Latest news with #Chateauroux
Arab News
19 hours ago
- Sport
- Arab News
Merlier doubles up as Van der Poel denied epic win at Tour de France
CHATEAU, France: Tim Merlier won stage nine of the Tour de France at Chateauroux on Sunday after a heroic long-range escape from Mathieu van der Poel was caught in the final kilometer. There was no change atop the overall standings with Tadej Pogacar now holding a 54sec advantage over Remco Evenepoel in second with French starlet Kevin Vauquelin third. This was a second Tour win for Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Merlier this year, who was first across the line on stage three at Dunkirk. Merlier was led in by team leader Evenepoel. 'It's mad, we are supposed to be helping him (Evenepoel) but he's helping us,' Merlier said. 'I need to make it through the mountains now, I won't be any use to Remco there, but I want to help him in the other ones,' said the 32-year-old. On a sun drenched slog from the Chinon vineyards, Van der Poel and a teammate broke early and built up a lead of 5min 30sec on the flat roads to Chateauroux. Jonas Rickaert won the combativity award for accompanying Van der Poel to within 10km of the line before slumping over his handlebars. 'I'm really happy. That was one of his (Rickaert) dreams, to win the combativity award and that's why we went,' Van der Poel explained. 'In the end we nearly made it but we hadn't expected to get that far,' he said of his 173km breakaway at an average speed on 49.9kph. As with many heroic exploits, their epic escape was ultimately doomed to a gut wrenching narrow failure. But with his gung-ho all-in style Van der Poel grew his Tour de France legend here despite being caught with 700m to go, the plaudits will be both his and Merlier's. 'It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show,' said the Dutch rider. As Van der Poel was reeled in, it looked as though Jonathan Milan would win a second consecutive stage but Merlier got ahead with 30m remaining as Milan finished second with Arnaud De Lie completing the podium. Road signs in honor of British cycling great Mark Cavendish had been placed at entry points to Chateauroux — reading Cavendish City — in homage to the now-retired 40-year-old, after he won three stages there in 2008, 2011 and 2021. Pogacar's Tour de France defense took a hit Sunday as his key teammate Joao Almeida threw in the towel two days after his nasty fall at the Mur de Bretagne, where he fractured a rib. 'It's a big loss he was in good shape. He's our hero. I was suffering today so I understand how he must have felt. Every respect to him,' the Slovenian said. Stage 10 should shake up the race with eight classified climbs in the Massif Central on the July 14 French national holiday. After finishing in the peloton on Sunday, Pogacar was already looking ahead to Monday's mountainous 165.3km slog. 'Visma have a strong team for tomorrow and I think Jonas (Vingegaard) will be ready,' Pogacar said of his great Danish rival. 'There will be attacks from the main contenders, it's up and down all day. 'I'm pretty confident in my team though. I'm looking forward to the hard stages,' added the 26-year-old three-time champion.
SBS Australia
a day ago
- Sport
- SBS Australia
Tour de France: Tim Merlier wins another stage as Van der Poel's efforts denied
Tim Merlier won stage nine of the Tour de France at Chateauroux on Sunday after a heroic long-range escape from Mathieu van der Poel was caught in the final kilometre. There was no change atop the overall standings with Tadej Pogacar now holding a 54sec advantage over Remco Evenepoel in second with French starlet Kevin Vauquelin third. This was a second Tour win for Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Merlier this year, who was first across the line on stage three at Dunkirk. Merlier was led in by team leader Evenepoel. "It's mad, we are supposed to be helping him (Evenepoel) but he's helping us," Merlier said. "I need to make it through the mountains now, I won't be any use to Remco there, but I want to help him in the other ones," said the 32-year-old. On a sun drenched slog from the Chinon vineyards, Van der Poel and a teammate broke early and built up a lead of 5min 30sec on the flat roads to Chateauroux. Nearly made it Jonas Rickaert won the combativity award for accompanying Van der Poel to within 10km of the line before slumping over his handlebars. "I'm really happy. That was one of his (Rickaert) dreams, to win the combativity award and that's why we went," Van der Poel explained. "In the end we nearly made it but we hadn't expected to get that far," he said of his 173km breakaway at an average speed on 49.9kph. As with many heroic exploits, their epic escape was ultimately doomed to a gut wrenching narrow failure. But with his gung-ho all-in style Van der Poel grew his Tour de France legend here despite being caught with 700m to go, the plaudits will be both his and Merlier's. "It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show," said the Dutch rider. Belgian Tim Wellens of UAE Team Emirates, Spanish Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates and Slovenian Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates