"I'm glad I tried anyway" - Mathieu van der Poel unable to make telling impact on gravel stage of Tour de France
Cycling
Mathieu van der Poel was one of the fancied riders heading into the 2024 Tour de France's gravel stage 9. Despite a late attack however, the world champion was unable to make an impact at the pointy end of the race.
Having kept himself quiet for much of the day, just following the wheels at the front of the peloton, with just over 40km to go, van der Poel finally made an attack, joining the likes of Michael Matthews and Biniam Girmay in a late attempt to bridge across the breakaway. Ultimately, it was too little too late for this move and van der Poel crossed the line in 11th, 1:17 down on the eventual stage winner, Anthony Turgis.
"There wasn't much else to do. You know that the classification teams will ride full speed to those sections, after which it will come to a standstill. You couldn't do much then. At the end we rode away with a good group. I think everyone was also pretty much on the limit. It was a very tough day because of all those accelerations. It's a shame," reflected van der Poel ruefully in his post-stage interview with NOS.
"I think everyone was just on the limit. It was a really tough race. The peloton also went full throttle on every gravel sector. But you can feel that at the end," continues the world champion. "It wasn't great, but not bad either. I'm glad I tried anyway. It was a bit locked and the difference was a bit too big to try anything. We still managed to get away, but the gap was still too big."
2024 Tour de France stage 9 results:
| 1 | TURGIS Anthony | TotalEnergies | 210 | 04:19:43 |
| 2 | PIDCOCK Tom | INEOS Grenadiers | 150 | + 00 |
| 3 | GEE Derek | Israel-Premier Tech | 110 | + 00 |
| 4 | ARANBURU Alex | Movistar Team | 90 | + 00 |
| 5 | HEALY Ben | EF Education-EasyPost | 70 | + 00 |
| 6 | LUTSENKO Alexey | Astana Qazaqstan Team | 55 | + 00 |
| 7 | ROMO Javier | Movistar Team | 45 | + 12 |
| 8 | STUYVEN Jasper | Lidl-Trek | 40 | + 18 |
| 9 | GIRMAY Biniam | Intermarché-Wanty | 35 | + 01:17 |
| 10 | MATTHEWS Michael | Team Jayco-AlUla | 30 | + 01:17 |
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- More to the point, it isn't his remaining goal.Renz08-11-2026
- lol yeahmij08-11-2026
- I know, their headlines can be so misleading. Pidcock had a great season with 5 wins. and some solid 2nds. no reason to take away from that with a fake headline.mij08-11-2026
- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
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🏁39km For the first time today, Mathieu van der Poel 🌈 He's chosen his moment 🔥 #TDF2024
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