:23.
Serge Pauwels (BEL/MTN) 2:08.
Thomas Voeckler (FRA/EUC) 3:34.
Julien Simon (FRA/COF) 3:34.
Bauke Mollema (NED/TRE) 5:11.
Alejandro Valverde (ESP/MOV) 5:19.
Chris Froome (GBR/SKY) 5:21.
Alberto Contador (ESP/TIN) 5:21.
Nairo Quintana (COL/MOV) 5:21.
Samuel Sanchez (ESP/BMC) 5:21.
Tejay Van Garderen (USA/BMC) 5:21.
Geraint Thomas (WAL/SKY) 5:21.
Robert Gesink (NED/LNL) 5:21.
Pierre Rolland (FRA/EUC) 5:21.
Tony Gallopin (FRA/LOT) 5:21.
Mathias Frank (SUI/IAM) 5:21.
Jonathan Castroviejo (ESP/MOV) 5:43.
Andrew Talansky (USA/CAN) 5:53.
Warren Barguil (FRA/GIA) 5:53.
Tanel Kangert (EST/AST) 6:11.
Vincenzo Nibali (ITA/AST) 6:11.
Steve Morabito (SUI/FDJ) 6:11.
Laurens ten Dam (NED/LNL) 7:13.
Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (RSA/MTN) 7:13.
José Herrada (ESP/MOV) 7:50.
Michael Rogers (AUS/TIN) 7:50.
Richie Porte (AUS/SKY) 9:14.
Romain Bardet (FRA/ALM) 13:50.
Eduardo Sepulveda (ARG/BSE) 13:50.
Merhawi Kudus (ERI/MTN) 13:50.
Winner Anacona (COL/MOV) 13:50.
Jarlinson Pantano (COL/IAM) 13:50.
Steven Kruijswijk (NED/LNL) 15:11.
Stef Clement (NED/IAM) 15:54.
Sylvain Chavanel (FRA/IAM) 15:54.
Mickaél Cherel (FRA/ALM) 15:54.
Haimar Zubeldia (ESP/TRE) 15:54.
Roman Kreuziger (CZE/TIN) 15:54.
Bartosz Huzarski (POL/BOA) 15:54.
Jan Bérta (CZE/BOA) 15:54.
Alberto Losada (ESP/KAT) 15:54.
Joaquin Rodriguez (ESP/KAT) 15:54.
Alexis Vuillermoz (FRA/ALM) 15:54.
Jakob Diemer Fuglsang (DEN/AST) 15:54.
Lars Ytting Bak (DEN/LOT) 15:54.
Bram Tankink (NED/LNL) 15:54.
Marcel Wyss (SUI/IAM) 15:54.
Wilco Kelderman (NED/LNL) 15:54.
Standings
Chris Froome (GBR/SKY) 41h03min 31sec
Tejay Van Garderen (USA/BMC) at 2:52.
Nairo Quintana (COL/MOV) 3:09.
Alejandro Valverde (ESP/MOV) 3:59.
Geraint Thomas (WAL/SKY) 4:03.
Alberto Contador (ESP/TIN) 4:04.
Tony Gallopin (FRA/LOT) 4:33.
Robert Gesink (NED/LNL) 4:35.
Warren Barguil (FRA/GIA) 6:44.
Bauke Mollema (NED/TRE) 7:05.
Vincenzo Nibali (ITA/AST) 7:47.
Mathias Frank (SUI/IAM) 9:26.
Samuel Sanchez (ESP/BMC) 10:27.
Pierre Rolland (FRA/EUC) 13:57.
Andrew Talansky (USA/CAN) 16:33.
Daniel Martin (IRL/CAN) 16:38.
Rigoberto Uran (COL/ETI) 17:55.
Jakob Diemer Fuglsang (DEN/AST) 19:14.
Joaquin Rodriguez (ESP/KAT) 20:42.
Romain Bardet (FRA/ALM) 22:07.
Roman Kreuziger (CZE/TIN) 23:04.
Alexis Vuillermoz (FRA/ALM) 23:36.
Michael Rogers (AUS/TIN) 24:33.
Eduardo Sepulveda (ARG/BSE) 25:20.
Jean Christophe Peraud (FRA/ALM) 25:41.
Steve Morabito (SUI/FDJ) 27:27.
Jarlinson Pantano (COL/IAM) 27:59.
Gorka Izagirre (ESP/MOV) 29:10.
Serge Pauwels (BEL/MTN) 29:44.
Jan Bakelants (BEL/ALM) 30:31.
Adam Yates (ENG/ORI) 31:11.
Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (RSA/MTN) 32:07.
Tanel Kangert (EST/AST) 32:46.
Alberto Losada (ESP/KAT) 34:13.
Thibaut Pinot (FRA/FDJ) 34:41.
Jonathan Castroviejo (ESP/MOV) 35:06.
Sylvain Chavanel (FRA/IAM) 36:44.
Greg Van Avermaet (BEL/BMC) 37:43.
Lars Ytting Bak (DEN/LOT) 38:04.
Mickaél Cherel (FRA/ALM) 40:52.
Cyril Gautier (FRA/EUC) 41:58.
Peter Sagan (SVK/TIN) 42:46.
Paul Voss (GER/BOA) 43:56.
Haimar Zubeldia (ESP/TRE) 44:57.
Bram Tankink (NED/LNL) 45:26.
Rafal Majka (POL/TIN) 45:32.
Julien Simon (FRA/COF) 45:50.
Steven Kruijswijk (NED/LNL) 46:21.
Simon Geschke (GER/GIA) 47:48.
Andriy Grivko (UKR/AST) 48:03.
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