The gravel stage to Troyes on day nine of the Tour de France ended in a stalemate for the overall lead, but not for lack of effort from the yellow jersey contenders.

Race leader Tadey Pogachar (UAE Team Emirates) attempted several major attacks on the gravel sections of the Côte de Chacne and St. Palais au Tertre, but 77km from the finish, Remco Evenpole (Sourdal-Quickstep) Both moves were set back, as was the one made by Remco Evenpole (Sourdal-Quickstep) 77km from the finish.

The Belgians cleared at the Côte de Chacne and were soon joined by Pogachar and Jonas Vingegaard. However, the attack failed when teammate Jan Tratnik suffered a puncture and the Danish double Tour champion on his bike refused to cooperate.

Pogachar's attack in Sector 4, Veliers, saw Vingegaard and Visma-Ries A-bike teammate Matteo Jorgenson steering Pogachar. Evene Paul was then left behind Pogachar, but this move also failed as the Visma rider did not try to help.

Evenepoel had harsh words for the Dutch team after the stage, noting that Vingegaard had raced too defensively. He stated, however, that he understood why the team employed such tactics.

"I don't think Tadej and I were happy because maybe the whole Tour would have been decided today," Evenpoel said after spending time after the awards ceremony, again wearing the white jersey of Best Young Rider.

"You have to accept the tactics of the race and the situation, but sometimes you have to have guts in a race. But it's not a problem. The race is still very long and I fully accept the reasons why he didn't pull and why he didn't race.

"Of course, Taddei and I both like to attack quite far from the finish, so we wanted to keep going. Jonas is a bit defensive, but we have to accept that. He must have a good reason for racing like this, and I completely understand why."

Evenepoel noted that the Visma Reese A bike raced at a high pace and made the first big acceleration in the battle for the lead. He cleared the Chasenay climb before Pogachar and Vingegaard crossed the gap.

The trio was 0.5 minutes ahead of the peloton before the move broke down. Despite the frustrating final result, Evenpoel accepted the situation.

"I knew it was one of the last hard sections of gravel, so I just decided to go for it. 'It was a very fast section with a crosswind. In the end, if you look at the gap we had, we had 30-40 seconds right after that sector."

"So, like I said earlier, if we had come to the front group and switched all together, the race could have been decided there. But like they said, that's the race situation, that's the race tactics.

Aside from the lack of help from the Visma Reese A bike, the other major event in Evenepoel's day on the bike was being caught behind the attack on two separate occasions.

The first was in sector 8, Mangnant, where, according to Evenpoel, he was caught behind riders who missed the corner and had to take their foot off the pedal before regaining their position.

The second time was at Verrières, where he lost his position as Pogachar pulled ahead with Visma's group. This time, Evenpoel was fortunate that the Dutch national team had adopted a relatively timid tactic.

"I actually told my teammates to bring me to the first five positions, but they didn't, so I wasn't very happy," Evenepoel said. 'I wanted to go by myself in this sector, so I had to close the gap myself. [Especially in a race like today, you have to fight with your elbows out. Luckily I had the legs to close the gap."

"While the Visma teams were unable to pull away from Tadge, you have to admit that the heats were close up front, partly because of the headwind. Maybe the race organization needs to look at that from time to time

"But I have no regrets. In the end I think it was a good race for us. Today is a rest day and we are 0.5 minutes behind second place on GC with a stage win. It's a perfect first week for us."

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