The place to watch the Tour de France - LIVE, FREE and EXCLUSIVE - plus the second edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is right here on SBS. Replays, mini stage recaps, highlights and live streaming can be found on the and the available for download on and .
Stage 9 of the Tour de France delivered on the fireworks promised by the monstrously hard summit finish atop the Puy de Dome, with an assault by Tadej Pogacar on Jonas Vingegaard’s yellow jersey seeing another titanic struggle as Jai Hindley battled impressively to maintain third.
The battle for the general classification played out a long way behind on the road as the peloton conceded the stage win to the breakaway. It was again Jumbo-Visma who drove the pace on the final climb, with the final turn of Sepp Kuss on the middle slopes of the Puy de Dome enough to reduce the group to the elite climbers, even dropping Australian general classification (GC) hopeful Jai Hindley.
Pogacar attacked with 1.5 kilometres remaining, drawing Vingegaard clear, with the defending champion unable to close down the gap to his main rival for yellow. Pogacar ground his way up the final steep slopes to the line to take 8 seconds on Vingegaard, with all the other GC candidates trailing in their wake.
Such was the ferocity of Pogacar’s attack and Vingegaard’s response, they were well ahead of the other elite climbers by the finish line, Pogacar finishing 51 seconds ahead of Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) who was the best of the rest.
Vingegaard retained the overall lead by 17 seconds over Pogacar.
"It is a victory … but a small one,” said Pogacar. “I'm super happy today, it's a super nice day. I was quite relaxed until the last climb. I felt on my legs immediately that I was good. I waited for the last 1.5km to go, just in case. But yeah, I had a good day.”
Pogacar’s attack didn’t crack Vingegaard, with the Dane hanging in gamely behind, but just unable to close down the advantage to the Slovenian.
“When I started my attack, I saw his shadow on the road and he was chasing me, trying to match my acceleration,” said Pogacar. “I felt my legs were good, so I kept pushing until a gap opened… and, from them on, I just kept going.
“This climb is super nice, and would be nicer with more spectators. I was a bit scared because everyone was telling me it was super steep and super hard… but it actually felt as if we were flying up the road.”
Watch on SBS On Demand
Stage 9 - Daily Highlights - Tour de France 2023
Vingegaard was far from distraught after the stage, putting the result of his pre-race expectations.
“It would have been nicer to gain than lose time on Tadej Pogacar but as I said before, I came to the Tour knowing that the first week suited me less than what’s to come, so to be in the yellow jersey at the end of the first week satisfies me,” said Vingegaard.
“I felt quite OK today, however Tadej was again a little bit better. It was a very hard but very nice experience to race up to Puy de Dôme and I’m looking forward to the Alps.”
Hindley fought back to keep within touching distance of the main group of contenders until the Pogacar attack splintered the group. The Western Australian rider rallied to finish just 14 seconds behind Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers), his nearest competitor on the standings, staying in third with a handy buffer of 1’42 back to fourth overall.
It is getting to be a bit of a traffic jam at that fourth overall spot, with both Adam and Simon Yates within 22 seconds of Rodriguez, while Tom Pidcock also had a good day to move up from ninth to seventh, 5’26 behind the yellow jersey of Vingegaard.
