Van der Poel wins shortened Tour stage in 40C heatImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Stage nine was shortened by 30 minutes because of extreme heatByAdam MillingtonBBC Sport journalistPublished34 minutes agoMathieu van der Poel won his third stage at the Tour de France in a sprint finish on stage nine, which was shortened due to temperatures approaching 40C.The 31-year-old Dutchman finished ahead of Denmark’s Tobias Johannessen and Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock in a breakaway pack.Pidcock was going for a second Tour stage win but was hampered by a mechanical fault.Sunday’s ninth stage from Malemort to Ussel was around 30km shorter than planned because of a “red alert” from the French authorities.Defending champion Tadej Pogacar finished in the chasing peloton six seconds behind the winner to keep the leader’s yellow jersey heading into Monday’s first rest day.Van der Poel stated that it was a “super-hard day” but the heat was “for sure” better than during the first few days of the Tour.”I was struggling and finding it difficult to recover, even from the easier [stages],” he told TNT Sports. “The past few days I’ve felt a bit better and today I finally had some legs to go for it.”Van der Poel had previously won stages in 2021 and 2025 and is a three-time winner of both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.A mechanical issue which surfaced at around 25km from the end of the stage held back Pidcock, who was left unable to change gear. He kept up with the breakaway pack but could not match Van der Poel when he sprinted for the line.”My shifter stopped working,” stated Pidcock. “I couldn’t change gear. My bike was perfect the whole race and then today when the win was there, it doesn’t work.”Anyway, Mathieu is a difficult one to beat in a sprint situation like that. It would be difficult anyway, so I’m happy for a good day’s racing. It’s a nice day going into the rest day.”‘Insanely hot’ weather as race made 30km shorterIt took until the halfway stage for an initial eight-man breakaway to form, finally moving clear of the rest of the riders during the tricky 3.8km-long Suc au May climb.The group never led by more than a minute and a half but just four were left as the race neared its conclusion, with Frenchman Alex Baudin joining Johannessen and Pidcock.This is the second stage of this year’s Tour to have been affected by weather, with fans told not to attend the final 40km of stage three near the Spanish-French border because of wildfires in the area.On Sunday, more than a third of the country was placed under France’s national weather service’s highest level of alert.The heat led the CPA, the association which represents professional cyclists, to say that race start times must “evolve” to “protect athletes’ health” given the increasing frequency of extreme heatwaves.Some riders have urged the Tour de France organisers to consider bringing forward start times to allow the hottest times of the day to be avoided.Before the stage began, 35-year-old Australian Luke Durbridge, who is riding for the 12th time this year, stated it was “pretty insanely hot”.”It does make a difference, we appreciate the change,” Durbridge told AFP.”Going forward, if the way global warming is going, we probably need to start changing these start times.”But Tour leader Pogacar had a more drastic solution, saying changing the start times would not help riders avoid the extreme heat.”It’s a big topic to discuss, but if I could have the power to change it all, I would change all the calendars, and I would not race in July and August in the hot places, and do a completely different calendar,” he stated.Stage nine resultsMathieu van der Poel (Ned/Alpecin – Premier Tech) 3hrs 27mins 51secsTobias Johannessen (Nor/Uno-X Mobility) Same timeTom Pidcock (GB/Pinarello-Q36.5) “Alex Baudin (Fra/EF Education-EasyPost) “Filippo Ganna (Ita/Netcompany-Ineos) +6secsMads Pedersen (Den/Lidl-Trek) “Michael Matthews (Aus/Jayco-Alula) “Nicolas Breuillard (Fra/Totalenergies) “Jordan Jegat (Fra/Totalenergies) “Sean Quinn (US/EF Education – EasyPost) “General classification after stage nineTadej Pogacar (Slo/UAE Team Emirates-XRG) 32hrs 17mins 4secsJonas Vingegaard (Den/Visma-Lease a Bike) +2mins 42secsIsaac del Toro (Mex/UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +3:27Remco Evenepoel (Bel/Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +3:30Juan Ayuso (Spa/Lidl-Trek) +3:34Paul Seixas (Fra/Decathlon-CMA CGM) +3:55Florian Lipowitz (Ger/Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) +4:00Lenny Martinez (Fra/Bahrain-Victorious) +4:21Mattias Skjelmose (Den/Lidl-Trek) +4:57Egan Bernal (Col/Netcompany-Ineos) +9:41Related topicsCycling
