The first half of the Tour de France ended about the same way it began.
Miguel Indurain was the favorite and there are a lot of questions about Greg LeMond.Indurain, although in second behind Pascal Lino of France, is regarded as the man to beat. After his remarkable performance in Monday's time trial, and with several mountain stages coming up, it's considered only a matter of time before Indurain again wears the leader's yellow jersey.
As defending champion, Indurain wore it at the start of the prologue then held it for a day when he won the preliminary time trial.
Indurain gave it up temporarily, but it's his to take for the asking.
Meanwhile, LeMond is having problems again.
As he did in the first two stages of the Tour, LeMond faded in the first modest climb. Then, with the help of his Z teammates, he came back among the leaders to finish in the pack without losing time.
But that doesn't bode well when the Tour hits the real mountains. There are two tough climbs on Friday. Then on Sunday is the killer climb to l'Alpe d'Huez with three mountains rated "out of category" on a scale of steepness and difficulty.
Lemond remained 4:27 behind Lino and moved to fourth but it wasn't encouraging. He is still three minutes behind Indurain.
The others saw LeMond struggling and wanted to take advantage of it.
"When I saw LeMond let go of us, I spoke with Gianni Bugno and we said we had to try something," Laurent Fignon said. "I wanted to do something today. I feel in great shape."
Fignon won the 11th stage of the Tour, the last leg before the only rest day of this year's race. He broke away from the pack about 36 miles from the end of the 155-mile stage.
It was the ninth stage victory for Fignon, who has had ups and downs since winning the Tour in 1983 and 1984. Twice since then he had to drop out of the Tour. He moved to an Italian team this year after being France's hope for a number of years but never fulfilling it after 1984.
He also has an eye to move up from his 10th place.
"I think with Bugno we still have a chance to win the Tour," Fignon said. "It seems that Indurain is beatable but we have to verify it."
The Tour has a rest day at Dole on Thursday then resumes with the longest stage of this year's Tour, 167 miles to Saint Gervais.