TdF: Sanchez wins in the Massif Central as Voeckler takes yellow

Luis Leon Sanchez sprinted away from his breakaway compatriots, to win Stage 9, while Thomas Voeckler took the yellow.

Voeckler looked like he wanted to add a stage victory to the yellow, but Sanchez was too powerful and put in a 5 second gap in the last 100 metres. The Spaniard, who finished 11th in last year’s tour, now moves in to second in the classification, with a 37 second gap over Cadel Evans. Third across the line was Sandy Casar, who didn’t have the legs to challenge Sanchez and Voeckler.

Voeckler will take the yellow jersey in to the rest day and could hold it for a further couple of day, with no major incident, as the tour levels out for a couple of days. Johnny Hoogerland, who had been in the breakaway, became the new polka-dot jersey wearer, despite being hit by a car during the stage. A French TV car swerved to avoid a tree, while overtaking the riders, and hit Hoogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha.

The Spaniard was able to get back on his bike reasonably quickly, but Hoogerland took longer after being propelled in to a barbed wire fence. The pair were eventually finished the stage over 10 minutes down; Hoogerland was in tears, as he stood on the podium to collect his jersey.

Further down the peloton, the big names were trying to get any time they could. In his typically aggressive fashion, Philip Gilbert launched an attack to gain some extra points to extend his lead in the points classification. He now holds a thirty point lead over Jose Joaquin Rojas, with Mark Cavendish still sitting in third.

Following suit from the other stages, there was a heavy crash rate and eight riders were forced to abandon. Astana team leader Alexander Vinokorov was caught up in a huge crash on the Col du Pas de Peyrol, which also took out Jurgen Van Den Broeck and David Zabriskie. Vino went off the road and down a verge and had to be helped back out by several people. It was later confirmed he’d broken his pelvis.

Alberto Contador was also involved in a crash and looked to be hurt, but he soon got back on the saddle. TV replays showed what looked like Vladimir Karpets pushing last year’s champion in to the grass, but this has not been confirmed. Contador will have to hope for a miracle if he hopes to win this year, now over four minutes down on the yellow jersey.

Tomorrow is the first rest day for the tour and will give some of the walking wounded a chance to recover.