Tour de France standings 2016: Tom Dumoulin solos to win, Alberto Contador abandons

Tom Dumoulin soloed away on the climb to Andorre Arcalis beneath heavy rain and hail to win his first ever stage at the Tour de France. He pumped his fist as he crossed the line, surviving as a member of a long, big breakaway before showcasing his elite time trialing skills on a hors catégorie climb to a mountain top finish.

What could have been a decisive stage of the general classification ultimately wasn’t, but not for lack of drama. The Tour’s elite riders — Chris Froome, Nairo Quintana, Richie Porte, Adam Yates and Daniel Martin, in particular — rode furiously to the finish after breaking away from the peloton. Their finish times won’t make much of a difference on the overall standings, but they did prove that no one will be allowing Froome to run away with the yellow jersey this year.

The straight uphill start created a lot of chaos to start the stage. A 45-man breakaway formed almost immediately, which provoked attacks to bridge by Alberto Contador and Alejandro Valverde. That Voltron break didn’t last long, getting reduced to a more manageable 20-ish riders that remained intact and gained upwards of 10 minutes on the peloton before the start of the final climbs with roughly 45 kilometers to go.

Contador’s attack appeared to be a last test of his form. He and Valverde were absorbed into the peloton, and Contador went to the back where he appeared to have a deep conversation with a Tinkoff team car. Team director Sean Yates revealed that Contador was suffering from an overnight fever. With a little more than 100 kilometers to go in the stage, Contador abandoned.

Contador never appeared to be on form after taking a hard fall on Stage 1 of the Tour. The 33-year-old, two-time Tour de France winner can look forward to the Vuelta a España in his home country of Spain to get the bad taste of the Tour out of his mouth.

The race for the polka dot jersey was perhaps the best side story of Stage 9. Thibaut Pinot and Thomas de Gendt drove the break, and Pinot made sure to take the first peaks, winning Port de la Bonaigua and Port del Canto to become the virtual King of the Mountains over Rafal Majka. De Gendt attempted a solo attack on the third climb, Cote de la Comella, to win five points and chip away at Pinot’s virtual lead, but then cracked on the next climb and fell back.

Majka finished third on the stage to gain back points he had lost, but Pinot’s aggressiveness, now that he’s no longer a GC contender, should continue into the rest of the Pyrenees and the Alps as he resets his ambitions. Pinot finished the stage with the polka dot jersey, three points ahead of Majka and 44 points ahead of de Gendt, who is now in fifth on the mountains classification.

Before the base of Andorre Arcalis, the last climb of the day, the break consisted of 10 riders — Pinot, Majka, Dumoulin, Mathias Frank, George Bennett, Daniel Navarro, Rui Costa, Diego Rosa, Winner Anacona and Jesús Herrada — with a nine-minute lead over the peloton. Dumoulin, the defending Dutch time trial champion, went solo and was able to gain nearly a one-minute gap over his former break companions just as the real slopes started.

The peloton was content to let the break maintain its gap. Once again, Team Sky drove the pace, ahead of Valverde, Nairo Quintana and Team Movistar. As heavy rains began to fall, Sky picked up the cadence on the final climb, seemingly too fast for Quintana to make an attack. The Colombian rider stayed on Froome’s wheel, and nothing more.

Finally, the peloton made a move. Roughly three kilometers to the finish, Chris Froome dug in and got free of everyone except Quintana for a moment. Eventually an elite group formed around him — Froome, Quintana, Daniel Martin, Richie Porte, Bauke Mollema, Adam Yates and Tejay Van Garderen. Yates, just 23, showed off his kick, driving his GC rivals to the line and beating them all to retain second position on the general classification.

Froome maintained his distance from his rivals on the standings, but it’s clear now that no one will be willing to let him run away with the yellow jersey. There’s Quintana, as always, but Yates and Martin have been revelations in particular. The table is set for one of the best GC battles we’ve seen in a long time, just after the riders rest up Monday.

Tour de France stage 9 top 10:

1. Tom Dumoulin - 5h 16’24”

2. Rui Costa + 38”

3. Rafal Majka + 38”

4. Daniel Navarro + 1’39”

5. Winner Anacona + 1’57”

6. Thibaut Pinot + 2’30”

7. George Bennett + 2’48”

8. Diego Rosa + 2’52”

9. Mathias Frank + 3’44”

10. Adam Yates + 6’35”

Tour de France general classification after Stage 9:

1. Chris Froome

2. Adam Yates + 16”

3. Daniel Martin + 19”

4. Nairo Quintana + 23”

5. Joaquim Rodriguez + 37”

6. Romain Bardet + 44”

7. Bauke Mollema + 44”

8. Sergio Henao + 44”

9. Louis Meintjes + 55”

10. Alejandro Valverde + 1’01”