Weighty chapters of Tour de France historical past have been constructed round duels, however the nice bike race has by no means seen a duopoly like this one. Almost inevitably, and for the fourth 12 months in succession, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard occupied the highest two steps on the rostrum on the finish of three weeks.
Pogačar’s third Tour victory noticed him stage his head-to-head sequence with Vingegaard at 2-2, and at this juncture, few would wager towards the competition repeating itself in July 2025 – even when Remco Evenepoel’s high quality debut and clear margin for enchancment provides him ample to motive to imagine he can finally muscle in on their territory.
As ever, this was a Tour of a number of tales, from Evenepoel’s élan to Primož Roglič’s seemingly limitless capability for heartbreak on this race. Biniam Girmay’s glowing sprints led to a genuinely-earned inexperienced jersey. In Saint-Vulbas, Mark Cavendish seized his probability to say outright possession of the report for Tour stage wins, surpassing Eddy Merckx himself.
Despite a crash-blighted build-up, Richard Carapaz illuminated the race along with his aggression. Romain Bardet signed off on his Tour profession with a yellow jersey. Arnaud Démare earned admirers for battling bravely however unsuccessfully to complete contained in the time reduce.
From the climb of the San Luca on stage 2, nevertheless, it rapidly grew to become obvious that the battle for the general victory could be distilled to 2 acquainted names. We check out the defining moments of the fourth instalment of the Pogačar-Vingegaard duel.
Pogačar begins prising the Tour de France aside on the Galibier
For some exterior observers, the 2024 Tour de France GC battle had been supposed to start out and finish in Italy. By stage 4 and the ascent of the Galibier, in line with skilled and outspoken French sports activities director Marc Madiot in his pre-race interviews, Tadej Pogačar would have worn out any traces of GC opposition and the battle for the stage wins and minor classifications ought to have been effectively underway.
It hadn’t occurred. On stage 1, a present of power by UAE on the brutally tough sequence of climbs out of the Grand Départ at Firenze had been known as off midway by way of. Instead, the breakaways and a smaller group of sprinters battled it out for the primary stage win of the Tour, with Romain Bardet and DSM-Firmenich-PostNL teammate Frank van den Broek dramatically warding off the chase. Then on stage 2, Pogačar once more didn’t launch considered one of his anticipated long-distance solo strikes over the repeat ascents of the brutally steep San Luca climb in Bologna and as a substitute his a lot shorter assault introduced an equally dedicated response from arch-rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease A Bike).
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So if Madiot had bought it improper, the subsequent apparent flashpoint was the horrendously tough, punchy Alpine trek on stage 4. Preceded by the interminable however largely manageable ascent to Sestriere after which the a lot shorter cat. 2 climb of the Montgenèvre on the French facet of the Alpine border, it barely mattered that the Galibier was then tackled on its ‘simpler’, southern strategy street. Albeit by only a day in comparison with the 2023 Tour’s first-week incursion into the Pyrenees, there had by no means been such a tricky stage so early on within the race. And by this level, Pogačar’s comparatively unhurried (or ineffectual, relying on the way you checked out it) begin to the Tour had begun to create a rash of query marks.
However, that each one modified on the 26-kilometre Galibier. In the build-up, EF Education-EasyPost set down a reasonably regular controlling tempo on the Sestriere for race chief Richard Carapaz, however when the Tour returned to France, it was UAE teammates Nils Politt, Pavel Sivakov and Tim Wellens who started the heavy lifting for Pogačar.
The UAE present of power continued all the best way out of the mountain metropolis of Briançon and onto the interminably lengthy drag of the unclassified Col de Lauteret. In a repetition of the mountain levels to return, too, an outsized, overly disorganised breakaway slowly crumbled to bits as their lead ebbed away, and by the point they reached the notorious righthand flip off the A-road and onto the far more tough higher slopes of the Galibier, for all Oier Lazkano (Movistar) was nonetheless bravely making an attempt to maintain clear, it was clear that the winner of the day would come from the bunch.
More than Pogačar, initially the actual stars of the Galibier was his crew. The coordination wasn’t completely excellent, given the best way João Almeida yelled at Juan Ayuso to return to the entrance and pull. But the impact of the accelerations by the Portuguese and Spanish riders, to not point out final 12 months’s podium finisher and stage 1 winner Adam Yates was devastating.
