Tour de France stage 9 LIVE: The race heads into the Massif Central on a shortened day which suits the breakaway

2026-07-12T12:03:40.316Z

Stefano Oldani is up there with Kirsch and Hermans in a move 17 seconds ahead of the bunch with 10km to go until the sprint point. Georg Steinhauser from EF Education First-EasyPost is trying to get across alongside Ewen Costiou.

Lidl-Trek have moved almost their entire squad to the front of the bunch. They are just controlling things for the moment instead of burning matches to bring this back straight away.

Quinten Hermans and Alex Kirsch are among the first to launch attacks, but Toms Skujins is on the front of the bunch to keep things together for Mads Pedersen.

Racing is underway on stage 9 of the 2026 Tour de France.

There are some notable names already towards the front, hunting either the break or the intermediate sprint. Lidl-Trek have numbers to control things for Mads Pedersen.

2026-07-12T11:56:28.458Z

It shouldn’t be a day for these two today, but Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard will need to remain vigilant throughout.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

2026-07-12T11:52:27.974Z

Tom Pidcock was in good form at the start today, popping a wheelie on the way to the stage.

He sits 15th overall coming into the stage today, 9:50 down. Might he be allowed to escape up the road today? Or will he be viewed as too much of a threat, if not to Pogačar, to the other overall contenders?

The riders are setting off for the ninth stage of this year’s Tour de France.

There will be about fifteen minutes behind the race director’s car before the racing gets underway proper.

2026-07-12T11:44:29.754Z

Ice vest to protect from the blazing heat, and a face mask to protect against infection for the Tour’s youngest rider Paul Seixas before the start in Malemort.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Whatever happens today we are in for some action from the very beginning of the stage, with the intermediate sprint coming after just 13.9km in Beynat.

The competition for the points classification heated up yesterday, as several riders closed-in on leader Mads Pedersen, with the Lidl-Trek man finishing down in 12th place in the sprint.

Pulling in 70 points win his second win in as many days, Tim Merlier vaulted up to second place in the competition ahead of 2024 winner Biniam Girmay and Jasper Philipsen. Merlier batted away suggestions that he might now target the competition, due to the climbing prowess of his rivals in comparison to himself, allowing them to contest more finishes than him.

Just 56 points split the top-5 in the classification after eight stages. The overall classification may already be void of competition, but the fight for the green jersey is just hotting up. It’s possible that there could be a new leader after today.

Here’s the standings ahead of today’s stage:

1. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), 228 points
2. Tim Merlier (Soudal-QuickStep), 213 points
3. Biniam Girmay (NSN), 203 points
4. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), 175 points
5. Max Kanter (XDS-Astana), 172 points

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Stage 9 is due to get going in around 20 minutes for the neutral roll out, and its a safe bet that today’s battle to get in the breakaway will be a fierce one. Chances to win stages at the Tour this year are few for most teams, but this stage is one that many teams will have highlighted.

And what of race leader Tadej Pogačar? Is this an opportunity to give away the burden of carrying the yellow jersey for a couple of days? Perhaps he and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG team will be happy to let a big break go up the road to hand the maillot jaune over to a rider who will not be able to hold onto it. It would give the team’s domestiques a bit of relief from pulling the bunch around in this relentless heat.

There are really only two likely candidates for this; Mathias Vacek, who sits in 10th overall 7:10 behind the race leader, and Sean Quinn, in 12th place 9:35 down.

Other breakaway favourites today include the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, Romain Grégoire and Michael Valgren, who won a similar stage at the Giro d’Italia in May.

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As the riders were climbing onto the team buses at the end of yesterday’s sprint stage into Bergerac, news came through of an alteration to the route of today’s stage 9.

The Corrèze department issued a red alert for heat, with forecasts suggesting that the temperature gauges could top 40 degrees Celsius this afternoon in the Massif Central.

The first section of the route has been altered, knocking exactly 30km off the stage distance and delaying the start slightly.

The heat has been a constant theme throughout the race so far this year, and it looks as though this will continue. Whether this modification makes an important difference to the safety of the riders is up for debate as the race will still take place during the hottest part of the day.

Today this year’s Tour makes its one and only jaunt into the Massif Central region, which is famed for explosive breakaway stages due to its undulating topography.

There are four categorised climbs for the riders to deal with on a route that has been shortened due to dangerous heat (more on that in a moment). It’s too hard for the sprinters and too easy for a serious general classification day – that usually equals a breakaway win.

Here is the break-down of the climbs:

– Côte de Naves (cat. 3, 2.3km at 7.4%)
– Suc au May (cat. 2, 3.8km at 7.7%)
– Côte de la Croix du Pey (cat. 3, 4.8km at 6%)
– Mont Bessou (cat. 4, 900m at 7.3%)