The men rode away from the boys in the first significant mountain stage of the Tour de France overnight and Australia’s Cadel Evans proved he is a title contender.

Evans moved to fourth overall after his fourth placing in Stage 11, which was won by Russian Denis Menchov ahead of American’s Levi Leipheimer and new race leader Floyd Landis.

In a fascinating day of racing over 206.5km through the Pyrenees from France into Spain, of which almost 62km was mountain climbing, attacks generated large leads only to be reeled back in.

The peleton reduced to 18 with 10kms of mountain remaining then the tempo lifted and riders were slowly dropped.

Menchov, Landis and Leipheimer broke clear 2.5km from the finish to cross 17 seconds ahead of Evans and Spaniard Carlos Sastre.

Menchov burst into the lead with 250 metres to go and won his first Tour de France stage.

Landis’ eight second time bonus for third place pushed him into the yellow jersey just eight seconds ahead of overnight leader Cyril Dessel. Menchov is in third overall 1min 1 secs behind Landis with Evans a 1min 17 secs from the lead.

Australia's Michael Rogers who had been supported well by his T-Mobile team rode superbly to cross in 12th place just over three minutes behind the leaders to be in seventh place overall.

It was another good day for Robbie McEwen who extended his lead in the green jersey sprint classification after he won the first sprint stage of the day.

Of the other Australian’s Simon Gerrans worked hard at the front of the peleton for much of the stage. He is currently 57th some 33 mins back. McEwen dropped another 44min on the leaders to be 127th as did Stuart O’Grady who is 153rd.

Stage 12 will be kinder to the riders with the main challenge deciding which attacks to chase. Landis moves into favouritism to fill the Lance Armstrong void but there is still a long way to go and the Alps will prove a different challenge again.

AOC