Tour de France 2023

Stage 9 – Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat > Puy de Dȏme (182.2km)

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Stage 8 Result

1st Mads Pedersen (14/1)

2nd Jasper Philipsen (11/4F)

3rd Wout van Aert (4/1)

Stage 8 Bets

Wout van Aert 2pts win @4/1 – 3rd

Grrr! Everything went perfectly for Jumbo-Visma until the last 250m when Van Aert got boxed in, ran up the backside of his own lead-out man Laporte and lost all chance of victory. Basically, he should’ve won. El Patrón has gone for a long walk, but will be back for stage 9 which should be a cracker!

Stage 9 Preview

After an undulating course for most of the day, stage 9 ends with the iconic Puy de Dôme which hasn’t been used in the Tour de France since 1988 due to the logistical nightmare of getting the circus up and down the narrow road to the summit.

Unlike the hairpin laces up many climbs, the route to the top is an upward spiral around the lava dome. The raw numbers – 13.3km at 7.7% – don’t tell the whole story. The first 5km are solid enough averaging over 7% before a levelling off for 3km. The final 4km is where it should kick off – never going below 11% and touching 18% near the line.

Stage 9 Contenders

An iconic climb deserves an iconic battle and what better than an almighty scrap between Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard? That could be the stage analysis – which of these two will come out on top?

However, it might not be quite that simple. Even though Vingegaard is in yellow, with the time trial in the last week, could it be argued that Pogačar is in the virtual lead? In which case, who out of Jumbo-Visma or UAE Team Emirates will feel they can defend or sense an urgency to attack?

UAE fired a lot of bullets in the Basque Country, but when it really mattered on Marie Blanque were left wanting, then Jumbo-Visma committed everything into putting the Tour GC to bed on stage 6 only to be sucker-punched by Pogačar. So both will be wary of riding over-aggressively and burning their own resources. This may lead to something of a standoff. Let’s hope not. Jumbo-Visma also expended a lot of energy in the services of Wout van Aert on stage 8 which also needs to be taken into account.

Pogačar is the favourite at 11/5 with Vingegaard 7/2 due to a combination of Pogačar’s faster finish and maybe a bit of recency bias but there doesn’t seem a whole lot between the pair.

It’s possible, though probably unlikely, that Pogačar and Vingegaard mark each other out of the stage win. A well-timed attack from someone like Simon Yates for example, who lost time following a crash on stage 8, or Romain Bardet, who is in his home region, could stay away. But probably not.

Evidence suggests that, outside the top two, Jai Hindley is currently the best of the rest, though at only 1min 34secs down, won’t be given any rope to attack and so the win part of his 20/1 is probably already beat.

For the break to succeed there needs to be a bit a stalemate behind. They’ll need several minutes at the bottom of the Puy de Dôme to stay away. It should, however, be packed with quality climbers. Ideally, we’re looking for GC-quality riders that are now out of contention.

Israel Premier-tech’s Michael Woods was looking very useful until getting dropped on the Tourmalet on stage 6. That may, however, have been a calculation to lose sufficient time to go stage hunting rather than chase a GC top 10. Either way, the Canadian is clearly on good form and is third favourite for the stage at 16/1.

Austrian Felix Gall sits just eight points behind Neilson Powless in the KOM competition which may be an incentive to get up the road. The stage win, however, is a bigger incentive and he’s more than capable of delivering. The Tour de Suisse stage winner finished 15th on stage 6, essentially with the main GC favourites, and is clearly flying. The 20/1 available isn’t massive value, but he has to be in the pot.

For someone targeting the KOM jersey and a stage win, Giulio Ciccone put in a hell of a shift on the front for Mads Pedersen on stage 8. Lidl-Trek got their win though, so chapeau! He may put those goals on hold until the Alps next week. Teammate Mattias Skjelmose was also prominent. Like Ciccone, the Dane slipped out of GC contention on stage 6 apparently struggling with back pain from a fall the previous day. Both are around 20/1 for stage victory here.

Tobias Johannessen came in to the Tour on fine form after an impressive Critérium du Dauphiné and put up a great ride to take third on the finish to Cauterets. He still has more than 30mins on GC and is likely to try for the break again. If it stays away, the former Tour de l’Avenir winner has a big chance at around 22/1.

There’ll be a few former GC contenders that will fancy leapfrogging up the standings by getting in the break. Probably only to reverse-leapfrog back down them again. Prime top 10 yo-yo candidate is Guillaume Martin at a big-looking 125/1. Other teams protecting a top 10 place may well mark him out of it, however.

Ben O’Connor finds himself in a very similar position as he did after eight stages two years ago when he sat 14th, 8mins down. He’s currently 11th, 6mins down. O’Connor won stage 9 to Tignes in 2021 jumping up the GC where he eventually finished fourth. He has a higher profile now (due to that performance) and is likely to be marked if he tries to get away, but the 125/1 about him is interesting.

Another mention until it happens for Ineos Grenadiers’ Jonathan Castroviejo at 150/1. He’ll get his chance on one stage, but with Carlos Rodríguez sitting in fourth and Tom Pidcock in ninth, it’s unlikely to be here.  

One at a big price to throw in – Intermarché-Circus-Wanty’s Georg Zimmermann is suited to one-day classic parcours with lots of small climbs, so this profile would be perfect were it not for the massive Puy de Dôme at the end. Still, he impressed with a stage win at the Critérium du Dauphiné, was eager to get up the road the other day and may give us some interest at a huge price.

On balance, it’s likely to be a GC day and Vingegaard is the better value. But some breakaway selections are wise in case there’s some stuttering behind.

Stage 9 Bets

Jonas Vingegaard 2pts win @7/2

Michael Woods 1pt each way (3 places) @16/1

Felix Gall 1pt each way (3 places) @20/1

Georg Zimmermann 0.5pts each way (5 places) @250/1

Posted 21:24 BST 8th July 2023

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[Tour de France stage profiles reproduced by kind permission of Ben Lowe at Veloviewer.com]

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