Tour de France: Ben O'Connor moves back into contention with victory in Tignes

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Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) took the biggest win of his career to date at the summit finish of Tignes on stage 9 of the Tour de France, soloing almost the whole length of the 21-kilometre climb to take a win from the breakaway.

He won a battle with Colombian duo Sergio Higuita (EF Education-Nippo) and new mountains classification leader Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) on the Montée des Tignes, flirting with virtual maillot jaune at various points before securing victory after another grim and wet day of racing in the Alps.

The Australian now leapfrogs up to second overall, 2:01 down on Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who once again extended his advantage over his fellow general classification riders.

Pogačar responded to an attack from Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) at the four-kilometre mark – just as O'Connor was crossing the line – leaving the fragmented general classification group in the dust once again having dominated stage 8 to Le Grand-Bornand.

Deceuninck-QuickStep climber Mattia Cattaneo took second place on the stage, the Italian finishing a distant 5:07 down on O'Connor, while his compatriot, sprinter Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious), rounded out the podium after a very impressive ride in the mountains, finishing 5:34 down at the line.

Pogačar was unsurprisingly the first GC rider home at 6:02 down on O'Connor. His finishing effort saw him add 32 seconds to his advantage over Carapaz, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Enric Mas (Movistar) and Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-Nippo).

The new general classification sees Pogačar lead third-placed Urán by 5:18, while Vingegaard lies fourth at 5:32 and Carapaz lies fifth at 5:33.

How it unfolded

Stage 9 of the Tour de France saw the peloton tackle another Alpine test and with it the first summit finish of the race. It was another short mountain stage at 145 kilometres, but the day would pack in 4,500 metres of climbing – even more than the brutal stage 8 – with five categorised climbs including the first hors catégorie test of the race and two first-category mountains.

After a flat start out of Cluses, the second-category Côte de Domancy (2.5km at 9.4 per cent) provided the first test of the day, before the early intermediate sprint and the first-category Col des Saisies (9.4km at 6.2 per cent) after 49 kilometres.

Following a descent into the valley, the toughest test of the day followed, with the HC-rated Col du Pré (12.6km at 7.7 per cent) and the second-category Cormet de Roselend (5.7km at 6.5 per cent) coming before the 100-kilometre mark. That one-two – last seen at the Critérium du Dauphiné – would precede a long descent to Bourg-Saint-Maurice in the valley before the mammoth climb to the finish at Tignes (21km at 5.6 per cent), with a flat 1.9km in the town concluding the day's racing.

As with Saturday's stage 9, the day was marked by awful weather conditions, with low-hanging cloud on the passes and rain pouring from start to finish. That didn't dissuade riders from attempting to get away from the peloton into the break in the early stages of the day, though, with multiple riders trying to make the break right from the gun.

Former race favourite Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and former yellow jersey holder Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) were not among the peloton, however, with the Slovenian choosing to focus on upcoming goals after losing 35 minutes on stage 8, while the Dutchman is set to prepare for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Attacks from world champion Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation) marked the Côte de Domancy, though as with Saturday, the Bahrain Victorious and Team BikeExchange squads of Sonny Colbrelli and Michael Matthews were keen to keep things together for the intermediate sprint.

They got their wish, despite more attackers trying their luck in the interim, with Colbrelli coming around the outside of a borderline-legal Matthews sprint to take the 20 points. The result saw Matthews move to just 38 points behind green jersey holder Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep), however.

Colbrelli pushed on alone afterwards, but it wasn't until the Col des Saisies when the real breakaway candidates made their moves. Quintana jumped at the start of the climb with Woods quickly making it across to him.

That break only swelled on the climb as polka dot jersey Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) attacked on the front for the second day in the row. 20 others got off the front, too, but the climbers came to the fore as the gradient bit, with Woods, Quintana, Higuita, Lucas Hamilton (Team BikeExchange) and Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën) pursuing the Dutchman.

Back in the peloton, UAE Team Emirates were massed on the front in aid of their leader Pogačar, while a larger group including Matthews, Colbrelli, Cattaneo, Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), Dylan Teuns (Bahrain Victorious), and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana-Premier Tech) chased the break.