pictured in action during stage nine. Source: AAP / Jasper Jacobs / Belga / Sipa USA As Van der Poel was reeled in, it looked as though Jonathan Milan would win a second consecutive stage but Merlier got ahead with 30m remaining as Milan finished second with Arnaud De Lie completing the podium. Road signs in honour of British cycling great Mark Cavendish had been placed at entry points to Chateauroux -- reading Cavendish City -- in homage to the now-retired 40-year-old, after he won three stages there in 2008, 2011 and 2021. Pogacar's Tour de France defence took a hit Sunday as his key teammate Joao Almeida threw in the towel two days after his nasty fall at the Mur de Bretagne, where he fractured a rib. "It's a big loss he was in good shape. He's our hero. I was suffering today so I understand how he must have felt. Every respect to him," the Slovenian said. Stage 10 should shake up the race with eight classified climbs in the Massif Central on the July 14 French national holiday. After finishing in the peloton on Sunday, Pogacar was already looking ahead to Monday's mountainous 165.3km slog. "Visma have a strong team for tomorrow and I think Jonas (Vingegaard) will be ready," Pogacar said of his great Danish rival. "There will be attacks from the main contenders, it's up and down all day. "I'm pretty confident in my team though. I'm looking forward to the hard stages," added the 26-year-old three-time champion. The place to watch the 2025 Tour de France — live, free and exclusive — plus the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is right here on the SBS On Demand Hub .
France 24
a day ago
- Sport
- France 24
Merlier doubles up as Van der Poel denied epic win at Tour de France
There was no change atop the overall standings with Tadej Pogacar now holding a 54sec advantage over Remco Evenepoel in second with French starlet Kevin Vauquelin third. This was a second Tour win for Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Merlier this year, who was first across the line on stage three at Dunkirk. Merlier was led in by team leader Evenepoel. "It's mad, we are supposed to be helping him (Evenepoel) but he's helping us," Merlier said. "I need to make it through the mountains now, I won't be any use to Remco there, but I want to help him in the other ones," said the 32-year-old. On a sun drenched slog from the Chinon vineyards, Van der Poel and a teammate broke early and built up a lead of 5min 30sec on the flat roads to Chateauroux. 'Nearly made it' Jonas Rickaert won the combativity award for accompanying Van der Poel to within 10km of the line before slumping over his handlebars. "I'm really happy. That was one of his (Rickaert) dreams, to win the combativity award and that's why we went," Van der Poel explained. "In the end we nearly made it but we hadn't expected to get that far," he said of his 173km breakaway at an average speed on 49.9kph. As with many heroic exploits, their epic escape was ultimately doomed to a gut wrenching narrow failure. But with his gung-ho all-in style Van der Poel grew his Tour de France legend here despite being caught with 700m to go, the plaudits will be both his and Merlier's. "It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show," said the Dutch rider. As Van der Poel was reeled in, it looked as though Jonathan Milan would win a second consecutive stage but Merlier got ahead with 30m remaining as Milan finished second with Arnaud De Lie completing the podium. Road signs in honour of British cycling great Mark Cavendish had been placed at entry points to Chateauroux -- reading Cavendish City -- in homage to the now-retired 40-year-old, after he won three stages there in 2008, 2011 and 2021. Pogacar's Tour de France defence took a hit Sunday as his key teammate Joao Almeida threw in the towel two days after his nasty fall at the Mur de Bretagne, where he fractured a rib. "It's a big loss he was in good shape. He's our hero. I was suffering today so I understand how he must have felt. Every respect to him," the Slovenian said. Stage 10 should shake up the race with eight classified climbs in the Massif Central on the July 14 French national holiday. After finishing in the peloton on Sunday, Pogacar was already looking ahead to Monday's mountainous 165.3km slog. "Visma have a strong team for tomorrow and I think Jonas (Vingegaard) will be ready," Pogacar said of his great Danish rival. "There will be attacks from the main contenders, it's up and down all day. © 2025 AFP
The Independent
a day ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Tim Merlier sprints to stage 10 victory in Chateauroux as Tadej Pogacar loses key Tour de France lieutenant
