The speed record for a Tour de France road stage has been shattered, 27 years after Mario Cipollini set the mark in 1999. On Wednesday's 161.3-kilometre stage 11 from Vichy to Nevers, the peloton averaged a blistering 50.91kph.
The stage featured a four-man breakaway that was caught just 5 kilometres from the finish before Søren Warenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) won the bunch sprint, beating the 50.36kph mark set in 1999 by 0.55kph.
The breakneck pace eclipsed the most recent stage to challenge Cipollini's record - stage 9 of last year's race, won by Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep) when the bunch averaged 'just' 50.013kph.
It is exceedingly rare for road stages in the Tour de France to exceed 50kph, and today's effort was only the third such instance in the race's history, time trials excluded.
There is only one other Grand Tour stage that exceeded 50kph, stage 15 of this year's Giro d'Italia, won by Waerenskjold's teammate Fredrik Dversnes where the average speed was 51.064kph.
Why was Wednesday's stage so fast?
A light tailwind helped the peloton along during the stage, while attacks from big names such as Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) contributed to high speeds in the early kilometres.
Even after the four-man breakaway went clear, XDS Astana and Soudal-Quickstep kept the speed high in pursuit, never letting the escapees gain two minutes' advantage.
The high pace showed with Julian Alaphilippe (Tudor) dropped from the breakaway on a seemingly easy category 4 climb.
Pro cycling as a whole has been getting faster over the past five years, with improved aerodynamics and nutrition helping riders' performances. Read our deep dive on the topic: The Tour de France is getting faster, and here's why it won't be slowing down soon.
Other races have seen speed records shattered, including the fastest ever Paris-Roubaix set by Wout van Aert and Filippo Ganna (Ineos) winning the fastest Dwars door Vlaanderen this year.
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