Tour de France: Merlier doubles up as Van der Poel denied epic win in Stage nine

LeMonde

a day ago

Tim Merlier won Stage nine of the Tour de France at Chateauroux in central France on Sunday, July 13 after a heroic long-range escape from Mathieu van der Poel was caught in the final kilometer. There was no change atop the overall standings, with Tadej Pogacar now holding a 54 second advantage over Remco Evenepoel in second, with French starlet Kevin Vauquelin in third.
This was a second Tour win for Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Merlier this year, who was first across the line on Stage three at Dunkirk. Merlier was led in by team leader Evenepoel. "It's mad, we are supposed to be helping him (Evenepoel) but he's helping us," Merlier said.
"I need to make it through the mountains now, I won't be any use to Remco there, but I want to help him in the other ones," said the 32-year-old. On a sun drenched slog from the Chinon vineyards, Van der Poel and a teammate broke early and built up a lead of 5 minutes 30 seconds on the flat roads to Chateauroux.
'Nearly made it'
Jonas Rickaert won the combativity award for accompanying Van der Poel to within 10 km of the line before slumping over his handlebars. "I'm really happy. That was one of his dreams, to win the combativity award and that's why we went," Van der Poel explained. "In the end we nearly made it, but we hadn't expected to get that far," he said, of his 173 km breakaway at an average speed on 49.9 kph.
As with many heroic exploits, their epic escape was ultimately doomed to a gut wrenching narrow failure. But with his gung-ho all-in style Van der Poel grew his Tour de France legend here despite being caught with 700 m to go, the plaudits will be both his and Merlier's. "It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show," said the Dutch rider.
As Van der Poel was reeled in, it looked as though Jonathan Milan would win a second consecutive stage. But Merlier got ahead with 30 m remaining, as Milan finished second with Arnaud De Lie completing the podium.
Road signs in honor of British cycling great Mark Cavendish had been placed at entry points to Chateauroux, reading Cavendish City, in homage to the now-retired 40-year-old, after he won three stages there in 2008, 2011 and 2021.
Pogacar's Tour de France defense took a hit Sunday as his key teammate Joao Almeida threw in the towel two days after his nasty fall at the Mur de Bretagne, where he fractured a rib. "It's a big loss, he was in good shape. He's our hero. I was suffering today so I understand how he must have felt. Every respect to him," the Slovenian said.
Stage 10 should shake up the race, with eight classified climbs in the Massif Central on Bastille Day, on July 14.
After finishing in the peloton on Sunday, Pogacar was already looking ahead to Monday's mountainous 165.3 km slog. "Visma have a strong team for tomorrow and I think Jonas (Vingegaard) will be ready," Pogacar said of his great Danish rival. "There will be attacks from the main contenders, it's up and down all day." "I'm pretty confident in my team, though. I'm looking forward to the hard stages," added the 26-year-old three-time champion.