O’Connor wins stage nine as Pogacar retains yellow jersey

Ben O’Connor won stage nine of the Tour de France from a breakaway to vault up the general classification as Tadej Pogacar retained the yellow jersey.

In yesterday’s miserable conditions, O’Connor, pictured, raced away from fellow escapee Sergio Higuita with 17km of the final climb up to Tignes still to go at the end of the 145km stage from Cluses, eventually winning the day by more than five minutes from Mattia Cattaneo.

O’Connor, making his Tour debut, briefly threatened to take yellow from Pogacar given the breakaway’s advantage, but a late attack from the Slovenian once again underlined his clear status as the dominant rider in this race.

At one point it appeared Pogacar might have been happy to hand over the yellow jersey – and the extra burdens that come with it – at least for a few days as UAE Team Emirates allowed the gap to Australian O’Connor, who began the day eight minutes and 13 seconds down in 14th, to grow on the final climb.

The Ineos Grenadiers, including a revitalised Geraint Thomas, took up the chase to try to keep the pressure on.

But Richard Carapaz had no response when Pogacar put in an attack two kilometres from the top of the climb as he raced away to impose himself further.

Pogacar took sixth place on the stage, 32 seconds ahead of Carapaz, and now leads overall by two minutes and one second from O’Connor, with Rigoberto Uran the next closest challenger at five minutes and 18 seconds down.