The 2007 Volta a Portugal (Tour of Portugal) runs from 4 to 15 August over 10 stages.

The 9th stage is 154km long, short in distance but long in difficulty, ending in a tough finish at the top of the E category Alto Da Torre. The field also had to cover the Category 1 climb of Alto Do Carrazedo which is situated 50 km from the finish.

The day belonged to Eladio Jimenez (Karpin-Galicia) who rode away from the field up the Alto Da Torre to win the day by 13 seconds from Xavier Tondo (LA MSS). GC leader Candido Barbosa (Liberty Seguros) was unable to match the pace set by Jimenez and dropped back to finish in 3rd place 55 seconds behind.

The win has moved Jimenez into 1st place overall, 33 seconds ahead of Barbosa and 37 seconds ahead of Tondo with the Individual Time Trial to come.

He may have lost the leader's jersey but the points classification is safely in Candido Barbosa's keeping with an unassailable 90 point lead.

The Mountains Classification on the other hand has suddenly close right up to a margin of only 1 point with Andre Cardoso (Fercase/Rota Dos Moveis) managing to cling to his lead. The points Jimenez picked up by being first over the Category 1 Alto Do Carrazedo and the Alto Da Torre rocketed him up the classification standings.

A battle within the race was being fought out in the Young Rider classification with Tiago Machado (Riberalves-Boavista) only losing 53" to John-Lee Augustyn (Barloworld) to now have a lead of 1' 12".

Stage and overall classification details below:

Stage 9 Results (Top 10)

GC After Stage 9

Points Classification

Mountains Classification

Teams Classification

View details of other stages :
Prologue - Stage 1 - Stage 2 - Stage 3 - Stage 4 - Stage 5 - Stage 6 - Stage 7 - Stage 8