Britain's Adam Yates has lost the leader's yellow jersey to Primoz Roglic, as Tadej Pogacar won stage nine of the Tour de France.
The Slovenian - teammate of Kiwi George Bennett - played it safe on the last climb of the day, but did enough to move to the top of the standings in a ninth stage won by Tour debutant Pogacar.
The 21-year-old Pogacar, the most attacking rider on the final climb up to the Col de Marie Blanque, outsprinted Roglic and breakaway rider Marc Hirschi of Switzerland to move up to seventh overall, 44 seconds off the pace.
"It was an amazing day," says Pogacar, who finished third overall in his Grand Tour debut on the Vuelta a Espana last year.
"I gave everything in the last climb. I could not drop my rivals, but the stage win makes up for it,"
Defending champion Egan Bernal finished in the five-man leading group and sits in second place overall, 21 seconds behind Roglic.
Yates, who made no mystery of his limited ambitions on the Tour, ended the stage in 15th place, 54 seconds off the pace, and dropped down to eighth overall.
As the race heads into its first rest day, when all the riders will be subjected to a coronavirus test, Roglic sits in pole position, but Colombian Bernal, who relishes the long climbs of the Alps coming in the third week, is also where he wants to be.
After attacking on the final climb on Saturday, Pogacar was on the offensive again on the ascent to the Col de Marie Blanque, a 7.7km effort at an average gradient of 8.6 percent, but Roglic, Bernal and Spain's Mikel Landa followed.
Roglic picked up a five-second bonus at the top of the pass, 18 kilometres from the finish, and the small group caught former U23 world champion Hirschi 2.5 km from the line.
France's Guillaume Martin, who started the day second overall, slid to third, 28 seconds off the pace, after losing touch with the top guns on the ascent to the Col de Marie Blanque.
The day after Thibaut Pinot lost all hope of becoming the first local winner of the Tour in 35 years, another Frenchman, Romain Bardet, sat in fourth place overall, 30 seconds behind Roglic.
Serving as a 'domestique' to Jumbo-Visma teammates Roglic and Tom Dumoulin, Bennett was the pick of the Kiwis, crossing the line in 34th to jump to 29th in the general classification, where he sits 35m behind Roglic.
Stage 10 is a flat 168.5km ride from Ile d'Oleron to Ile de Re.
Reuters
