Van der Poel wins the sprint on the 9th stage of the Tour, shortened by the heatwave

Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel won the ninth stage of the Tour de France on Sunday between Malemort and Ussel, in the Corrèze region, outsprinting his three breakaway companions. The stage had been shortened by thirty kilometers due to a red heatwave warning in the department.

155 kilometers instead of 185, sweltering heat, and a finish in Ussel: it was in these conditions that Mathieu Van der Poel secured his third Tour de France victory on Sunday. The 31-year-old Alpecin rider outsprinted Norwegian Tobias Johannessen, Briton Tom Pidcock, and Frenchman Alex Baudin in a four-man sprint, while the peloton raced back at full speed behind them.

Grandson of Raymond Poulidor, whose banners were a common sight on the roads of Corrèze, Van der Poel had already triumphed in Mûr-de-Bretagne in 2021 and then in Boulogne-sur-Mer last year. This latest victory is a relief for his Alpecin team, where Jasper Philipsen had missed out on the first three sprint finishes since the start of this edition.

In the general classification, Slovenian Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey with a 2-minute, 42-second lead over Dane Jonas Vingegaard. The two men finished in a peloton of around forty riders, just six seconds behind the winner, on the eve of the first rest day.

The stage was marked by an intense battle to get into the day's breakaway on hilly terrain. Julian Alaphilippe was very aggressive at the start of the race. The decisive group formed on the climb of the Suc au May, halfway through the stage, with eight riders including Johannessen, Pidcock, Van der Poel, and Baudin.

The alliance within the breakaway began to crack 27 kilometers from the finish, when the peloton, driven first by Pogacar's UAE Team and then by NetCompany Ineos, found itself thirty seconds behind. Van der Poel then launched his attack on the Mont Bessou, a steep 900-meter climb. Johannessen, Baudin, and Pidcock—the latter forced to repair his derailleur with his heel—managed to hang on. The quartet then rode together to Ussel, where the three-time Paris-Roubaix winner easily outsprinted his rivals.