2023-07-09 18:26:21
The 36-year-old Canadian picked up his breakaway companions one by one in the mythical ascent of the Puy de Dôme, for a prestigious victory. In the group of favorites, Pogacar took a few seconds in the Vingegaard yellow jersey.
Sometimes the announced mountain takes on very different guises. On its social networks, the organization of the Tour de France did not hesitate, this Sunday morning, to draw a visual of the Puy de Dôme, in a glowing light of smoke, from which two men emerged, the yellow jersey Jonas Vingegaard and his almost unique rival, the white jersey Tadej Pogacar. The two main protagonists of this edition completed the ninth stage of the Tour, between Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat and the Puy de Dôme, in 13th and 14th positions. The hero of the day is called Michael Woods. The 36-year-old Canadian, part of the Israel-Premier Tech team, made one last mad climb, picking up his former breakaway companions one after another, including American Matteo Jorgenson less than 400 meters from the line of arrival. Cruel.
In the group of favorites, the Jumbo-Visma of leader Vingegaard wrung out the peloton, before leaving the yellow jersey alone for the last three kilometers. It was then that Tadej Pogacar decided to attack, gaining meter by meter over his rival, for a minimal gain at the finish (8 seconds), but perhaps very significant psychologically. Last year, the Slovenian almost never managed to make time for his Danish opponent. Before the first day of rest on Monday, the two are held in 17 seconds. In the battle for the rest of the world, it is the Australian Hindley who is clinging to the last spot on the podium for the time being.
The morning of this Sunday was devoted to paying tribute to the hero of the starting city, Raymond Poulidor, who died in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat in 2019. Invited to speak, the grandson of “Poupou”, Mathieu Van der Poel, had struggled to hold back his tears. Then, a breakaway of fourteen riders quickly took off (Mohoric, Powless, Berthet, Izagirre G., Jorgenson, Woods, Boivin, Campenaerts, De la Cruz, Lutsenko, Abrahamsen, Gregaard, Burgaudeau, Latour), until they saw his lead peaked at more than 15 minutes. Sufficient to overcome the ascent of Puy-de-Dôme, 12.6 kilometers at 7.8%, but the end of which reserved a way of the cross: 4 terminals at 12%, on a road too narrow to allow the coming from the slightest spectator. It was there, in an extremely rare silence at this level, that Michael Woods overcame the giant from Auvergne.
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