Tour de France: Primoz Roglic takes yellow as Pogacar wins stage nine

Primoz Roglic took the overall lead from Adam Yates in the 2020 Tour de France as part of a Slovenian double, as Tadej Pogacar won the 153km ninth stage of the race in Laruns. But the defending champion, Egan Bernal of Ineos Grenadiers, also showed that he is close to his best form, as he finished fourth on the stage and moved into second place in the overall standings.

“It’s really crazy after that hard day to win the stage,” Pogacar, riding for UAE Emirates, said. “Thanks to my teammates, who did a really good job all day. I wanted to gain as much time as I could on GC and I knew that a stage win was worth 10 seconds, so I just went full gas sprinting.”

Related: Tour de France: Pogacar wins stage nine, Roglic takes yellow jersey – live!

Rain swept across the first climbs of the stage and it took almost 50km of attacks before the breakaway took shape. Remarkably, despite his dramatic collapse on Saturday’s first Pyrenean stage, Thibaut Pinot of Groupama FDJ was in the thick of it, but his resurgence was brief and the Frenchman once again slid backwards on the brutal gradients of the Col de la Hourcère.

Ahead, Marc Hirschi of Team Sunweb moved clear over the top of the Hourcère and led by over four minutes as he sped towards the final climb of the Col de la Marie Blanque. The Swiss rider, pipped to the line by Julian Alaphilippe of Deceuninck-Quick-Step on stage two in Nice, looked set to win his first Tour stage as he entered the final 25km, but the double-digit percentage gradient of the Marie Blanque appeared to knock the stuffing out of him.

A series of accelerations from Pogacar dropped Yates, with a quintet of riders – Pogacar, Roglic, Bernal, Mikel Landa (Bahrain McLaren) and Richie Porte (Trek Segafredo) – moving ahead of Mitchelton-Scott’s race leader on the steep haul to the summit. A touch of wheels as they crested the top of the climb almost took down both Pogacar and Roglic but, after a flying descent, a regrouping of the favourites on the road to Laruns saw Hirschi caught as Roglic, on the eve of the Tour’s first rest day, assumed the status of race leader for Jumbo-Visma and Pogacar snatched his first stage win in the Tour.