Van der Poel, Pidcock and Baudin - The watts that decided Tour de France Stage 9
Stage 9 of the Tour de France was supposed to be a breakaway stage. But with 99km to go, UAE Team Emirates-XRG was pulling on the front of a reduced peloton containing fewer than 30 riders. They had only raced over one categorized climb so far in the stage, but temperatures were reaching 40 °C (104 °F) on the hottest portions of the course.
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The 156km route had already been shortened due to extreme heat, but that didn’t stop the Tour de France peloton from ripping each other apart in the opening hour of the race. By the time the breakaway finally went, Mads Pedersen, Michael Matthews, and Filippo Ganna were the only riders even resembling sprinters left in the lead group.
The rest of the reduced peloton was made up of GC riders and climbers like Alex Baudin (EF Education-EasyPost).
With 95km to go, the breakaway fully established itself and UAE Team Emirates-XRG finally gave it a leash. Among the leaders were Mathieu Van der Poel, Tobias Halland Johannessen, Quinn Simmons, Derek Gee-West, and Baudin.
One of the most crucial moments of the stage happened next when Tom Pidcock attacks UAE Team Emirates-XRG. The Brit bridged the 20-second gap to the breakaway by himself, and finally the pace began to settle.
Baudin averaged 5.4w/kg for nearly an hour to establish the breakaway, with a Normalized Power of more than 6w/kg. His peak 7min power came on the toughest climb of the day near the middle of the stage, with the Frenchman pushing nearly 7w/kg to make the front split.
Baudin – Establishing the Breakaway
Time: 50 minutes
Average Power: 346w (5.4w/kg)
Normalized Power: 390w (6.1w/kg)
Peak 7min Power: 436w (6.8w/kg)
Peak 10min Power: 398w (6.2w/kg)
Instead of letting the gap expand, UAE Team Emirates-XRG kept the breakaway within 75 seconds for the entire stage.
Opinions and quotes are split as to the reason for this, but there are two main options: 1) The team wanted to go for the stage win with Tadej Pogačar or Isaac Del Toro, or 2) the team wants to win the Tour de France Teams Classification, so they didn’t want two Lidl-Trek riders (who are currently leading the Teams Classification) to gain too much time.
In the end, the reason didn’t matter. What did matter was that the pace was hot all day. Not only was the pace hot, but the breakaway continued attacking itself throughout the stage, and with 75km to go, a new lead group was formed with Van der Poel, Pidcock, Baudin, and more. While the main climbs were done, there was a short kicker with 25km to go that could cause some trouble.
Van der Poel attacked straight from the bottom of the climb, putting in a massive shift to split the group down to four riders: Pidcock, Johannessen, Baudin, and himself. This was Baudin’s peak two-minute power for the entire race, and he was actually gapped by Van der Poel on the climb.
The Frenchman was about five seconds slower than MVDP despite pushing over 500w for the entire climb. Keep in mind, Baudin is a lightweight climber who weighs roughly 64kg.
Baudin – Following MVDP on the Final Climb
Time: 1:45
Average Power: 508w (7.9w/kg)
After Pidcock kicked his derailleur back to life, the leading group of four began to establish its race-winning gap. The rest of the break had disintegrated, but the UAE-led peloton was only 50 seconds behind. Over the next 20 kilometers, the leaders swapped turns while keeping the gap above 45 seconds.
The pace was too high to attack out of the breakaway, but the gap was too tight to sit on and risk getting caught. The foursome worked together until the final kilometer, and then it was MVDP’s turn to sit on the front. Undoubtedly the best sprinter in the group, Van der Poel looked confident as the meters ticked down.
The peloton was starting to catch up, but it was all too late. MVDP lit the afterburners with a few hundred meters to go and took a clear win ahead of Johannessen, Pidcock, and Baudin.
How impressive was MVDP’s sprint? The Dutchman hit a peak five-second power of 1433w in his sprint, according to Wahoo and Alpecin-Premier Tech.
To put that into context, let’s look at the file of 4th place finisher, Alex Baudin. The Frenchman sat in the draft for all of the final 200 meters, hit a peak power of 1072w and 15-second power of 905w (14.1w/kg).
Yet, Baudin couldn’t pass any of the three riders in front of him. That is the level of this year’s Tour de France.
Baudin – Final Sprint
Time: 15 seconds
Average Power: 905w (14.1w/kg)
Peak Power: 1072w (16.8w/kg)
Van der Poel: peak 5sec power of 1433w
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