The first of the massive names to get dropped because of the collective UAE stress was Simon Yates (Jayco-AIUIa), fourth within the Tour de France final 12 months, and at that time an outsider for the rostrum not less than. Others like Egan Bernal and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) have been lengthy out of the image, however when Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) appeared to be in hassle and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) additionally began to flounder barely the injury was spectacular. Finally, it was as much as Pogačar himself, delaying his acceleration till effectively into the closing kilometre due to a headwind, he later claimed, though such a late assault on energy within the Tour by such a sometimes impulsive attacker sparked no finish of rumours about his underlying situation. Sloping away across the ultimate corners resulting in the highest of the snow-lined climb, Evenepoel initially responded however Vingegaard was the closest to observe Pogačar – within the second affirmation after San Luca who could be his hardest rival to crack. But crack Vingegaard did, albeit by a handful of seconds on the summit.
With the fantastic good thing about hindsight, the best way that Pogačar subsequently gained way more time on the descent was maybe way more important than it initially appeared. You might see that Vingegaard had had sufficient pure power to maintain the hole on Pogačar to a relative minimal on the climbs, supplied that distance was comparatively quick. However what the a lot larger time loss on the descent arguably demonstrated was he was missing the endurance capability that solely 12 weeks of full Tour de France preparation may give, and as soon as pushed to his restrict by Pogačar, that lack of underlying endurance situation really made itself felt.
Secondly, there was an actual dearth of help for Vingegaard from his crew on the Galibier. While Matteo Jorgenson was clearly stretching himself arduous and effectively to assist the Dane, he fell foul of the UAE mass climbing, and the absence of a Sepp Kuss or Roglič or Steven Kruijswijk from the 2024 Tour playbook for Visma-Lease A Bike to again Vingegaard on the Galibier was noticeable. Wout van Aert, himself on the restoration path from a foul crash this March like Vingegaard was nowhere close to his monumental 2022 self on the Tour’s mountain levels. Instead after a fruitless chase, Vingegaard finally needed to depend on exterior help from momentary allies like Evenepoel to restrict the gaps. In stark comparability, UAE Team Emirates have been working at their greatest collective stage of any Tour de France, whittling down the lead group to only eight earlier than Pogačar lastly attacked. Both individually, and when it comes to his squad, then, Pogačar was on a significantly better footing than the defending Tour champion. And the Galibier was the place it confirmed first.
Mixed reactions to gravel
Most Tour de France contenders don’t like the risks and unpredictability of gravel levels however they are going to certainly face them and way more usually within the years to return after the spectacular racing on the Burgundy chemins blancs’ on stage 9 close to Troyes.
Anthony Turgis beat Tom Pidock and Derek Gee after a 156 km breakaway to provide TotalEnergies a historic victory. However, there was equally dramatic racing and equally excessive emotion amongst the GC contenders on the dry, dusty and even rocky roads.
Tadej Pogačar fired off a number of audacious assaults and was joined by Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard with 77 km nonetheless to race. “The entire Tour might have been determined” Evenepoel urged however Vingegaard opted to not journey so the trio sat up and returned to the peloton.
Late on within the stage, with simply 17 km to go, Pogačar made one other all–in assault and Vingegaard solely bought throughout to him thanks to large efforts by Christophe Laporte and Jorgenson. Evenepoel and Roglič have been distanced however once more, Vingegaard didn’t wish to go mano-a-mano with the Slovenian and so sat on.
At the end, Vingegaard averted shedding any time to Pogačar, regardless of additionally racing the final 100km on teammate Jan Tranik’s bike, and so Visma-Lease a Bike urged even landed a morale-boosting blow on their rivals and particularly on Pogačar.
Evenepoel was not so impressed.
“We have to simply accept race techniques and race conditions, however generally you additionally want the balls to race, and sadly perhaps Jonas did not have them right this moment,” Evenepoel mentioned.
Vingegaard took a special view on the stage however responded to the younger Belgian.
“It wasn’t a scarcity of “balls”, I simply rode sensible. We have been primarily centered on not shedding time,” Vingegaard mentioned, decided to take the battle to Pogačar and Evenepoel each day.
The Troyes gravel stage epitomised Vingegaard’s 2024 Tour de France.
He was getting back from a horrible crash, with restricted time to coach. Yet he and Visma-Lease a Bike raced as they needed, driving principally defensively however by no means afraid to strive one thing or to undergo, be it within the excessive mountains or on the gravel roads of central France.
