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The sprint: Marc Hirschi was at the end of the leading group and was the first to lose his temper. The Swiss ran early in the last meters. Tadej Pogacar saw that, climbed on his competitor’s rear wheel, accelerated and ran out of the wake to victory. Totally perplexed, the Slovenian put his hands on his helmet.
Young: “It’s crazy,” Pogacar said: “I don’t know what happened in the sprint. I just went full throttle.” The UAE team driver had already attacked the day before and caught up a few seconds in the general classification. On Sunday, Pogacar also got extra seconds, but was especially happy about the day’s success. At 21 years and 351 days old, Pogacar is now the youngest stage winner since Lance Armstrong in 1993, a comparison no professional is likely to be happy with these days. Especially since Armstrong last stated that he started doping when he was around 21 years old. (And no, Armstrong’s stage win back then has yet to be reversed, unlike his yellow jerseys.)
The grade: Primoz Roglic, next to Pogacar, stretched out his hand just after the goal and congratulated the young man. Congratulations would have been appropriate the other way around too. Because Roglic took the yellow jersey of the general leader in the ninth stage of the Tour de France. In the 153 kilometers from Pau to Laruns, the captain of the Jumbo-Visma distanced himself from Adam Yates, who until now was leading. Roglic is now in the lead and 21 seconds ahead of last year’s winner Egan Bernal, while Frenchman Guillaume Martin is third. Read the stage report here.
The prey: On Saturday it seemed that Roglic was only playing with his competitors. So he let Pogacar go, although he could have kept up. At the same time, it stopped the attacks of several competitors. Now, before the first day of rest, Roglic wears yellow for the first time. His Jumbo-Visma team has dominated the tour so far with three stage wins and a lot of leadership work on the mountain. “I think the race will not change for us,” said Roglic. The team looks so strong that they can defend the Jaune Jersey in the Alps. Then last year’s winner, Bernal, has to attack. But there is still a long way to go.
He is alone: Marc Hirschi drove more than 90 kilometers at the front alone. He struggled to climb four mountains in the Pyrenees alone and showed rapid descents. When the 22-year-old held onto his central bike computer with both hands, it almost looked a bit like he was on a time trial. He left four minutes apart. But two kilometers from the finish he was eaten by the group of leading drivers, and Hirschi was only third. It had already been an outlier in Nice, but he only finished second in the sprint against Julian Alaphilippe. “I hope I get another chance,” Hirschi said now.
Fight against doping: According to “Cyclingnews”, the Anti-Doping Commission for Cycling (CADF) announced that the number of doping tests before the cycling races last July should have returned to normal. In June, the CADF had announced that tests had temporarily decreased by 90 percent due to the crown crisis. Between January and August, compared to 2019, only half of the doping tests were carried out. French professional Nans Peters wrote in a critical blog post that fraudsters were invited to doping. Stars like Thibaut Pinot had also complained that they hadn’t been tested for months.
Portal memory: Before the start of the ninth stage, Team Ineos remembered their late sports director Nicolas Portal. The Frenchman, who had temporarily lived in Pau, died of a heart attack in March at the age of 40. Portal had led Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas to victory in the Tour de France.
Fear of the rest day: On Monday, the Tour de France will have its first recovery break this year, and with it PCR tests for the corona virus. The members of the first team were tested on Sunday and the drivers are supposed to follow them on Monday, making around 600 checks in total. Results should be available no later than Tuesday before the start of the stage. “I don’t think a racing driver or an employee was infected with Corona. The bladder we are supposed to move in works in general. You have no contact with strangers,” said Ralph, the team leader at Bora-hansgrohe. Think of the German Press Agency. Two positive tests within a team could lead to the exclusion of the team. The mood will also be correspondingly tense on the rest day.
