Tour de France stage 9 LIVE: Cluses to Tignes

Quintana dropped Poels in the descent of the Col des Saisies.

Poels looks nervous as he goes down in the wet, the gap is around 20 seconds, but it’s more than likely that these two will meet again soon.

We now have two riders in the lead – Quintana and Poels – who are around 23 seconds ahead of the closest chasers.

The second group on the road consists of just three riders, Woods, Higuita and O’Connor, with seven other riders in a group of around 1-14 behind the leading pair.

The peloton (still containing the yellow jersey) is 5-51 behind.

A big fight for the KoM points on the Col des Saisies between Wout Poels and Nairo Quintana.

Poels looked like he had comfortably escaped the Colombian, but Quintana did a huge dig to get through.

But Quintana left his effort a bit too late, with Poels taking maximum points at the top and extending his leader in the polka dot jersey competition.

Wout Poels, who grabbed the King of the Mountain standings yesterday, has a small lead of a few seconds, but it still doesn’t look convincing. There are 45 points left in the KoM race today.

The peloton, nearly four minutes late, is led by UAE-Team Emirates.

Sonny Colbrelli collected the intermediate sprint points he wanted but he does not rest there. The Italian attacked again, clearly dreaming of a breakaway day before tomorrow’s rest day. Nairo Quintana has since cleared with Michael Woods, with the chasing group led by Colbrelli in the second categorized climb of the day.

It’s a huge group in front and at the moment Julian Alaphilippe, stripped of his rain jacket, is leading the proceedings. But a smaller group has yet to dislodge the forty or so riders who are two minutes ahead of Tadej PogaÄar.

Our man on the ground Jonny Long has just informed us that the closer he and his journalist colleague Peter Cossins get to Tignes, the more the weather deteriorates. And he recalls that the last time the race was supposed to end in the ski resort, it never made it because of a landslide caused by heavy rains.

Points classification after the intermediate sprint

1. Mark Cavendish (GBr) Deceuninck – Quick Step, 168pts
2. Michael Matthews (Aus) BikeExchange, 130pts
3. Sonny Colbrelli (Ita) Bahrain-Victorious, 106pts

Tadej Pogacar and the yellow jersey peloton are about 50 seconds away from a large group of 40 to 50 riders. Will today’s break come from this group?

The intermediate sprint is won by Sonny Colbrelli who stayed behind Michael Matthews before overtaking the Australian to beat him to the line and take 20 points. And now we can expect a break to form.

Enric Mas, Movistar’s best placed rider in the overall standings 5.15 hours behind Tadej PogaÄar, eighth, crashed. TV footage showed the Spaniard standing by the side of the road, but he got back on his bike and came back into the peloton. He wears cuts on his left side.

Attacks continue to pour in but nothing is allowed to hang on. Right now, Michael Matthews is leading the way, aiming for the fast approaching intermediate points sprint.

Colbrelli is an interesting case. He is clearly aiming for the green jersey and his strategy is to take points in these mountain days when Mark Cavendish cannot keep pace. He has 86 points in the standings against 168 for Cavendish.

Latour, who rides for Cofidis, is currently in the lead with Dan Martin of Israel Start-Up Nation. Just behind the pair is a group of nine, which also includes Julian Alaphilippe and Sonny Colbrelli.

There is an intermediate sprint on the agenda, which means it is possible that the breakaway will not form until after. But Mark Cavendish, the points leader, was left out of the field.

At the top of the Côte de Domancy, Pierre Latour sprints from the peloton to take the maximum number of king of the mountain points available, just under the noses of Ballerini and Sweeny who were about to be caught.

Our leading duo keep a small lead of around 35 seconds, the peloton being led by Team BikeExchange until the first KoM of the day.

Today’s stage is the first time we’ve seen defending champion Tadej Pogacar in yellow during a normal Tour road stage. Last year he memorably claimed the lead on the penultimate day, wearing only yellow in the final procession stage in Paris.

The first of the five categorized climbs begins in earnest, the Côte de Domancy having an average gradient of 8.8% over 2.6 km. Short and pointed, it’s like a British climb.

With 10km covered, Davide Ballerini (Deceuninck – Quick Step) and Harry Sweeny (Lotto-Soudal) have a small advantage of around 30 seconds. The weather, like yesterday, is best described as unpleasant.

The ninth stage has started and we have already seen our first attack, Benoît Cosnefroy of AG2R Citröen free himself as soon as the race flag has fallen.

Here is the profile of today’s race

There are five categorized climbs over 145 km today, with the race ending in Tignes. This is the first time in this race that there has been a summit finish.

Today’s race starts in just over 20 minutes. It will be another thrilling day, barely 24 hours after Tadej Pogacar not only took yellow but also strangled total control of the race. It will be interesting to see how his overall rivals attempt to reduce their already large deficits vis-à-vis the Slovenian.

Mathieu van der Poel spoke about his decision to leave the race this morning.

Read it here

Mathieu van der Poel gave up the yellow yesterday and he will not start today.

Back in France and, like yesterday, the weather is terrible in the Alps, with rain forecast all day, until the arrival of the peloton at the ski resort of Tignes, the arrival of the day.

Away from the Tour de France for a while, and Remco Evenepoel was selected in the Belgian team for the next Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Read about it here

Today’s stage will start around 1:10 p.m. local French time (12:10 p.m. UK time) with an expected arrival between 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m.-5 p.m. UK time)

There was already some big news this morning, as Primož RogliÄ retired from the race before the ninth stage.

The Slovenian was suffering from injuries he sustained during his fall in stage three, but he ultimately threw in the towel.

Read the full story here: Primož RogliÄ abandons the Tour de France 2021

Hello cycling fans, Alex Ballinger here reporting from a very rainy southern UK.

I’m sure there may be a few headaches after England’s 4-0 v Ukraine (no it wasn’t a dream) but grab a coffee and settle in for more bike racing action in France.

Here is the profile for today’s stage – this should be another banger: