Tour de France stage 9: Van der Poel outsprints Johannessen and Pidcock to win thrilling stage

Tour de France stage 9: Van der Poel outsprints Johannessen and Pidcock to win thrilling stage

Economy World


Mathieu van der Poel sealed the third Tour de France stage win of his career on Sunday, outsprinting Tobias Halland Johannessen, Tom Pidcock and Alex Baudin in Ussel.

Those four riders were the last remnants of a larger breakaway which was held at close quarters by the peloton during a baking day in central France but who worked together to stay away before fighting it out at the finish.

It was a thrilling end to a stage that had been shortened due to the heatwave in Europe, weather that is impacting the event but not stopping the riders from animating the race.

Chris Waugh and Duncan Alexander break down the key storylines from an enjoyable stage.

Van der Poel at his brilliant best

The profile of this stage looked like it could turn into a one-day classic-like race. And arguably the best classics rider on the planet unsurprisingly triumphed following an exhausting day out front on narrow roads that went up and down all day.

It was Van der Poel who repeatedly tried to get into the breakaway, who kept trying to set the pace and who then launched away from a larger group to whittle it down to the four strongest riders.

EF Education EasyPost’s Alex Baudin, Uno-X Mobility’s Tobias Halland Johannessen and Pinarello-Q36.5’s Tom Pidcock joined Van der Poel in a group which never stretched their lead over the peloton beyond two minutes, but for the most part kept the GC contenders more than 40 seconds behind.

Stage nine served up a strong quartet to battle for the win (Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

The quartet broke away from the rest of the breakaway with 25km to go, when Van der Poel attacked, and immediately they looked set to ride to the finish. Pidcock suffered an unfortunate mechanical, just as the road went downhill with 23km to go, but somehow managed to resolve the issue and then rejoin the other three, although the Briton revealed after the race that he hadn’t fixed the issue with broken shifter, and had been forced to change gear with the buttons on the top of the brake hoods, which impacted his sprint in the finale.

With all four riders working together until the flamme rouge, they retained a 22-second gap going into that final 1,000m.

Van der Poel was the favourite and the others knew it, so they waited behind the Dutchman as the pace slowed, with nobody wanting to attack first, even with the peloton bearing down from behind.

Van der Poel sprints to victory (JASPER JACOBS / BELGA MAG / AFP via Getty Images)

With about 250m to go, Van der Poel decided to launch his sprint, which neither Pidcock nor Baudin could respond to, though Johannessen did push the eventual winner to the line. The peloton came in just six seconds behind as they closed in record-quick time.

This was Van der Poel at his brutal best, with his sheer power bringing him a first victory in 107 days and his third triumph at the Tour.

Afterwards Van der Poel was pleased with his performance and what it means for Alpecin-Premier Tech. “It was a super hard day. The start of the Tour was not great for our team but like always we stayed calm.

“We have a really nice group here and we kept believing that it would turn around, maybe not today — maybe second or third week — but it’s really nice to go to the rest day with a win.”

Chris Waugh

What were UAE up to?

One of the most fascinating elements of Sunday’s stage was why Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates squad were so determined to keep the breakaway within grasp. Historically, a stage like today’s would have seen the escapees carve out three or four minutes with which to play with in the final stages, but — as so often in this year’s race — today they hovered about 60-90 seconds ahead of the bunch, led seemingly interminably by UAE’s German superdomestique Nils Politt.

It led to much speculation among pundits and fans, and no doubt other teams too. Were UAE trying to keep the stage win in play for Pogačar? Were they trying to win the stage with Del Toro, or someone like Tim Wellens? Were they actually trying to advance their chances in the team competition (where they currently trail Lidl-Trek)?

UAE pulled on the front of the peloton for much of Sunday (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP via Getty Images)

Some speculated that perhaps one of the riders ahead of them was part of the UAE blacklist that Politt himself revealed on a podcast in 2024, saying “In the peloton, you have friends and riders you’re not so fond of. On our team bus, there’s also a list of riders who are friends and a blacklist. You don’t want to be on that list.” Or were UAE simply trying to fatigue their rivals, to make sure that no-one had an easy Sunday with a rest day in store tomorrow.

