2020 Tour de France Stage 9 Results & Recap
Stage 9 of the 2020 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Pogačar wins a thrilling stage 9
Tadej Pogacar sprinted to his first Tour de France victory out of a small breakaway after Marc Hirschi, who spent most of the day off the front, was caught less than 2km to the finish and ended up in third.
"It's really crazy," Pogacar said. "This victory comes after a hard day. Thanks to my teammates. They've done a good job all day. I'm happy to pull this victory. At the end, I wanted to take as much time as I could on GC. In the last 100 metres, I thought of the 10" bonus awarded to the winner. I focused on the sprint. I don't know what happened in the sprint. I just went full gas. I'm really happy with my first week at the Tour. I made only one mistake. As a team, we took two stages, it's really good so far."
Primoz Roglic finished second on the day, which bumped him into the Tour de France's overall lead before the first rest day.
"It has been a very special day," Roglic said. "The stage was really hard, we raced full gas from the gun. I saw my teammates were really motivated and therefore I decided to go for the yellow jersey. I'm super happy with this yellow jersey, especially for the guys. They did a great job, keeping me in great position throughout the race. I don't think the race will change for us now. We already raced with the mission of winning in Paris. We just need to keep focused and fight every day. I wanted to win the stage today. I have to say congrats to Tadej Pogačar. It's really nice to see him winning. We've exchanged positions from the previous time we sprinted for victory! I am not disappointed by the race outcome: you don't get the yellow jersey every day."
Hirschi launched the first attack of stage 9, where 168 riders took the start in Pau. However, it took 60km of relentless attacking before a breakaway finally broke free on the col de la Hourcère. With Hirschi ahead, Davide Formolo (UAE Team Emirates), Omar Fraile (Astana), Jonathan Castroviejo (Ineos), David Gaudu and Sébastien Reichenbach (Groupama-FDJ), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Dani Martinez (EF) and Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe) formed the chase behind.
Hirschi then crested the category 3 col du Soudet with almost two minutes on Gaudu, who broke out of the breakaway to claim the final KOM point on offer.
With 45km to go, Hirschi gained an advantage of 4'30" with a large chase group in pursuit. At the bottom of col de Marie-Blanque, Jumbo Visma cranked up the pace, and quickly the young Swiss rider's advantage shrunk as the GC riders began attacking each other.
By the top, Hirschi had just 15 seconds of Roglic and Pogacar, who broke free from their rivals, but was joined by Bernal and Landa on the descent.
Hirschi sat up to wait for the four chasers with 2km to go with the hope he could recover and outsprint the climbers, but he was outkicked by Pogacar and Roglic in the final metres, after more than 80km off the front.
"I knew my victory on this stage was not up to me, but to the peloton," Hirschi said. "I could only focus on my pacing. I went full gas on the descent. With 3km to go, my team car told me to wait for the group and rest my legs a bit for the sprint. I knew that I could still pull out a good sprint. But I was not fast enough. I'm happy about the performance, but I wanted to win and I didn't. I hope for another chance to come."\n
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