Van Aert wins final stage as Pogacar seals Tour title

Tadej Pogacar won his fourth Tour title on the final day of this year’s Tour de France, but Wout van Aert denied him a prestigious victory.

Prior to the final day, when only the stage win would be contested in Paris, reigning champion Pogacar had a lead of more than four minutes.

The 26-year-old made his debut in a six-man breakaway during a thrilling finale on the same circuit that was used for the previous year’s Olympic race in the capital of France as it started to rain.

However, Van Aert attacked on the final and third escarpment to the Sacre Coeur de Montmartre Basilica, extending his lead over the final 5 kilometers to claim victory on the Champs-Elysees.

The versatile Belgian crossed the line 19 seconds before a group of three riders, including Pogacar, to claim his 10th Tour victory following a frustrating Tour.

With only Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain ahead of them (five wins), Pogacar held his hand in the air as he finished to celebrate reaching level with British rider Chris Froome for all-time Tour victories.

Pogacar also won the King of the Mountains title a third time, making him the first reigning world road champion to do so since Greg LeMond in 1990.

Florian Lipowitz came third in the overall classification standings, four minutes 24 seconds clear of Pogacar.

For the first time since last month’s Criterium du Dauphine, which was regarded as the final Tour warm-up, was a podium podium was created.

Pogacar’s fourth Tour de France victory puts the Slovenian superstar’s remarkable 12-month reign as the sport’s dominant force.

Pogacar won four of his final five races in 2024, taking the road world title for the first time since September 2012, when Jonas Vingegaard reclaimed the title from Vingegaard last year.

Pogacar then won six of his nine races before the Tour starting at the beginning of this year. He won both of the stage competitions he entered, the UAE Tour and the Criterium du Dauphine, and he placed fourth overall in the other three one-day classics.

He also had twice as many points as his closest competition, Remco Evenepoel, putting him at the top of the UCI rankings prior to the Tour.

Anyone hoping for another epic battle for the yellow jersey over the past three weeks was disappointed because Pogacar and two-time Tour winner Vingegaard have developed one of the greatest rivalries in sport over the past five years.

Vingegaard was only eight seconds behind Pogacar in stage four, but the Dane added a minute to Pogacar’s overall lead for the first time in the time trial the day after the race started.

Pogacar won the famous Mur-de-Bretagne climb to reclaim the “maillot jaune” after not only surviving his first major test in stage seven, but also by beating his former teammate.

Vingegaard stayed with Pogacar over the course of the next few days, with Ireland’s Ben Healy wearing the yellow jersey for two days. However, Pogacar experienced panic on stage 11 during one of the stage 11 panics.

He fell 4 kilometers from the line, but Pogacar, one of his GC rivals, surprisingly chose not to attack, allowing him to catch up and finish in the peloton.

The following day, Pogacar won this year’s first summit finish and first true mountain stage to add two more minutes to Vingegaard, may have regretted that choice.

For the rest of the Tour, he would remain in yellow and finish the day’s mountain time trial victory, placing him 21st overall.

When the race reached the Pyrenees and the Alps, Visma-Lease a Bike clung on in hope that they could conquer Pogacar, but he was brutal in the mountains because Vingegaard’s only time advantage was two seconds on stage 19, when he was resigned to finishing as the “best of the rest.”