Vingegaard’s false daybreak at Le Lioran
History is a story informed by the winners, because the cliché places it, and within the final 10 days of the Tour, such has been Tadej Pogačar’s dominance that the doubts that will need to have assailed the maillot jaune and his crew after the occasions of Le Lioran have all however light from reminiscence.
Until that little-known end within the Massif Centrale, final visited by the race in 2016, the Tour had been a stalemate with Pogačar narrowly forward on factors, a bonus that left ample room for recollections of the best way Vingegaard swept the sector in 2023. True, Pogačar had made a powerful assault on the San Luca, just for Vingegaard, the rider from the ‘Big Four’ with the perfect Tour monitor report bar the Slovenian himself, to reply. Yes, Pogačar had gained time on the Galibier however slightly than being a minute or two, the distinction was measured in seconds. He’d overwhelmed Vingegaard within the time trial however by lower than 30 seconds. Each time when Vingegaard claimed the injury was far lower than he anticipated, it was arduous to fault the Dane, and every time the doubts rose increased round Pogačar’s potential to do the traditionally ultra-challenging ‘double’.
Stage 11 to Le Lioran, a consistently undulating day of 211 kilometres of racing by way of distant roads of central France’s important mountain vary, was supposed to alter that. After the relentless driving by UAE Team Emirates on the cat. 2 Col de Néronne, an additional ratcheting up of the tempo by Adam Yates and a devastating preliminary assault by Pogačar on the horrendously tough ascent to Puy Mary Pas de Peyrol appeared, lastly, to have cracked Vingegaard. Compared to the paltry advances on the summit of the Galibier, Pogačar’s rasping acceleration on a day of greater than 4,000 metres of climbing gained greater than 30 seconds at one level. But then the unthinkable occurred, as as soon as over the summit and onto the subsequent climb only a handful of kilometres additional on, Pogačar started trying again repeatedly, and visibly hesitated.
The whys and wherefores of his nervous actions and sudden halt to his typical fluid pedalling fashion have been buried below a number of overlapping interpretations and explanations. They vary from his uncertainty concerning the full race route and the space to the end to a lack of understanding as to who was chasing to a quick (and unresolved) downside along with his again wheel, which he mistakenly thought had punctured to a rumoured forgetting to refuel identical to within the Col du Granon in 2022. None of those has been absolutely confirmed by UAE Team Emirates, however regardless of the motive, the situation felt utterly weird: right here was Pogačar alone and forward of the sector – why didn’t he simply do what he’d performed on a number of events, from Strade Bianche to half a dozen events within the Giro, and drive dwelling his benefit?
Instead, as Pogačar slowed notably, it was to search out that Jonas Vingegaard had bounced off the canvas in fashion, weaving by way of the mist to return inside attain of Pogačar once more effectively earlier than the summit of the cat.2 climb that adopted, Le Pertus. The Slovenian sprinted for the time bonus on the summit of the Pertus, beating Vingegaard, however in a race that was all the time going to be received by minutes not seconds, scrabbling for such small benefits felt like he was clutching at straws.
And it bought worse. After selecting their method up the ultimate climb to Le Lioran, Pogačar put up a spirited defence towards Vingegaard within the dash, solely to be defeated. Adding up the time bonuses, Vingegaard solely closed the hole by one second, nevertheless it was an enormous psychological blow and one which allowed Vingegaard, as he confirmed after the Tour was over, to suppose that he had an actual probability of profitable outright. Even as Le Lioran all however confirmed that the Tour was basically a two-man duel given Roglič’s difficulties and Evenepoel’s desire to journey conservatively slightly than danger his podium, abruptly appeared inconceivable to decide on between Vingegaard and Pogačar as main favorite.
That would all change but once more, and decisively in Pogačar’s favour, on the 2 massive days within the Pyrenees. But after stage 11 there was no lack of media studies suggesting that Pogačar had overreached, that by the top of the Pyrenees, the jersey could be on Vingegaard’s shoulders, that Le Lioran marked an actual turning level and that the momentum was now with the Dane. Many observers thought that the race wouldn’t be determined not less than till the ultimate Alpine levels and even the final time trial in Nice. How improper all of us have been – however how proper it felt on the time.
Pogačar completes Pyrenean energy play at Plateau de Beille
If the scales had appeared to be tipping in the direction of Vingegaard within the Massif Central, then the Tour’s Pyrenean doubleheader proved to be the second the stability swung definitively again into Pogačar’s favour. From there to Nice, he could be with out peer.