Whatever the reason, with about 38km remaining they stopped, and let first Netcompany INOES start pulling (they happily admitted on team radio that they were riding to help Egan Bernal’s position on GC)…

… and then Lidl-Trek, who saw Derek Gee-West and Quinn Simmons return from the break back into the peloton as they tried to ensure Mads Pedersen was able to win as many green jersey points as possible (the Dane won the intermediate sprint early in the day and then rolled across the line in sixth to complete a fairly successful day).

A Tour de France has as many subplots as it has main storylines. Today we saw a few of them intersect in ways that may become more explicable in the weeks to come.

Duncan Alexander

The Tour de heatwave continues

Tour organisers may have knocked 30km off the planned stage-nine route, yet it was still raced in brutally stifling heat.

The French government issued a red alert for the Corrèze department, part of the Nouvelle Aquitaine region, leading the UCI’s Extreme Weather Protocol to kick in.

At the start in Malemort, temperatures were 37.5°C (99.5°F), and although the length of the stage had been reduced from 185km to 155km, it was still raced at a breathless speed. The average pace throughout the day was 44.6 kph (27.7 mph), despite riders regularly requesting water bottles, ice and anything to try and cool themselves on the road.

With a lumpy parcours, even the shortened route looked like an ideal (and rare) opportunity for the breakaway in this tour. Yet Lidl-Trek and Mads Pedersen, in the green jersey, controlled proceedings until the intermediate sprint, now within 14km of the start, before repeated attempts from loads of riders to formulate a break.

With UAE refusing to let the breakaway get too far down the road, the pace simply did not slow in the beautiful surrounds of the Massif Central.

This is the second stage of this Tour to have been impacted upon by weather conditions. Fans were told not to attend the final 40km of stage three, on the Spanish-French border, due to wildfires in the area, and increasingly the race is being affected by an increase in temperatures.

Pogačar attempts to cool himself down during stage nine (Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP via Getty Images)

The safety of the riders (and the public) must be paramount and, while the alterations were with that in mind, even greater consideration needs to be given as to how to mitigate against the conditions.

Chris Waugh

Stage nine top 10

  1. Mathieu Van der Poel | Alpecin – Premier Tech (3:27:51)
  2. Tobias Halland Johannessen | Uno-X Mobility (same time)
  3. Tom Pidcock | Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling (same time)
  4. Alex Baudin | EF Education – EasyPost (same time)
  5. Filippo Ganna | Netcompany INEOS (same time)
  6. Mads Pedersen | Lidl-Trek (same time)
  7. Michael Matthews | Team Jayco Alula (same time)
  8. Nicolas Breuillard | TotalEnergies (same time)
  9. Jordan Jegat | TotalEnergies (same time)
  10. Sean Quinn | EF Education – EasyPost (same time)

Mads Pedersen has a 45-point lead over Biniam Girmay in the green jersey standings (Loic VENANCE / AFP via Getty Images)

General classification after stage nine

  1. Tadej Pogačar | UAE Team Emirates XRG (32:17:04)
  2. Jonas Vingegaard | Team Visma-Lease a Bike (+2m 42s)
  3. Isaac Del Toro | UAE Team Emirates XRG (+3m 27s)
  4. Remco Evenepoel | Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe (+3m 30s)
  5. Juan Ayuso | Lidl-Trek (+3m 34s)
  6. Paul Seixas | Decathlon CMA CGM Team (+3m 55s)
  7. Florian Lipowitz | Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe (+4m 0s)
  8. Lenny Martinez | Bahrain Victorious (4m 21s)
  9. Mattias Skjelmose | Lidl-Trek (+4m 57s)
  10. Egan Bernal | Lidl-Trek (+9m 12s)

Who’s wearing the jerseys after stage nine?

What’s coming up tomorrow?

The first rest day of this year’s race. The peloton will have a day off from racing but that won’t keep them off their bikes.



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