Mathieu van der Poel sealed the third Tour de France stage win of his career on Sunday, outsprinting Tobias Halland Johannessen, Tom Pidcock and Alex Baudin in Ussel.Those four riders were the last remnants of a larger breakaway which was held at close quarters by the peloton during a baking day in central France but who worked together to stay away before fighting it out at the finish.It was a thrilling end to a stage that had been shortened due to the heatwave in Europe, weather that is impacting the event but not stopping the riders from animating the race.Chris Waugh and Duncan Alexander break down the key storylines from an enjoyable stage.
— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 12, 2026Van der Poel at his brilliant bestThe profile of this stage looked like it could turn into a one-day classic-like race. And arguably the best classics rider on the planet unsurprisingly triumphed following an exhausting day out front on narrow roads that went up and down throughout.It was Van der Poel who repeatedly tried to get into the breakaway, who kept trying to set the pace and who then launched away from a larger group to whittle it down to the four strongest riders.EF Education EasyPost’s Baudin, Uno-X Mobility’s Johannessen and Pinarello-Q36.5’s Pidcock joined Van der Poel in a group which never stretched their lead over the peloton beyond two minutes, but for the most part kept the GC contenders more than 40 seconds behind.Stage nine served up a strong quartet to battle for the win (Tim de Waele/Getty Images)The quartet broke away from the rest of the breakaway with 25km to go, when Van der Poel attacked, and immediately they looked set to ride to the finish. Pidcock suffered an unfortunate mechanical, just as the road went downhill with 23km to go, but somehow managed to resolve the issue and then rejoin the other three. The Briton revealed after the race that he hadn’t fixed the issue with the broken shifter, and had been forced to change gear with the buttons on the top of the brake hoods, which impacted his sprint in the finale.
