Michael Woods won stage 9 to the Puy de Dôme from a breakaway that went from the gun. The duel between Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard took place in the last 1.5km of racing. The Slovenian reclaimed 8 seconds but the Dane retained the yellow jersey.
14 RIDERS IN THE LEAD
169 riders took the start of stage 9 in Raymond Poulidor’s village Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat at 13.41. 14 riders took off quickly: Clément Berthet (AG2R-Citroën), Michael Woods and Guillaume Boivin (Israel-Premier Tech), Matteo Jorgenson and Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious), Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Pierre Latour and Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies), David De La Cruz and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny), Jonas Abrahamsen and Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X). The peloton chased hard for a while but gave up at km 20 when they brought Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) back. The time difference was 6’ at the intermediate sprint of lake of Vassivière (km 30.4) where Abrahamsen anticipated his breakaway companions.
JORGENSON ON THE MOVE
A time gap of 10’50’’ was posted atop côte de Felletin (km 74.8) where Powless passed first. The American was back on his mission to win the polka dot jersey this year. It was 11’40’’ when Boivin was the first rider to escape from the front group. He was reeled in after four kilometres alone in the lead. His initiative was followed by several skirmishes. Jorgenson road away 47km before the end. Mohoric, Burgaudeau, Powless and De La Cruz chased him down. They were fifteen seconds behind when De La Cruz had to stop and get a new bike because of a mechanical.
POGACAR GAINS 8 SECONDS
With 3km to go, Jorgenson was 1’20’’ ahead as Mohoric distanced his two companions. Woods made it across by himself and overhauled the Slovenian before the American. He rode the last 450 metres by himself to become the first non-European winner at Puy de Dôme. Pogacar sped up with 1.5km to go. Vingegaard reacted but the white jersey managed to distance the yellow jersey 600 metres before the line. Pogacar reclaimed eight seconds but Vingegaard retained the overall lead by 17 seconds before the first rest day.
