Tim Merlier, frustrated 24 hours earlier after a puncture on the run‑in to Laval, won stage nine of the Tour de France in Cavendish City, as Chateauroux was renamed for the day in recognition of Sir Mark’s triptych of stage wins in 2008, 2011 and 2021.
Another sweltering stage – also the second fastest in the history of the Tour – drew out a two-man breakaway, with Mathieu van der Poel and his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jonas Rickaert joining forces immediately after the start only for Van der Poel to eventually be caught in the final kilometre.
But it was a stage too many for João Almeida, Tadej Pogacar’s key Team Emirates teammate who, as the Slovenian had feared, abandoned the Tour because of the injuries sustained after crashing on Friday at Mûr-de-Bretagne. Pogacar, the race leader, said: “There are still two weeks to go and losing a rider today is a little bit to our disadvantage, but I’m pretty confident in my team.”
The high temperatures that have settled on the race are to continue on Monday and the first mountain stage, from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy, which takes in eight classified climbs through the Auvergne.
For Oscar Onley the first lengthy climbs will be a sterling test of his resilience as the 22-year-old Scot arrives in the Massif Central in seventh, less than three minutes behind Pogacar. His Picnic–PostNL sports director, Matt Winston, said: “We want to take Oscar as far as we can in the race, but we also want to do that with no pressure.
“Oscar is one of six riders in this race that have come from our development team and he’s done really well in a lot of one-week races. A three-week race is a little bit of an unknown, and maybe in week two or week three we’ll see a bit of a drop off, but for now we keep fighting.”
Steve Cummings is a past stage winner in the Tour’s furnace conditions. The 44-year-old, now sports director at the Jayco AlUla team, won a baking mountain stage to Mende in 2015. “I rode well in the heat, which is odd because I’m from the Wirral,” Cummings said.
“There’s two things: preparation, to make sure you’re ready and managing your core temperature in the race. There’s ‘ice socks’” – tights stuffed with ice cubes, placed between the shoulder blades – “which is more perceptual than cooling the core temperature, but it makes a difference because it’s psychologically beneficial. The theory is that cooling from the inside out is quite beneficial. The challenge operationally is getting a regular flow of cool drinks to the riders.”
Cummings also cited ice baths, but added that they do not attract universal approval. “When I was a rider, there was an ice bath following us around at the Vuelta a España one year, but nobody ever used the thing. Other teams use them every day. We have the ice socks and the vehicles will have fridges with more drinks. Right now, I don’t think any team would dare run out of drinks.”
