three highest category climbs, including both the highest point of the 2011 Tour and the highest finish in the history of the race. A group of 14 riders made a break after , and their lead reached nine minutes, but dropped to five and a half by the time Maxim Iglinsky () led over the Col Agnel. The lead group had been reduced to six by the top of the second climb, the Col d'Izoard, which Iglinski again passed first, but by this time the group of favourites for the overall race had been affected by a solo attack by Andy Schleck. He gained two minutes on the remaining part of that climb, and had assistance from Joost Posthuma and Maxime Monfort, members of his team who had been in the early break. The group of the remaining leading General Classification competitors seemed poorly co-ordinated, and with to go, Schleck had reached the head of the race with an advantage of 4:24 over the yellow jersey group. Cadel Evans was the pace setter for the group in pursuit of Schleck, and some of the leading challengers lost time to the pursuing group, including Alberto Contador and Samuel Sánchez. Andy Schleck's winning margin was reduced at the end of the stage to a little over two minutes, with his brother Fränk passing the remnants of the chase group to take second place. Thomas Voeckler retained the overall race lead, although his advantage was reduced to 15 seconds. More than half the field finished outside the cut-off time for elimination, but were reprieved and instead penalised by the loss of 20 points, which meant that José Joaquín Rojas moved to 15 points behind Mark Cavendish in the competition for the green jersey. Stage 19 22 July 2011 — Modane to Alpe d'Huez, This was the shortest stage of the tour, other than time trials, and featured three mountains. Although a 14-man break had moved ahead of the peloton within the first , the race was animated by a break by Alberto Contador after . He was joined in the break by yellow jersey wearer Thomas Voeckler, Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans, but another acceleration later left only Schleck able to stay with Contador. Evans soon afterwards had a mechanical issue with his bicycle, and waited for the peloton to catch him up, while Voeckler opted to try to follow Contador and Schleck