Key Takeaways: Tour de France Stage 9

Breaking down what we learned during a thrilling pursuit through the Loire Valley at the 2025 Tour de France

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The ninth stage of the 2025 Tour de France was transformed from what was expected to be a routine, dull sprint stage through the picturesque Val de Loire into a thrilling day-long pursuit between the Lidl-Trek-led peloton and the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo of Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert. While the duo was eventually reeled in, their efforts stripped down Jonathan Milan’s Lidl-Trek team support, which allowed Soudal-QuickStep’s Tim Merlier to exploit his slightly less-deft sprint rival in a one-on-one sprint battle inside the final few hundred meters to win his second stage of this Tour.

Outside of Matteo Jorgenson slotting into the top five ahead of a fading Van der Poel, the Overall Classification went almost entirely unchanged. However, the stage still held implications for the overall fight to come, with Tadej Pogačar’s UAE team losing a key support rider in João Almeida, who left the race due to issues related to the broken ribs he suffered on a previous stage, and Visma-Lease a Bike continuing to flex their collective muscle by yet again attempting to split the race in the crosswinds late in the stage.

Stage Top Five:
1) Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) +0
2) Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) +0
3) Arnaud De Lie (Lotto) +)
4) Pavel Bittner (Picnic PostNL) +0
5) Paul Penhoët (Groupama-FDJ) +0

Current GC Top Five:
1) Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) +0
2) Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) +54
3) Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) +1:11
4) Jonas Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) +1’17
5) Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) +1’34

Stage 9 Race Notebook

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173.9km: Right as the stage starts, Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jonas Rickaert attacks, and is quickly and unexpectedly followed by Mathieu van der Poel.

171.9km-162.5km: Somewhat flummoxed by this move, Jonathan Milan’s Lidl-Trek team clearly isn’t sure what to do, or if the move is serious. Instead of keeping the two riders on a tight leash, they line up at the front of the peloton and slow pace to 20mph to allow the gap to grow and avoid any other riders from bridging up.

124km: However, with two strong and motivated riders up the road, the gap quickly explodes out to over five minutes, and Lidl-Trek, unable to rally support from other teams, have to put their team on the front and start pacing in earnest to ensure they have a chance to contest the win later on.

58.8km: This pacemaking from the peloton cuts the gap down to 3.5 minutes, while up front, the Alpecin director hasn’t given up and is employing multiple tricks to push his riders along. When they hit a crosswind section, he pulls the car up beside the riders regularly to hand them food and drink with very long and sticky handoffs (which essentially allows the car to pull them along) and to block the stiff crosswind.

45.5km: Behind in the peloton, Lidl-Trek’s pleas for help are successful, with other teams, like Jayco-AlUla, coming forward to pace, which brings the gap down to two minutes.

28.4km: When the peloton hits a strong crosswind section, Visma-Lease a Bike continues their theme of making the race hard when they get to the front to split up the peloton and potentially catch out GC rivals, which brings the gap to Van der Poel down to a minute. While they are successful in splitting the peloton, they don’t even come close to catching out Pogačar, who, as one of the sport’s top one-day riders, floats with ease just behind them in the echelon.

6km-1km: When Rickaert finally cracks, Van der Poel is forced to forge on alone with the gap down to 32 seconds. Fatigued and alone, Van der Poel is reeled in just as they pass under the kilometer to go banner, ending an impressive effort.

500m: With the hard chase using up his Lidl-Trek leadout, Milan is isolated and forced to fight for position. Meanwhile, Tim Merlier, also isolated without any Soudal-QuickStep teammates, has parked himself right behind the IPT leadout train.

250m: Milan, just like yesterday, attempts to avoid being boxed in by offsetting himself slightly in the wind, while Merlier slots into the perfect position in his slipstream. With the speed 10km/hr higher than yesterday’s uphill sprint, this tactic means Milan is being penalized far more for this tactic.

200m: When Milan launches against the barriers on the right-hand side, Merlier takes the long way around before slotting into a drag race with Milan.

Finish: Merlier uses what appears to be a slightly bigger gear and a much lower aerodynamic profile to come by Milan despite the longer path to take his second stage win of this Tour.

Three Key Takeaways