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Slovenian Dominates Final Time Trial in Nice, Finishes Over Six Minutes Ahead of Jonas Vingegaard
The 2024 Tour de France concluded on Sunday, July 21, with a spectacular win by Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates). The Slovenian cyclist dominated the final time trial from Monaco to Nice, finishing with a remarkable 1-minute and 3-second lead over Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). This victory secured Pogacar’s third Tour de France title, following his wins in 2020 and 2021, with an overall lead of 6 minutes and 17 seconds over his Danish rival.
In addition to his Tour de France triumph, Pogacar made history by achieving the Giro-Tour double in the same season. This feat was last accomplished by Marco Pantani in 1998, and 75 years after Fausto Coppi first achieved it in 1949. Pogacar is now the eighth cyclist to achieve this double, marking a historic moment in the sport.
“I am super happy. I can’t describe how I feel after two tough years in the Tour de France, where we always made some mistakes that cost us the race. This year, everything went perfectly. This is the first Grand Tour where I was fully confident every day. Even in the last Giro, I had a bad day—I won’t say which. This Tour de France has been incredible; I enjoyed it from the first day to today. I started today with a good vibe. It was lovely to start on the F1 grid of the best F1 circuit of all time. I was just listening to my times compared to Remco. I felt super good at the top of the first climb,” Pogacar shared.
“In my head, I had the words of my girlfriend Urska—who said she hated me because I always rode this road during training. But it wasn’t wasted time, as it was useful today. In recent years, we’ve heard this is the best era of cycling. If I wasn’t competing, I would say the same. This kind of competition with Remco, Jonas, and Primoz… is simply amazing. And many young riders are coming up, more and more. We have to enjoy this beautiful era of cycling,” the winner continued.
What’s next for Pogacar? “Next… I know Mathieu (Van der Poel) looks great in the rainbow jersey, but I want to take it from him.” The 2024 World Championship will be held in late September in Zurich, Switzerland.
Jonas Vingegaard, who seemed calm and relaxed after showing great sadness and disappointment two stages ago when he lost time to Pogacar and saw his title hopes fade, expressed his thoughts. “Under normal circumstances, I would be disappointed with my Tour de France. But after everything I’ve been through, I can’t be disappointed. I didn’t have a good preparation for this race, but I still managed to recover a good level of fitness. I would have loved to go a bit further, but it is what it is. I would like to come back to the Tour de France and win again. The Tour de France is the race I love the most, the most beautiful—it simply has something special. I believe the yellow jersey is the most beautiful in road cycling. Even though I feel proud of what we achieved this year, I am looking forward to coming back,” Vingegaard stated.
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), in tears at the end of his debut Tour, finished the final stage in third, 1 minute and 14 seconds behind, and also took third place in the overall standings, 9 minutes and 18 seconds behind the unbeatable Pogacar. “It’s very good for my first Tour de France. Today I gave it my all, but I realized I was no longer at my best, even though I was still in good shape as I finished third. And if I take stock, I finished on the podium in the overall standings, with the white jersey for best young rider and a stage win, I can be proud of myself and my team. Tadej is in another world, and Jonas was also superior to me. But it’s a big step forward in my career. There is still a gap to close with them, but it opens up perspective. With Tadej, we are from the same generation, we get along very well, and I think it’s also because we have a bit of the same way of riding,” Evenepoel said.
The top five of the GC was completed by João Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) with a gap of 19 minutes and 3 seconds and Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Step) with 20 minutes and 6 seconds.
A total of 141 cyclists participated in the final stage of the 2024 Tour, an individual time trial of 33.7 km from Monaco to Nice with everything at stake. Mark Cavendish was the second cyclist to start—after his Astana Qazaqstan teammate, Davide Ballerini—and the veteran British cyclist achieved his goal of finishing his last Tour de France.
With a record of 35 stage wins to his name, Cavendish concluded his historic relationship with this race in the most beautiful way possible, completing it for the 8th time in his 15 participations.
Biniam Girmay, of Intermarché-Wanty, also knew he wouldn’t win this ITT stage but crossed the finish line in Nice with style, under the applause and support of the crowd, becoming the first African cyclist to win a classification in the Tour de France with his green jersey.
“What can I say? To be honest, I tried to enjoy it, but sometimes, the feeling of emotion was greater than I expected. It’s like everything was so wonderful. I feel like I’m floating in the sky. It’s super cool. I just want to tell the kids, to keep working hard, and everything is possible. I want to share my happiness and all the emotions. There are many people here, and it’s super happy, all the fans, I saw all the Eritrean flags,” Girmay celebrated.
“We did a great job as a team, and I want to thank everyone. Since the beginning of the Tour, I had amazing teammates, you know. The whole team, the team manager, the bosses, I want to thank them because, from the start, we had a great atmosphere, a good team spirit. We did an amazing job to protect this jersey. We gave everything we had. We have the smallest budget of the World Tour teams, so having three incredible wins and the green jersey is simply amazing. Especially for Laurenz Rex and Hugo Page, it’s their first Grand Tour, and they are simply great cyclists, and I’m happy to have them,” Girmay added.
Young French rider Lenny Martinez of Groupama-FDJ completed the course at an impressive average speed of 41.8 km/h and in a time of 48’24” to position himself as the provisional leader, where he remained for well over an hour until Harold Tejada (Astana Qazaqstan) took the lead, surpassing Martinez by 10 seconds.
In tears yesterday after his final mountain stage in the Tour de France, the French hero and yellow jersey wearer in Stage 2, Romain Bardet (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL), received great support from the fans on his last day in the Tour, as he announced his retirement shortly before the 2025 Tour. Bardet finished today’s stage in 37th place and 30th overall in the final standings.
Ecuadorian star Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) concluded a highly successful Tour by winning the mountain classification with 127 points, compared to 102 for Pogacar and 70 for Vingegaard.
It is Ecuador’s first victory in any final classification of the Tour de France. Carapaz was also named the most combative cyclist of the 2024 Tour. “I am super happy with my Tour de France: it was a success. We gradually grew until we finished the race very well, and it felt great to go home and be very happy. There are few high-level athletes in Ecuador, but we have achieved great things. I am proud to bring this jersey to my country,” Carapaz celebrated.
In the team classification, the UAE Team Emirates claimed victory, completing the 21 stages with a 31-minute and 51-second lead over Visma-Lease a Bike and a 1-hour and 33-minute lead over Soudal QuickStep.
THE JERSEYS
- Yellow jersey – General Classification Champion – Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)
- Green jersey – Points Classification Champion – Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty)
- Polka dot jersey – Mountain Classification Champion – Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost)
- White jersey – Best Young Rider Classification Champion – Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step)