Tim Wellens unsurprised by Visma's blocking tactics against Pogacar: "Nobody expected them to continue"

UAE Team Emirates went all out with it's domestiques to try and create as much damage as possible on stage 9 of the Tour de France. Tim Wellens was a big part of this plan, but the team ultimately couldn't make the difference against a very strong Jonas Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike that raced on the defensive.

“Nobody expected them (Team Visma | Lease a Bike, ed.) to continue, which caused gaps to appear. Tadej had said beforehand that today was a lot of drama for little, because it wasn’t going to be difficult, but in the end it was a very nice race," Wellens told Wielerflits. UAE right from the start were not at the level of Visma who entered sector 2 of the race in front, split the peloton and asserted their dominance in the head of the peloton.

On a few occasions UAE had numbers but throughout the day João Almeida, Juan Ayuso and Adam Yates did not hit the front in an attempt to put others under difficulty or to assist Pogacar's attempt to make differences against the rest. Ultimately, that was not crucial, as both Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel launched devastating attacks that made differences, but it was ultimately a surprisingly strong Vingegaard on his teammate Jan Tratnik's bike that managed to match one attack; whilst Matteo Jorgenson bridged Vingegaard across to Pogacar in the other.

It was down to the leaders' legs to make the time differences, which was not possible in the end without Visma's support in the attacks. This led to the peloton crossing the finish with all GC contenders except for Simon Yates. Wellens spent large minutes in the front of the peloton, specially in some of the final sectors of the race in order to do as much damage to the peloton as possible before the Slovenian's attack but the work put in was not enough to tear down Visma's fortress. Nils Politt and Wellens were key on this terrain, whilst Marc Soler and Pavel Sivakov also did some work throughout the day.