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Some riders and sports directors might have railed against the gravel stage at this year’s Tour de France, but unfortunately for them, it turned out to be the most entertaining stage of this year’s race so far.
Starting and finishing in Troyes, in the Champagne region of northeast France, Sunday’s stage 9 didn’t do much to change the GC, but it did provide plenty of entertainment, including from those at the top of the overall standings.
Without any further preamble, here’s how the stage unfolded, as captured by our wonderful photographers: Kristof Ramon, Ashley and Jered Gruber, and Cor Vos.
It was a sombre start to the stage with the peloton (led by the Uno-X Mobility team) paying tribute to Norwegian rider André Drege who died a day earlier after crashing in the Tour of Austria.There were 14 gravel sectors on the menu on stage 9 of the Tour …… the first of them roughly 50 km into the stage.While some GC contenders don’t appreciate gravel in Grand Tours, Tadej Pogačar – a two-time Strade Bianche winner – is far less concerned.The gravel looks easy enough to ride here …… but there was a point on one of the earliest sectors where many riders were forced off their bikes as the steep gradients brought the bunch to standstill. Several riders were forced to run up the hill.A breakaway got got clear quite early on and (spoiler alert) would go on to contest the stage win.Second overall, Remco Evenepoel attacked from the peloton on a steep ramp with 77 km to go, quickly getting a gap on his GC rivals.Overall leader Pogačar soon set off in pursuit with defending champ Jonas Vingegaard on his wheel.Pogačar and Vingegaard would bridge across to Evenepoel. The trio – the top three on GC – would eventually make it to the breakaway, but they didn’t stay long – attacks soon started up front and the three GC contenders drifted back to the bunch.That is not Vingegaard’s bike. The defending champ needed a bike change with around 100 km to go, and he jumped on the bike of teammate Jan Tratnik. The action was frenetic from there to the finish and so Vingegaard was stuck on a bike slightly too big for him for half the stage.The break never really got much more than two minutes ahead of the peloton, and it looked like they’d be caught eventually. But they were never fully reeled in.Ben Healy continues to be an aggressor in this year’s Tour. It’d hardly be a surprise for him to win a stage in this year’s race.Jasper Stuyven (right), and Anthony Turgis (left), two riders in the break that we’ll come back to in a moment.Also up the road on the gravel stage was reigning Olympic and world MTB champ, Tom Pidcock (far left), also a Strade Bianche winner.Mathieu van der Poel, the reigning road world champ – not to mention six-time cyclocross world champion – attacked with around 43 km to go, getting in a move that tried to chase down the leaders. But he, and the likes of Biniam Girmay and Michael Matthews, never quite got there.UAE Team Emirates again rode strongly in support of Pogačar …… who put in several attacks of his own on the day, but none that netted him any time advantage by the finish.Stuyven attacked from the lead group with around 12 km to go and was quickly on his own …… forcing others to chase on the final gravel sector.Pidcock looked good all day and came to the finish with hopes of another Tour stage win.But on paper, Turgis was the strongest sprinter in the break, and when Stuyven was caught with just 1 km to go, Turgis’ chances of victory increased significantly.At the finish, race staff warned spectators not to lean over the barriers to get photos …… before Turgis won a hard-fought sprint. Pidcock was visibly frustrated, banging his bars as he crossed the line.So close for Stuyven, who now has five top-five finishes on Tour stages, without a win.For 30-year-old Turgis, this is easily the biggest win of his career. Indeed it’s his only WorldTour victory in a professional career that began in 2015.Despite some exciting racing from the GC favourites, nothing changed at the top of the leaderboard. Derek Gee, who finished third from the break, moved up to ninth overall, pushing Matteo Jorgensen down to 10th, but otherwise, the top 10 remained unchanged.After being dropped very early on, Fabio Jakobsen had a long battle to finish within the time cut. He made it comfortably in the end and will live to fight another day.Given Evenepoel’s tricky relationship with gravel stages in previous Grand Tours, he can be satisfied with how stage 9 went and with his second overall coming into the first rest day.Pogačar, too, has plenty to be happy about. He leads the Tour by 33 seconds overall with 12 stages remaining. So far no one has looked like preventing the 25-year-old Slovenian from completing an historic Giro-Tour double.
