The China Mail - Van der Poel stays calm in the heat to win Tour de France stage nine

The 31-year-old Dutchman, a former world champion, won a sprint amongst his three breakaway companions with Tobias Johannessen taking second and Tom Pidcock third.

"It was a super hard day. The start of the Tour was not great for our team, but I think, like always, we stayed calm," he said.

"We have a really nice group here and we kept believing that it will turn around... but it's really nice to go to the first rest day with a win."

Having worked as a sprint lead-out man for his Alpecin Premier Tech team-mate Jasper Philipsen -- who had finished fourth and fifth in the sprint stages -- in the previous two days, Van der Poel finally had a chance to go for a stage win for himself.

Reigning champion Tadej Pogacar came home in the chasing peloton six seconds behind the winner to maintain his lead in the overall standings ahead of Monday's first rest day.

The four-time champion leads two-time winner Jonas Vingegaard by 2min 42sec with Mexican Isaac del Toro a further 45sec back.

Van der Poel, a three-time winner of both the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix -- the two most important one-day cobbled classics -- had previously won Tour stages in 2021 and 2025.

- 'Horrible' roads -

This stage was shortened by around 30km due to a "red alert" weather warning in the central Correze region.

Temperatures once again reached close to 40C, although in parts on the stage it was nearer 30C.

There was a furious battle from the beginning of the 154.6km run from Malemort to Ussel to make it into the day's breakaway.

It was not until about halfway through the stage that an eight-man breakaway finally went clear on the steep 3.8km-long Suc au May climb.

The group never eked out a lead of more than a minute and a half but they worked well together.

Van der Poel then attacked out of that group with 25km left on the final categorised climb of the day, the 900m-long, and equally steep, Mont Bessou.

Only Norwegian Johannessen, Frenchman Alex Baudin and Briton Pidcock were able to follow and then it was a full-throttle charge to the finish line with a 50-second lead over the significantly-reduced peloton.

The breakaway riders had plenty in the bag and even slowed down in the final kilometre in a cat-and-mouse game before the final sprint.

But when Van der Poel launched that, it was clear that he would be too strong for the others.

"I was not so sure. I spent a lot of energy trying to keep the break alive," he admitted.

"There was a lot of pressure from the bunch. The roads were horrible for a breakaway with a headwind the whole day.

"We fought for it and I'm happy to finish it off."

R.Lin--ThChM