By that point, the chase group was a minute down, while the peloton was taking it easier at six minutes. Quintana took the points over the Saisies after catching Poels, with the Dutchman then left behind by the Colombian, Woods, Higuita, Hamilton and O'Connor on the lower slopes of the next climb, the Col du Pré.

Poels did make it back but was dropped – along with Hamilton – further up the climb along, while Quintana jumped away a kilometre from the top in search of more mountain points. Crossing the summit, he had 10 seconds on his breakmates, 1:50 on Poels, 2:30 on the chasers, and 7:30 on the peloton with 63 kilometres to run.

The attack saw Quintana move into virtual polka dots, bringing him to 44 points to Woods' 41 and Poels' 39. It was Higuita and O'Connor who came back to him on the short descent, though, with the trio tackling the Cormet de Roselend despite a brief Higuita foray off the front.

The leaders enjoyed a lead of 8:15 on the peloton as they crested the top of the climb with 50 kilometres to go, putting O'Connor in virtual yellow by a handful of seconds as Quintana beat Higuita to the line to add another five points to his KOM haul.

A 19-kilometre descent followed, with Woods, Poels and the larger chase group a distant 2:50 behind. Higuita was easily the quickest man on the way down, putting a gap into Quintana as O'Connor dropped off the rear of the trio.

The two Colombians joined up at the bottom of the descent – 30 kilometres out – while O'Connor trailed 40 seconds behind. Back in the peloton it was a relatively drama-free descent, with UAE controlling things for Pogačar with four men. He lost Brandon McNulty near the bottom, though, as the American slipped off road down into a grass ditch.

Montée des Tignes

After 10 kilometres in the valley, the riders hit the final climb, with O'Connor having worked his way back to Higuita and Quintana and worked his way further into virtual yellow with the peloton nine minutes behind.

Just a kilometre into the climb, the leaders were reduced to two as Quintana dropped away having been battling in the break for two stages in a row. Back in the peloton, Pogačar enjoyed the company of Mikkel Bjerg, Davide Formolo, Rui Costa and Rafał Majka as he stripped off his rain jersey ready for action with 20 kilometres to go.

The pacemaking by the UAE quintet reduced the break's advantage in quick time on the early slopes, with Bjerg's monstrous day on the front coming to an end with the gap down to 7:20. The chasing riders still remained smack bang in between the two groups, with sprinter Colbrelli still hanging in there with the likes of Cattaneo and Guillaume Martin four mountain passes into the stage.

O'Connor, at that point with yellow out of reach, changed tack to strike for stage victory 17 kilometres from the line, dropping Higuita with 15 kilometres of the climb left to run. The Australian flew away from the EF rider, putting 50 seconds into him in just a kilometre of riding.

There would be no way back for the Colombian, though, with race debutant O'Connor only putting time into him as he rode towards the mid-climb reprieve of Tignes and 2.5 kilometres of flat road. By the time he reached the ski resort, he was 2:20 up on Higuita, who was falling back towards Quintana.

By the seven-kilometre to go mark, O'Connor was flirting with virtual yellow again, at eight minutes up on the peloton, while back in the 12-man 'peloton' Ineos Grenadiers took over the work with Jonathan Castroviejo and Geraint Thomas. Higuita, meanwhile, was caught by the chasers as Cattaneo pushed on past Quintana, too.

Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) were first to drop from the GC group – who were around five kilometres out as O'Connor hit the final three. He crested the climb alone and could enjoy the final two-kilometre run to his stage victory.

At the four-kilometre banner, Carapaz opened up with an attack, drawing out Pogačar, who then jumped away on his own. Once again, nobody could follow the 22-year-old as the GC group splintered behind.

Carapaz joined up with Urán, Mas, and Vingegaard on the run to the line, solidifying a clear second group of GC favourites behind the runaway leader. Wilco Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe) was next on the road, shedding a further 13 seconds to Pogačar, while the likes of David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Alexey Lutsenko (Astana-Premier Tech), who were best of the rest at over 1:30 behind Pogačar.