Pole Rafal Majka wins Tour de France 11th stage as Chris Froome keeps yellow jersey

Briton maintains his lead at the top of the standings with ninth place finish in mountain stage

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Tinkoff Saxo team rider Rafal Majka of Poland reacts as he crosses the finish line to win the 11th stage of the Tour de France 2015 between Pau and Cauterets. Photo: EPA

Published: 12:00am, 16 Jul 2015Updated: 8:55am, 16 Jul 2015

Poland’s Rafal Majka, last year’s king of the mountains, won the 188 kilometre 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.

Team Sky's Chris Froome retains the race leader's yellow jersey after crossing the finish line in ninth place. Photo: Reuters

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.