Woods beats Jorgensen in ninth stage of Tour de France

Michael Woods charged up the Puy de Dome to beat Matteo Jorgensen to a breakaway victory on stage nine of the Tour de France.

Woods took almost two minutes out of Jorgensen on the steep gradients of the dormant volcano, rounding him with 450 metres left to take his first career Tour de France stage at the age of 36.

The two were part of a 14-strong group who had gone clear early on the 182.5km stage from Saint Leonard de Noblat, hitting the final climb with an advantage of more than 15 minutes on the peloton.

Jorgensen had hit the steepest section of his famous climb, making its first appearance in the Tour for 35 years, with an 80-second advantage over a chasing group of three, with Woods in a third group on the road another 30 seconds back.

But that lead gradually fell over the final four kilometres, where gradients never dipped under double figures, and after Woods caught him and went by, it all fell apart for the 24-year-old American.

Pierre LaTour and Matej Mohoric both rounded him before the line as Jorgensen came in fourth

As the battle for yellow raged some nine minutes behind, Tadej Pogacar attacked with 1.5 kilometres of the climb left and opened up a gap on Jonas Vingegaard, taking back about eight seconds on the race leader.

Simon Yates and Tom Pidcock were the next over the line another 37 seconds back. They were able to put more than 20 seconds into Jai Hindley, who began the day third overall, but struggled to stick with his general classification rivals.

Vingegaard keeps the yellow jersey but his advantage over Pogacar is down to 17 seconds. There is then more than two minutes to Hindley, still in third, two minutes and 40 down.