Wearing a mask and arriving in a vehicle separate from his Visma-Lease a Bike teammates in Vichy, Matteo Jorgenson started stage 11 of the Tour de France in support of team leader Jonas Vingegaard, who retains second place overall in the GC standings.
The US rider's physical condition was in question overnight after a stage 10 crash, and it came to light on Wednesday morning that there may be another health issue impacting his performance.
Jorgenson was reportedly feeling ill before the stage 11 start, with no details provided by the team, only Sports Director Marc Reef telling In de Leiderstrui that "he's feeling under the weather".
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"We're keeping him on the sidelines, mainly as a precaution. It's hard to say anything about that [illness]. We'll see how it develops," Reef told the Dutch news outlet.
When Visma-Lease a Bike riders took the stage for the start ceremonies on Wednesday, Jorgenson lined up at one end wearing a protective face cover. Domestique reported that he arrived in a team car to Vichy rather than with his teammates on the bus.
This marks a third Tour de France for the 27-year-old American, who impressed on his debut in 2024 with eighth overall as he was the top lieutenant for GC runner-up Vingegaard.
Jorgenson came to this year's Tour in great form, having finished second overall at Tirreno-Adriatico and fourth overall in the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes. He was a major piston in the Visma engine that put Vingegaard in the yellow jersey in the stage 1 team time trial in Barcelona.
From there, the heat became a factor. On Monday's rest day, Jorgenson summed up the race to that point as "a blurry week one" and was eager to close out that chapter.
However, the return from the opening rest day of the Tour was anything but calm as Jorgenson crashed in the final 30km of the hilly day in the Massif Central into Le Lioran. The tall US rider was able to remount and finish the stage, albeit with scrapes and bruises that needed a bandage on one arm.
Having to deal with hitting the deck on the descent of Puy Mary, in almost the same location as Pinarello Q36.5 riders Tom Pidcock and Chris Harper, Jorgenson focused on his own ride to make the finish line, going 12:46 down on stage winner and race leader Tadej Pogačar. He was not there on the final two climbs to help Vingegaard in the chase of Pogačar.
Vingegaard lost 54 more seconds to the race leader at the end of stage 10 and slipped to 3:36 down on GC, still in second place overall, however, just 30 seconds ahead of third-placed Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
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