Pogačar’s victory at Pla d’Adet on stage 14 was already a hefty blow, however hardly decisive. The 39 seconds he picked up there stretched his general result in simply shy of two minutes, however exterior the Visma bus that night, Vingegaard evinced quiet confidence that issues could be totally different on the street to Plateau de Beille 24 hours later.
Vingegaard’s reasoning was that his powers of endurance could be rewarded on the finish of an extended and more durable stage. With that in thoughts, he deployed teammate Matteo Jorgenson to set a ferocious tempo from the bottom of the climb earlier than he accelerated viciously with over 10km nonetheless to go in a bid to outlast Pogačar.
By his personal telling – and per most exterior estimates of his energy information – Vingegaard produced arguably the perfect climbing efficiency of his profession at Plateau de Beille. The downside was that he was competing towards a really totally different Pogačar to the one he defeated so soundly the previous two Julys. If Pogačar has soared to startling new ranges of efficiency this summer season, then Plateau de Beille was the apotheosis.
With 5.5km to race, Pogačar attacked to place one other minute into Vingegaard and virtually three into Evenepoel. The remainder of the Tour was scattered throughout the mountainside, with solely 21 males ending inside 20 minutes of the yellow jersey.
If the time gaps to his contemporaries informed a transparent story, the exact that means of the comparisons between Pogačar and former generations was much less sure. When it emerged that Pogačar had put an estimated 3:40 into Marco Pantani’s 1998 Plateau de Beille report, a well-known and seemingly unresolvable debate broke out.
For some, the performances of the main riders on this Tour raised the gravest of suspicions. For others, their pace was merely a byproduct of the assorted technological, dietary and coaching advances that biking has skilled in recent times. It was all within the eye of the beholder. Same because it ever was.
“There will all the time be doubts, for certain, as a result of biking was a lot broken up to now, earlier than my time,” Pogačar mentioned in Nice on Sunday night.
Everybody can certainly agree that biking has accelerated sharply within the 2020s, with the very nature of top-level racing has mutated dramatically earlier than our eyes. As ever, the onus is on the UCI to step up its efforts to ensure the credibility of what we’re watching.
Vingegaard’s problem is quietly extinguished on the Bonette
Pogačar might successfully have received the Tour at Plateau de Beille, nevertheless it took 5 extra days for Vingegaard to concede defeat. After overcoming a punctured lung and a number of fractures simply to journey this Tour, Vingegaard was by no means prone to lay down his arms at that early juncture. As the third week dawned, he and his Visma crew clung to their perception in his items of endurance and his superiority at excessive altitude.
In specific, Visma have been trying to the arduous stage 19, which introduced the race over the Col de Vars and the Cime de la Bonette forward of the powerful end to Isola 2000. The 2,800m-high Bonette, particularly, appeared the plain place for a Visma onslaught, very like those they unleashed on Pogačar on the Galibier in 2022 and on the Col de la Loze final 12 months.
Indeed, Pogačar had predicted as a lot throughout his relaxation day press convention, when he said his perception that Visma would go all-in on one or different of the ultimate days within the Alps. When Matteo Jorgenson, Wilco Kelderman and Christophe Laporte cast clear within the opening kilometres of stage 19, it was clear that Visma’s particular play was taking form.
The Hail Mary go by no means got here, nevertheless. Although Kelderman and Jorgenson have been nonetheless within the break on the higher reaches of the Bonette, the anticipated Vingegaard assault wouldn’t materialise. Midway up the climb, Vingegaard quietly knowledgeable his Visma teammates over the radio that he merely didn’t have the legs to execute the plan.
Exactly one 12 months earlier, Pogačar’s 2023 Tour problem had ended on the Col de la Loze, immortalised by the phrases he pronounced over the radio: “I’m gone, I’m lifeless.” Visma’s resolution to withdraw their radio communication from tv broadcasts meant that Vingegaard’s phrases right here remained non-public. No matter, when the Bonette got here and went and not using a Vingegaard assault, all people understood the Tour had ended as a contest.
All that remained was for Pogačar to run up the rating, even when he insisted that he was not racing to take revenge for his defeats of the earlier two years. After hovering clear to win at Isola 2000, he doubled down on the Col de la Couillole a day later, when he tracked Vingegaard’s acceleration after which blasted previous him inside the ultimate kilometre. Inevitably, Pogačar added the ultimate time trial in Nice. In the ultimate reckoning, his dominance was whole.