Tim Merlier out-sprinted Jonathan Milan to victory on stage nine of the Tour de France after Mathieu van der Poel almost pulled off an audacious win in Chateauroux. Van der Poel had rolled off the front of the peloton alongside team-mate Jonas Rickaert at the start of the 174km stage from Chinon in what looked a certain suicide mission, but the Dutchman held off the chasing pack until the final few hundred metres. The Alpecin-Deceuninck adventure had forced rival teams to burn their lead-out men in a furious chase through crosswinds in the final 30km of the stage, and with the sprint trains thoroughly depleted the quick men had to fend for themselves at the finale. Saturday's stage winner Milan had good position on the barriers but Merlier went long and the European champion pipped the Italian to the line. "It was really hard," said Merlier, who also won stage three into Dunkirk. "Five minutes (to Van der Poel) is a lot but we tried to chase and also the other teams start to help, the pacing was quite high at the front, but it was hard for all the guys. The bunch was nervous. "In the end we just went all in and I'm happy I can win my second stage here." There has been debate in recent days about the long-term value of flat sprint stages in the Tour, with the fight for UCI points meaning fewer teams can be tempted into breakaways, but this one certainly delivered some drama. Chateauroux, this week dubbed 'Cavendish City' in honour of Sir Mark, who took the first of his Tour-record 35 career stage victories here in 2008, has only ever known sprints in its history in the race, but Van der Poel did his best to break that streak. When he and Rickaert went early, it looked like a play purely for the intermediate sprint points, but they rolled through that line early in the day and just kept going, building a lead of more than five minutes. Even as teams furiously fought for position in the wind behind, the lead still held at 50 seconds with 10 kilometres to go as splits appeared in the peloton. Rickaert fell back with six kilometres left and it became a straight fight between the powerful but shattered Van der Poel and some disorganised lead-out trains behind. It would go the peloton's way, but Van der Poel got at least one wish with Rickaert being named the most combative rider of the day. "We wanted to go for it today because it's his dream to be on the podium of a Tour de France," Van der Poel said. "It's hard not to be able to finish it off but we put up a good show today." There was no change at the top of the general classification, with Tadej Pogacar remaining 54 seconds clear of Remco Evenepoel. Jonas Vingegaard is behind Kevin Vauquelin in fourth, one minute 17 seconds off yellow. However, there was a blow for Pogacar as key lieutenant Joao Almeida abandoned the race as a result of injuries suffered on stage seven.
Khaleej Times
a day ago
- Sport
- Khaleej Times
Pogacar retains yellow as Merlier wins stage nine of Tour de France
Tim Merlier powered past Jonathan Milan to win stage nine of the Tour de France on Sunday, denying the green jersey holder back-to-back wins after Mathieu van der Poel's audacious solo attack ended in heartbreak just 700 metres from the finish. Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar of the UAE Team Emirates retained the yellow jersey and maintains a 54-second lead over Belgian Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) in the general classification. UAE Team Emirates and Pogacar suffered a major blow, however, when mountain domestique Joao Almeida was forced to abandon the race after fracturing a rib in a crash on stage seven — just before the Tour heads into the mountains. The 26-year-old, who finished fourth in the general classification last year, had come into the race in brilliant form having won the Tour de Suisse, the Tour of the Basque Country and the Tour de Romandie earlier this year. Meanwhile, Merlier's second stage win of this year's Tour mirrored the Soudal Quick-Step sprinter's photo finish victory over the Italian on stage three. The Belgian stayed glued to Milan's wheel before unleashing his kick metres from the finish in Chateauroux after the 174.1-kilometre ride from Chinon. "One moment I thought I was boxed in but I can come out just before 200 metres or maybe just after, I don't know anymore," Merlier said. "I just go all in and I'm happy I can win my second stage here." Van der Poel's day began with promise as he and Jonas Rickaert broke away early, building up a commanding lead of more than five minutes with a tailwind pushing them to speeds of more than 50 kph. The Alpecin-Deceuninck duo persisted after taking points in the intermediate sprint for the green jersey before the peloton began their chase. "Well, five minutes-and-a-half is a lot so we tried to help and also other teams started to help. The pacing was quite high," Merlier added. "So they were at the front but it was just hard for the guys in the front and the guys who were pulling and the bunch was just nervous." However, the peloton soon began to reel in the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo to reduce the lead to less than a minute with 11 km to go while sprint specialist Wout Van Aert was dropped. As the rest of the Alpecin-Deceuninck team attempted to move to the front of the bunch and disrupt the chase, a tiring Rickaert finally gave in and slowed down, leaving Van der Poel to ride solo to the finish with more than five kilometres left. The Dutchman was visibly grimacing as the chasing pack came into view behind him and his heroic effort ended in the final kilometre when he was swallowed up by the bunch.
