Tom Dumoulin Wins Tour De France Stage Nine
Last updated : 10 July 2016 By CNS Sport
Giant Alpecin's Tom Dumoulin has won the ninth stage of the 103rd Tour De France in Andorra.
This race has been a great one for British riders so far with British riders having won five out of the first eight stages, with three for Mark Cavendish, and one each for Stephen Cummings and Chris Froome.
The last single nation to score this much in the same period of the Tour de France was The Netherlands in 1979 and after one third of the Tour, British riders hold three jerseys out of four: yellow (Froome), green (Cavendish) and white (Adam Yates) with Britain having first two spots in the overall ranking with Froome and Yates.in the lead for this 184.5km stage from Vielha Val d'Aran to Andorre Arcalis which started with an attack from Peter Sagan, Jérôme Cousin (Cofidis), Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Natnael Berhane (Di Data) and Brice Feillu (Fortuneo).
That group became one of 44 riders which did not include Mark Renshaw of Dimension Data who abandoned but had Thomas De Gendt on the front along with Contador before they were brought bck to a front group of nineteen riders.
Matthieu Ladagnous of FDJ became the third rider to abandon the 103rd Tour de France as Thibau Pinot took the Port de la Bonaigua. cllimb ahead of Thomas De Gendt.
On the descent, Peter Sagan made it into lead group which now comprised of Alejandro Valverde, Winner Anacona, Jesus Herrada (Movistar), Diego Rosa, Luis Leon Sanchez (Astana), Rafal Majka, Peter Sagan (Tinkoff), Alexis Vuillermoz (AG2R-LaMondiale), George Bennett (Lotto-Jumbo), Mathias Frank, Stef Clement, Jérôme Coppel (IAM), Natnael Berhane (Dimension Data), Tom Dumoulin (Giant), Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), Rui Costa, Tsgabu Grmay (Lampre-Merida), Thomas De Gendt, Tony Gallopin (Lotto-Soudal), Dani Navarro, Nicolas Edet (Cofidis). who were 1.45 ahead of the Team Sky led peloton.
Ervitti took a tumble as the front group extended their lead over Chris Froome's group to over three minutes as they headed for the category one Port del Canto climb in Spain
The gap went out to over five minutes but with 100kms to go, Alberto Contador, who had been struggling with a fever, got off his bike and into a team car and his race was over.
De Gendt beat Pinot to the ten points on the climb as the gap continued to go out to just under seven minutes going through the feedzone with 89kms left.
Cédric Pineau became the second FDJ rider to abandon the race today on another very warm day.
Into the principality of Andorra and the gap was at 8.08. It went out to 10.15 when Peter Sagan took the main points at the sprint at Andorra La Vieille.
Jerome Coppell set off on the Cote de la Comelia after 140kms and was joined by Grmay of Lampre before they were caught and De Gendt took the five points on the category two Cote de la Comelia.
Thibaut Pinot took the ten points on the col de Beixalis ahead of Rosa and Bennett with 21.5kms left and a lead of just under eight minutes. That put Pinot on sixty points and into the virtual KOM lead.
With twelve kilometres to go, Tom Dumoulin went away on his own and started on final ten kilometres of climbing up to Arcalis.
The rain and then hail was coming down but Dumoulin was fifty seconds clear of the chasers and 9.17 clear of the peloton.
Dan Martin attacked and Chris Froome followed whilst up the road, Dumoulin had only 1.8kms to go.
Dumoulin rode away and took the win in 5.16.24, becoming the first Dutchman to win a stage in the race since Lars Boom in 2014 with Rui Costa second and Rafal Majka in third, followed by Dani Navarro and Winner Anacona.
Chris Froome finished 5.34 down with Yates, Porte, Quintana and Dan Martin and keeps his lead in the race.