Michael Matthews (BikeExchange) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) have gone head-to-head for the intermediate sprint on stage 9 of the Tour de France today, and things got a little messy.
Matthews went from one side of the road to the other, left to right, with Colbrelli on his inside. And while the Italian national champion still beat his Australian rival to take maximum points, it was a sketchy sprint from Matthews, though he is normally a fair rider.
It's not the first time things have gotten very competitive at the intermediate sprints on this Tour. Colbrelli berated Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea Samsic) at the mid-stage sprint on stage 6 after things got messy between several sets of riders at the same time.
Deceuninck-QuickStep also closed the door on Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) during that gallop, though it was Bouhanni's moves that attracted criticism, perhaps because of his reputation.
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Colbrelli ontwijkt Matthews en pakt de volle buit bij de tussensprint. #tdf2021 pic.twitter.com/V9WS24YvNG
— Sporza 🚴 (@sporza_koers) July 4, 2021
With last year's points classification winner, Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-QuickStep), absent from this year's race, a great opportunity has opened up for the other fast men to win the green jersey this year.
Bennett's team mate Mark Cavendish currently has green
after winning two stages and scoring points at some intermediate sprints, but
it's not guaranteed his challenge will be sustained.
Meanwhile, the man who owned the classification for years, Peter Sagan, doesn't seem to be in the fight this year following his crash in the sprint finish on stage 3 with Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal)
And that all means the sprinters - especially the ones who can climb a little - see a big chance this year to take the green jersey into Paris. We can expect the fighting to be fierce in the days ahead.
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