Nils Politt of the Katusha-Alpecin team landed on the fulcrum of the 2017 Tour de France after five riders abandoned due to crashes and another seven riders, including half the FDJ team, were eliminated after finishing beyond the time limit.

In 2013, Politt finished first in the time trial of the German National Under-23 Road Championships, and won the road race the next year while also finishing second in the time trial. He signed with Katusha as a stagiaire in 2015 and is riding in his first Grand Tour.

Richie Porte, team leader for BMC and the mostly likely cyclist to challenge Tour leader Chris Froome, took a hard fall on the final downhill of the stage after a touch of the rear brakes that locked them up and sent his bicycle into the left verge and him across the road into the right wall. Dan Martin went down in the chaos as well but was able to remount and continue to the finish.

Other crashes on the day:

• Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, the early Tour leader and still holding second place at the beginning of the stage, broke his collarbone in a crash on the descent of the Col de la Biche in which Rafal Majka of Bora-Hansgrohe went down directly in front of him. Majka resumed the race and finished. Coincidentally, Thomas abandoned the 2017 Giro d’Italia on Stage 9 as well.
• Just 5 kilometers into the race, Manuele Mori of UAE Team Emirates and Robert Gesink of Team LottoNl-Jumbo went down in a crash along with Angelo Tulik of the Direct Energie team. Mori had a broken shoulder blade, and Gesink had a fractured vertebra. Tulik was able to continue. Gesink’s teammate Jos Van Emden also withdrew from the race.

Four team members for FDJ — Arnaud Demare, Mickael Delage, Jacopo Guarnieri and Ignatas Konovalovas — were eliminated for finishing outside the time limit on the stage, as were Mark Renshaw of the Dimension Data team, Matteo Trentin of the Quick-Step Floors team and Juraj Sagan of the Bora-Hansgrohe team.

The stage finish proved heart-breaking for Warren Barguil of Team Sunweb and a triumph of human will over mechanical deficiency for Rigoberto Uran of Cannondale-Drapac. Barguil was the lone survivor of the early break, but a select group of riders including Froome and Uran eventually caught Barguil several kilometers from the finish. He was able to sit-on and regain some strength.

Meanwhile, Uran suffered a mechanical problem with his rear derailleur. A mechanic from the neutral car gave it a couple of tugs to place the chain in a sprocket that Uran could ride with on the relatively flat section, but in essence he was riding a fixie for the last couple of kilometers. He also had trouble with his earpiece coming out and popped into his mouth so as not to lose it, so he wasn’t breathing through his mouth too much.

Nevertheless, Uran got a jump as the group neared the finish. Barguil swung out of the slipstream and appeared to grab the line with a late lunge, even celebrating with a fist pump, but it was all for naught as the photo of the photo finish showed Uran with an inch on Barguil.

On the stage, Matteo Bono of UAE Team Emirates finished at the fulcrum.

Chris Froome remains the Tour leader, and Olivier Le Gac of the FDJ team remains the Lanterne Rouge, nearly 2 hours adrift of the leader.