Tour de France: Degenkolb wins much-feared stage in Roubaix

John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) won stage 9 of the Tour de France in Roubaix, outsprinting yellow jersey Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) and Yves Lampaert (Quick Step Floors) after a tough day over the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix.

The win marks the end of Degenkolb’s long road back to the big stage after he and five other Giant-Alpecin riders were hospitalised after a training camp accident in Spain in January 2016. The riders were hit by an driver on the wrong side of the road, with Degenkolb almost losing a finger as a result.

A crash-heavy day ended with Degenkolb, Van Avermaet and Lampaert escaping on the Camphin-en-Pévèle sector, 17km from the line. In the peloton, there was no answer to the trio of specialists going up the road, though Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) did try a move later on.

While the Slovak would end up taking fifth behind Philippe Gilbert (Quick Step Floors), up front it was a cagey affair, with no real attempts to launch a race-winning attack before the line. With an advantage of a minute heading into the final five kilometres, they could afford to play tactics, too. Come the sprint though, neither man could overhaul Degenkolb, who led the group for the final kilometre before leading them over the line.

Degenkolb, enjoying his first WorldTour win since the final stage of the 2015 Vuelta a España, was clearly emotional and struggling for words in the post-race interview.

“Pure happiness,” he responded when asked about his feelings. “Really, I was chasing this victory for so long and it’s really hard to describe.

“It was a really hard fight the whole day. It’s a victory of the team — we really had a plan to stay out of trouble all the time and it worked out really well. It was unbelievable.”

The 29-year-old German then went on to talk about his comeback, dedicating the victory to a close friend who passed away during the winter.

“This is a very big victory, and I’ve been through a lot of things in the past,” he said. “It was such a hard time and I’m so happy to dedicate this victory to one of my best friends — he passed away last winter and this was really something for him.

“Everybody said I’m done and that after this accident I will never come back and I said ‘no I’m not done — I have to make at least one really big victory for this guy. His name is Jörg — he was my second father and it was a horrible accident. It was a huge loss and I’m so happy to get this victory now for him.”

“There’s no way to make it more dramatic, more nice, more fantastic. I’m totally overwhelmed.”

The majority of the GC contenders came in (relatively) intact, 27 seconds after Degenkolb. Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) endured a horrendous day of punctures of bike changes before finishing 7 seconds down alongside Mikel Landa (Movistar), who crashed late on. Rigoberto Urán (Education First-Drapac) came off worse, losing 1:28 after a crash, while Richie Porte (BMC) abandoned the Tour early on after crashing.

Greg Van Avermaet’s efforts may not have come with a stage victory, but going into the rest day he extends his GC lead to 43 seconds over Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas. The other jerseys remain in the same hands too, with Peter Sagan extending his points classification lead.

How it happened

Last included in 2015, the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix made a reappearance at the Tour de France for stage nine, which ran 156.5km between Arras and Roubaix. A total of 21.7km of cobbles featured, — eight kilometres more than 2015 — including some of the toughest sectors from Paris-Roubaix such as Auchy à Bersée and Mons-en-Pévèle.

It was all go from the beginning of the day, with the break forming and a GC contender crashing out of the race. Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), Lilian Calmejane, Jérôme Cousin, Damien Gaudin (all Direct Energie), Antwan Tolhoek (LottoNL-Jumbo), Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (Dimension Data), Omar Fraile (Astana), Chad Haga (Team Sunweb), Olivier Le Gac (Groupama-FDJ), Nicolas Edet (Cofidis) were the men out front.

Meanwhile, Porte left the race on stage 9 for the second year in a row. The Australian crashed before the race reached the cobbles, and abandoned clutching his right collarbone.

Crashes and mechanical problems were, unsurprisingly, a major theme of the day. Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale) suffered a puncture and changed bikes twice, later suffering another mechanical in the midst of the cobbled sectors. Michael Valgren (Astana), Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo), Egan Bernal (Team Sky) and Niki Terpstra (Quick Step Floors) were among those to hit the deck before the riders reached the major cobbled sectors.

A large crash in the middle of the peloton 67km out at sector 12, Warlaing à Brillon, saw the peloton split, with Sky driving the pace afterwards. Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Adam Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), Ilnur Zakarin (Katusha-Alpecin) and Dan Martin (UAE Team Emirates) were among those caught on the wrong side of the split, while Movistar enjoyed having much of their team in the lead group.

There was a regrouping before sector 9 at Auchy à Bersée with 50km to go though. The longest — perhaps the hardest — sector of the day saw Bardet get in mechanical trouble once again, falling a minute behind, while Van Avermaet put in a testing attack towards the end of the sector.

The next sector — number 8 — was the famous Mons-en-Pévèle, or at least 900 metres of it. Team Sky crashed en masse heading into it, with Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas falling and dropping from the peloton briefly.

Still around 30 seconds behind the peloton, Bardet plugged away with lieutenant and Paris-Roubaix runner-up Silvan Dillier by his side. Meanwhile, the unexpected leaders of main group were Movistar, with six riders, including their trio of GC men, at the front of the race.

But the breakaway, or at least the remains of it, were still up front. With 37km to go, Janse van Rensburg and Gaudin left the rest behind to strike for glory. With just a 40-second gap though, their chances of staying away until Roubaix didn’t look great.

The crashes kept coming too, with Michał Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) going down on Pont-Thibault à Ennevelin with 35km to go, and Mikel Landa (Movistar) falling while drinking 32km out. On the exit of sector 5 at Templeuve, Gilbert and Edward Theuns (Team Sunweb) and became the latest men to fall.

Unseen for much of the day, Urán turned up on the television cameras with 30km to go, having clearly crashed at some point and lagging over a minute behind the peloton with teammate Sep Vanmarcke for company.

At 19km from the finish, the break was over, and soon afterwards Van Avermaet added three seconds to his GC lead at the bonus sprint, with Dan Martin taking a two-second bonus. The penultimate sector of the day at Camphin-en-Pévèle saw Lampaert attack, taking Degenkolb and Van Avermaet with him.

Back down the road, Urán and a cadre of teammates toiled almost two minutes down, while Landa, again with a handful of teammates, was chasing at 1:20 from the head of the race. The lead trio enjoyed a 40-second lead heading into the final 10km, with just the Willems à Hem sector to go.

It would be decided in Roubaix for the leaders though, as they passed that sector without any attacks. Now a minute back, the peloton was quiet too, save for Bardet stopping with his third puncture of the race.

Sagan left the peloton behind 3km from the finish, with Gilbert, Jasper Stuvyen (Trek-Segafredo) and Bob Jungels (Quick Step Floors) going too. Though with the leaders so far ahead, it was an attack more with the green jersey points in mind.

After a cat-and-mouse final kilometre, Degenkolb led out the sprint from the front, with Lampaert lying in third wheel. It would end in that order too, with his two rivals offering nothing to counter Degenkolb and his emotional return to the big time.

More to come!

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