'Broken' Nibali rockets out the back

Vincenzo Nibali's nightmare Tour de France continued overnight as he lost yet more time in the Pyrenees and saw the Astana team leadership apparently passed on to Jakob Fuglsang.

Nibali struggles uphill on Stage 11 of the 2015 Tour de France Source: Getty Images

The 2014 winner endured another bad day in the mountains as he slipped off the pace in the final kilometres of Stage 11, losing another 50 seconds to reace leader Chris Froome (Team Sky).

Nibali has now slipped out of the general classification top 10, 7min 47sec behind Froome, with any hopes of overall success in complete tatters.

The Italian's only hope to salvage something from this Tour now appears to be a stage victory somewhere, but even that looks a remote possibility on current form.

To add insult to injury, team manager Alexandre Vinokourov had harsh words to say about the 'Shark from Messina' ahead of the 167km stage from Pau to Cauterets.

"Vincenzo needs a good mechanic because something is broken in his head," Vinokourov told Cycling Weekly. "The day was a disaster. We’ve decided to give Jakob [Fuglsang] freedom to ride for the classification instead."

However, it appears that this message may not have been relayed to Fuglsang, who currently sits 18th on the general classification. He insisted he and the rest of the team were still riding for Nibali when quizzed by the British publication.

Either way, it looks like Nibali's Tour is effectively over. The only question that remains is whether he will make it to Paris.