After the solo escape, the Australian cyclist Ben O’Connor won the ninth, mountain stage of the Tour de France and moved up to second place in the standings. The yellow jersey of the leader was kept by the lawyer Tadej Pogačar from Slovenia.
O’Connor decided to win in bad rainy weather in the final, 21-kilometer-long climb to the finish line in Tignes, in which he passed Naira Quintan and Sergio Higuit. The Colombian riders then fell in order and the second ended with a loss of over five minutes Mattia Cattaneo, the third was another Italian Sonny Colbrelli.
“You dream of such moments,” said O’Connor, who had not originally planned to attack.
“I reached a group of refugees and I didn’t know what to do. But when I heard we were three, four and then five minutes ahead, I thought it was a great chance to improve my overall standings,” he revealed the tactics.
“I can win in such stages and I stepped on it fully when climbing Tignes. The conditions were appalling and I made it even more complicated because I didn’t do well in the descents. I could have saved a lot more energy there,” he said.
The 25-year-old Australian scored his second success in the Grand Tour after last year’s stage triumph on the Giro. Today, during the escape, he even got into a yellow jersey in a virtual order in a few seconds, but Pogačar himself stepped in at the end and kept the lead with an overview. He reached O’Connor with a loss of six minutes and is two minutes and one second ahead of him in the standings.
“In the end, I attacked a bit to keep everything under control,” explained Pogachar, who dressed in yellow on Saturday. “Yesterday I had the best day of my career and today I just survived, even though I am in good shape,” he added.
Even before the start of today’s 144 km long stage with two peaks of the first and one of the highest category, Pogačar dropped out two competitors. Due to the consequences of Monday’s fall, his compatriot and the second man of last year’s Primož Roglič finished, and after six days in yellow, the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who wants to prepare for the start among bikers at the Tokyo Olympics, also resigned.
Wout van Aert also dropped out of the fight for the overall championship, starting to the second position of the overall classification until today’s stage. But he ran out of strength in the climb to the hardest premium of the Col du Pré, he reached the finish line with a loss of more than half an hour to O’Connor and in the current standings he loses 27 minutes to Pogachar.
Tour de France – Stage 9: Cluses – Tignes (145 km):
1. O’Connor (Austr./AG2R-Citroën Team) 4:26:43, 2. Cattaneo (It./Deceuninck-Quick Step) -5: 07, 3. Colbrelli (It./Bahrain Victorious) -5: 34, 4. Martin (Fr./Cofidis) -5: 36, 5. Bonnamour (Fr./B&B Hotels p / b KTM), 6. Pogačar (Slovenia / SAE Team Emirates) both -6: 02, 7. Carapaz (Ekv./Ineos Grenadiers), 8. Vingegaard (Dán. / Jumbo-Visma), 9. Mas (Šp. / Movistar), 10. Urán (Kol./EF Education-Nippo) all -6: 34,… 107. Vacuum (CZE / Alpecin-Fenix) -31: 37.
Running order: 1. Pogačar 34:11:10, 2. O’Connor -2: 01, 3. Uranus -5: 18, 4. Vingegaard -5: 32, 5. Carapaz -5: 33, 6. Mas -5: 47, 7. Kelderman (Niz./Bora-hansgrohe) -5:58, 8. Lucenko (Kaz./Astana-Premier Tech) -6: 12, 9. Martin (Fr./Cofidis) -7: 02, 10 Gaudu (Fr./Groupama-FDJ) -7: 22,… 136. Vacuum -1:39:59.
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