Tour de France Stage 9 - Dumoulin wins as Contador quits

Stage nine of the Tour de France took place in, err, Spain and Andorra. Something which Kev initially struggled to get to grips with:
Once he'd got his geography issues out of the way, Kev proceeded to fill us in on events so far:
 Meanwhile, Erviti took a tumble and Kev got all health and safety conscious:
While Kev went to get his hi-vis jacket and hard hat, a sizeable break consisting of some big names ploughed on, including the Tour's latest rap star, apparently:
At the other end of the race, another big name was continuing to struggle:
And then:
There were no such trouble for Thomas de Gendt, though, as the fight to be the King of the Mountains raged on:
Which was the signal for Kev to impart some local history knowledge on us:
There was also an intermediate sprint to contest. I say 'contest', but that's being kind. Much to the surprise of nobody:
Coppel then decided to attack, taking Grmay with him, while Dr. Robinson used advanced timing technology to gauge what advantage they'd gained:
Which wasn't big enough, no matter how accurate, as they were caught just before the climb of the Cote de la Comella, the summit of which de Gendt again pipped Pinot to, before jumping 25 seconds clear of the rest.

While Sky maintained a high pace at the front of the peloton, the break hit the Col de la Beixalis and soon caught and dispatched of de Gendt. Although the Belgian wasn't the only one having trouble ascending:
With conditions reportedly deteriorating at the finish, Kev did his best John Ketley impression, which wasn't much use, to be honest:
Pinot was the first to go over the summit, before things started to get interesting:
And Tom of Windmill wasn't stopping for anyone, as he built on his lead. Another person not stopping for anyone was George Bennett:
Dumoulin was now flying:
While Dumoulin plugged away at the front, the GC group started to come to life:
The attacks were relentless and so was the weather:
Someone who could get in and dried off, however, was the stage winner:
As the rest of the break trickled in, in dribs and drabs, the action was still frenetic in the select group of GC riders:
Before one impressive young rider made a statement as the group crossed the line:
[CORR: It wasn't Valverde, it was Herrada. Blame Kev.]

And, with that, we head into a rest day. We'll be back with live updates on Tuesday. Before then, though, we'll let Kev pay tribute to TLG's latest favourite person:
Stage results:
1. Tom Dumoulin (TGA) 5:16:24
2. Rui Costa (LAM) + :38
3. Rafal Majka (TNK) + :38

General Classification:
1. Chris Froome (SKY) 44:36:03
2. Adam Yates (OBE) + :16
3. Daniel Martin (EQS) + :19
4. Nairo Quintana (MOV) + :23
5. Joaquim Rodriguez (KAT) + :37

Sprint Classification:
1. Mark Cavendish (SKY) 204
2. Peter Sagan (TNK) 197
3. Marcel Kittel (EQS) 182

King of the Mountains
1. Thibaut Pinot (FDJ) 80
2. Rafal Majka (TNK) 77
3. Tom Dumoulin (TGA) 50
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