2009 Tour de France, Stage 1 to Stage 11

These are the individual stages of the 2009 Tour de France, with Stage 1 on July 4 and Stage 11 on July 15.

4 July 2009 — Monaco, 15.5 km (ITT)

The 2009 Tour began, as have many in the past, with an individual time trial, but instead of a very brief prologue, this 15 kilometer ride saw the race's overall favorites show themselves on day one. The favourite for the stage, Fabian Cancellara, won with Alberto Contador coming in second. Time-trial specialist Bradley Wiggins came third.

5 July 2009 — Monaco to Brignoles, 182 km

This stage was largely flat, but had one third category, and three fourth category, climbs in its first 129 km, and most of the last 15 km was downhill. A four man breakaway (Stéphane Augé, Stef Clement, Cyril Dessel and Jussi Veikkanen) held a maximum advantage of some 5 minutes, but they were caught with 10 km remaining, initially by Mikhail Ignatiev, and shortly after by the rest of the peloton. Ignatiev was caught with 5 km left, and some of the riders shaping to contest the sprint were disrupted by a crash and a missed turn in the last kilometre, allowing Mark Cavendish a clear win.

6 July 2009 — Marseille to La Grande-Motte, 196 km Stage 3 was another flat stage, with a finish on the waterfront at La Grande-Motte. Like in stage 2, a four-man breakaway formed, this time consisting of Maxime Bouet, Koen de Kort, Samuel Dumoulin and Rubén Pérez. They held a maximum advantage of about 13 minutes and were caught with a little less than 30 kilometres to go by a first group who had separated themselves from the rest of the peloton as a result of accelerating in the presence of strong winds near the coastline. The group contained 28 riders, including leader Fabian Cancellara, 7-time winner Lance Armstrong and the whole Team Columbia-HTC. After a sprint, Mark Cavendish finished first. Several of the favorites and riders classified in the top 10, such as Alberto Contador, Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre, the Schleck brothers, Levi Leipheimer and Bradley Wiggins, were not present in this group and were 41 seconds behind at the finish.

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