In any case, with the GC a done deal, attention will now be on the green jersey competition, which for the moment holds most of the suspense. You can’t blame Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates–XRG for killing off the race; it’s their job to win as many Tours as they can, and from the evidence of stage 6, the sky’s the limit.
And you can’t blame race organisers for placing the decisive stage so early in the race; they probably regarded it as a test of the yellow jersey hopefuls. It’s not their fault that everyone except the world champion failed the test miserably – failing, in this case, being defined as finishing 2:38 or more behind the soon-to-be five-time Tour de France champion.
Heat and speed
The biggest post-Tourmalet news was that organisers shortened Sunday’s stage 9 by 30 km because of the heat. In truth, the heat has been a big topic of conversation from the beginning of the Tour, as Europe has been suffering from an unusual (though for how much longer will this be unusual?) and persistent heat wave, with temperatures in some early stages surpassing 40°C (104°F), and generally hovering around 35°C most days.
The truncated version of the stage kept all four categorised climbs and its predominantly lumpy profile, with lots of ups and downs and hardly any flat terrain – in other words, a perfect stage for drama and breakaways, which have had a very low survival rate on this Tour so far. But today was different.
Long story short, after many futile attempts, a 15-rider breakaway finally formed with 97 km left to ride on the 154.6 km course from Malemort to Ussel. UAE Team Emirates kept a tight leash on the front group, never letting the gap grow more than 1:20, perhaps because the team has never seen a race it didn’t want to win.
Eventually, though, they relented, and the breakaway shrank to four riders after Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Premier Tech), unhappy with the indecisive group he was with, attacked 25 km from the finish, on the last of the categorised climbs, the Mont Bessou (0.9 km @ 6.4%). He and the other three riders – Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility), Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5) and Alex Baudin (EF Education–EasyPost) worked well together to keep the hard-charging peloton – now driven by Lidl-Trek, riding for Mads Pedersen, and Netcompany INEOS, pushing the interests of Filippo Ganna – at bay. Van der Poel attacked from the front of the group 250 meters from the line and held off Johannessen to win the third Tour stage of his career, with Pidcock finishing third.
“It was a super hard day,” the winner said afterwards. “The start of the Tour was not great for our team, but I think, like always, we stayed calm. We have a really nice group here, and we kept believing it would turn around, maybe not today, maybe the second week, maybe the third. It’s really nice to go to the first rest day with a win.”
As van der Poel said, it had been a frustrating first week for his team as Jasper Philipsen failed to win a bunch sprint (see below). Asked about how the heat had affected him, van der Poel replied, “It was for sure better than the first few days. I was struggling and had difficulty recovering even from the easy days. Already, the past few days, I felt a bit better. Today, I finally had some legs to go for it.”
Merlier dominates…
The stages that ended in bunch sprints – Friday’s stage 7 and Saturday’s stage 8 – were for the most part calm and predictable until the final 10 km or so, when the inevitable dance for position began. And the sprints were chaotic, dramatic and, unlike the mountain stages, unpredictable.
Take stage 7, for example, where the sprinters entered the final kilometre with Philipsen’s lead-out squad at the front, led by van der Poel. I expected to see the winner of the race’s first bunch sprint, on stage 5, Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM), to be prominent again, but he was shuffled back in the chaos and never figured.
It looked like a sure win for Philipsen, as van der Poel ramped up the pace and pulled him toward the finish line. But he unexpectedly broke off his effort with 250 meters left to ride, too far for his sprinter, who was soon passed by several riders, last of all by Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step), who showed no mercy and won going away over Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) and 2024 Tour green jersey winner Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling)
“We had a meeting before [the stage 1] TTT on the bus, and the CEO, Jurgen Forë, put a bit too much pressure on my shoulders,” Merlier explained. “After the third place in the first sprint stage, I knew I only had four or five opportunities left, and once a rider wins, he normally takes a second one. You start to be scared because there aren’t a lot of opportunities, but I’m really happy I can take a win here.”
He then bemoaned the lack of chances the course offers to sprinters. “I remember when I was younger, there were a lot more opportunities,” he said. “And I also saw that this is the hardest Tour in years, so if you’re here, as a sprinter, you feel it will be a hard three weeks. Let’s hope for the rest of my career I can go to Grand Tours and have opportunities; otherwise, it would be just not possible for us any more in cycling.”
… and repeats
Merlier made himself a prophet on Saturday’s stage 8 when, after winning one sprint, he won a second, powering past about eight rivals in dominant style. As the peloton navigated the final corner onto the finish straight, the Soudal Quick-Step sprinter found himself shuffled back on the corner and seemed hopelessly adrift. As van der Poel started his lead-out for Philipsen, Merlier had to launch his sprint early and far from the finish. He picked off his rivals one by one as he headed for the line and was well in front when he crossed it.
“I needed to fight for my position all the time until the last minute,” he said after the stage. “Before the corner, I was a bit boxed in, and then they almost crashed, and I thought it was over. I gave it a try to come back on the guys who did the lead-out, and I was coming with so much speed. It was 250 [metresfrom the line] then. I gave it a try until the finish, but in the last 50 meters, I couldn’t push anymore.”
Merlier didn’t have to push anymore. He had built up enough speed to win easily. “Mostly, if you win one [stage], you can win a second,” he said again. “I’m happy that on three [sprint] stages, I claimed two of them.”
Girmay finished second and Kooij completed the podium. But it was another disappointing finish for Philipsen, who this time got a perfect lead-out from van der Poel, but just didn’t have the legs to compete and finished fourth. “We have no doubts about the preparation,” team co-owner Philip Roodhooft told journalists. “We have no doubts about the potential. Everybody has seen that the team, as a whole, the lead-out is strong enough, more than strong enough to bring him where he has to be, and we’re still very confident that it will lead to a stage win for Jasper in the end.”
Philipsen has won 10 Tour stages in his career, often late in the race, so it’s too early to write him off. But it’s very unlikely that he will compete for the green jersey, which he won in 2023. That competition is currently led by Mads Pedersen, with 268 points, to 223 for Girmay and 213 for Merlier. At least this competition is still very much undecided.
Results 2026 Tour de France Stage 9: Malemort to Ussel (154.6km)
- Mathieu van der Poel, Alpecin–Premier Tech 3:27:51
- Tobias Halland Johannessen, Uno-X Mobility “
- Tom Pidcock, Pinarello Q36.5 “
- Alex Baudin, EF Education–EasyPost “
- Filippo Ganna, Netcompay INEOS +0:06
- Mads Pedersen, Lidl-Trek “
- Michael Matthews, Jayco-AlUla “
- Nicolas Breuillard, TotalEnergies “
- Jordan Jegat, TotalEnergies “
- Sean Quinn, EF Education–EasyPost “
2026 Tour de France GC Standings after Stage 9
- Tadej Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates–XRG 32:17:04
- Jonas Vingegaard, Visma–Lease a Bike +2:42
- Isaac del Toro, UAE Team Emirates–XRG +3:27
- Remco Evenepoel, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe +3:30
- Juan Ayuso, Lidl-Trek +3:34
- Paul Seixas, Decathlon CMA CGM +3:55
- Florian Lipowitz, Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe +4:00
- Lenny Martinez, Bahrain Victorious +4:21
- Mattias Skjelmose, Lidl-Trek +4:57
- Egan Bernal, Netcompany INEOS +9:12
