News Round-up: Eruptions up the mythical Puy de Dôme

The Tour de France visits the Puy de Dôme mountain for the first time since 1988 and sees a battle for the ages between the breakaway. Also today, the Giro d'Italia Donne has its final stage. All this and more in today’s Edition...

| Mike Woods wins atop Puy de Dôme

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Mike Woods takes his first stage of the Tour de France

The legendary Puy de Dôme climb was on the menu today for the Tour de France riders, a climb that has not been raced up since 1988. The first attacks of the day came with Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) who went up the road early and established a 14-man breakaway including Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar), Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech), Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan), and Jonas Gregaard (Uno-X Pro Cycling). The peloton behind tried keeping them close enough but to no avail and the break quickly got a gap of over nine minutes.

Powless went off in search of mountain points and did so on the first climbs of the day. Jorgenson attacked and went clear on the descent of a climb and the chase was on to catch him but his lead kept extending on the run into the huge final climb. Mohorič and Powless led the chase behind and tried bridging the gap to the lone man out front but at the bottom of the climb, the American out front had more than a minute lead and was looking strong. In the final 5km, Jorgenson started to lose time and Mohorič started to bring him back, but in the end, it was Mike Woods who was climbing very strongly and managed to get across on the steep slopes.

With around 500m to go, Woods caught and went past Jorgenson and accelerated to the line to take his first Tour de France stage win. ​​Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) came past to take second, and then Mohorič and the brave fighter Jorgenson had to settle for fourth on the day.

Behind, UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma were working on the front 16 minutes back, setting it up for their GC leaders. On the mountain, a select group containing Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers), Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe), Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) were left.

There was an attack from Simon Yates which came to nothing before Pogačar made one that stuck. Vingegaard was able to react but not close the gap to the Slovenian who kept going to the line and took eight seconds out of Vingegaard. He now trails yellow by only 17 seconds going into the first rest day. Pidcock rode well to finish the day in seventh overall.

| Chiara Consonni wins final stage of Giro Donne

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Chiara Consonni takes her second Giro Donne stage win

Stage 9 of the Giro Donne was one that the sprinters were all eyeing despite a relatively hilly route for most of the stage. The last 50km were downhill though so there was a high chance of a bunch sprint to finish this edition of the race. GC leader Annemiek van Vleuten (Movistar) had a lead of nearly four minutes heading into the stage so unless anything exceptional happened, she would win her fourth title.

The peloton stayed together for the first part of the stage and there was no early break that went away. On the first climb of the day, Liane Lippert (Movistar) made an attack but she was brought back by the pace fairly quickly.

The last 30km of the stage were mostly downhill towards the finish and the sprinters teams kept the peloton all together. A last-ditch attack came from Alessia Vigilia (Top Girls Fassa Bortolo) but she was brought back in time for a sprint. Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ) was the strongest to the line and took an impressive win ahead of Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), who failed to win a stage at the race for the first time in her career. Van Vleuten finished safely in the bunch to win her fourth Giro Donne title and will be a hot favourite for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift later in the month.

| Astana Qazaqstan offers Mark Cavendish retirement postponement after Tour crash

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Mark Cavendish was on the cusp of a record-breaking 35th stage win before his untimely departure

After Mark Cavendish crashed out of the Tour de France yesterday, Astana Qazaqstan manager Alexander Vinokorouv has been quick to state that he would support Cavendish if he wanted to postpone his retirement and compete one last time at the Tour next year.

The team confirmed yesterday that Cavendish has broken his collarbone after his stage 8 crash and abandonment and the cycling world has been saddened at the prospect of the greatest sprinter of all time finishing his career in such a way. In an interview with L’equipe, Vinokorouv said this - “We are ready to give him that chance. But it's up to him. We want Mark to continue in 2024 and ride his 15th Tour de France to win his 35th stage”.

It is yet to see whether the Manxman will continue into 2024 despite announcing his retirement but it is plain to see that he would not have wanted to end his career at the Tour de France, a race where he has seen unprecedented success, in such a way.

STAT OF THE DAY

Marianne Vos (Jumbo-Visma), the greatest female cyclist of all time today finished her eleventh edition of the Giro Donne, with her first being back in 2007. She has by far the greatest amount of stage wins at the race, with an incredible 32, with second place in the standings going to Petra Rossner of Germany. Vos has also won the GC overall three times, in 2011, 12 and 14 and has won a stage in every edition she has entered, except for this year. The veteran Dutchwoman was clearly frustrated after finishing second on the final stage today as she won’t continue her 100% streak of winning at every edition.

That’s your lot!
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