Tim Merlier won stage nine of the Tour de France at Châteauroux after a heroic long-range escape from Mathieu van der Poel was caught in the final kilometre.
There was no change atop the overall standings with Tadej Pogacar now holding a 54-second advantage over Remco Evenepoel in second, with French starlet Kevin Vauquelin third.
This was a second Tour win for Soudal Quick-Step sprinter Merlier this year, who was first across the line on stage three at Dunkirk.
Merlier was led in by team leader Evenepoel.
"It's mad, we are supposed to be helping him [Evenepoel] but he's helping us," Merlier said.
"I need to make it through the mountains now, I won't be any use to Remco there, but I want to help him in the other ones," the 32-year-old said.
On a sun-drenched slog from the Chinon vineyards, Van der Poel and a teammate broke early and built up a lead of 5 minutes and 30 seconds on the flat roads to Châteauroux.
Nearly made it
Jonas Rickaert won the combativity award for accompanying Van der Poel to within 10km of the line before slumping over his handlebars.
"I'm really happy. That was one of his [Rickaert] dreams, to win the combativity award and that's why we went," Van der Poel said.
"In the end, we nearly made it, but we hadn't expected to get that far," he said of his 173km breakaway at an average speed of 49.9kph.
As with many exploits, their epic escape was ultimately ended in a near miss.
But with his all-in, full-throttle style Van der Poel grew his Tour de France legend here. Even though he was caught with 700m to go, the plaudits will be both his and Merlier's.
"It's hard to not be able to finish it off, but we put on a good show," the Dutch rider said.
Belgian Tim Wellens of UAE Team Emirates, Spanish Marc Soler of UAE Team Emirates and Slovenian Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates pictured in action during stage nine. Source: AAP / Jasper Jacobs / Belga / Sipa USA
Road signs in honour of British cycling great Mark Cavendish had been placed at entry points to Châteauroux — reading Cavendish City — in homage to the now-retired 40-year-old, after he won three stages there in 2008, 2011 and 2021.
Pogacar's Tour de France defence took a hit on Sunday as his key teammate João Almeida threw in the towel two days after his nasty fall at the Mur de Bretagne, where he fractured a rib.
"It's a big loss, he was in good shape. He's our hero. I was suffering today, so I understand how he must have felt. Every respect to him," the Slovenian said.
Stage 10 should shake up the race with eight classified climbs in the Massif Central on the 14 July French national holiday.
After finishing in the peloton on Sunday, Pogacar was already looking ahead to Monday's mountainous 165.3km slog.
"Visma have a strong team for tomorrow and I think Jonas [Vingegaard] will be ready," Pogacar said of his great Danish rival.
"There will be attacks from the main contenders; it's up and down all day.
"I'm pretty confident in my team though. I'm looking forward to the hard stages."
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