Evans committed to staying in race

Defending Tour de France champion Cadel Evans has vowed to fight on despite losing considerable ground to leader Bradley Wiggins on stage 11.

The Australian's challenge appeared in tatters after Thursday's grueling mountain stage as he not only lost ground, but the mental edge to his Team Sky rival.

Evans dropped down to fourth in the overall classification, three minutes and 19 seconds behind Wiggins, after losing 1:26s on the final climb up La Toussuire on the 148-kilometre stage from Albertville.

Evans, who had signalled his intention to attack at every opportunity, failed to pass the test on what is regarded as the most demanding stage of this year's tour's, despite the superb work of young team-mate Tejay Van Garderen and a bold attack on the second climb up the Col de la Croix de Fer.

But despite Evans losing ground, BMC team manager John Lelangue insisted the Australian would bounce back and seize every possible opportunity to make up ground ahead of the final time trial, where Wiggins is expected to pick up more time.

"We are there, with a team, we are ready to fight and we will take any opportunity, it's still early in the race and we'll see day by day like we've done," Lelangue said.

"It's getting more and more complicated, more than three minutes it's complicated, also knowing there is a time trial at the end and there is not so much big mountains finishes remaining."

With three mountain stages in the Pyrenees to come, and only one of those finishing at the top of a mountain, Evans cannot afford to make another mistake before the final time trial.

"We will keep fighting whatever and we will see it's always possible we don't say today that it's finished and we'll keep fighting for this until Paris," Lelangue said.

"We will try to keep going in the next 10 days, it's not finished, there's still a lot of stages.

Asked about Evans' state of mind, Lelangue painted a dejected figure but not a hopeless one.

"He is disappointed but I don't think he is devastated. He is a fighter and he will fight until the end," he said.

The 12th stage on Friday is unlikely to pose a good opportunity for Evans to counter-attack as the most demanding climb peaks nearly 130 kms from the finish.