Tadej Pogacar Wins 2024 Tour de France for 3rd Title; Jonas Vingegaard Finishes 2nd
July 21, 2024
Tadej Pogacar has won his third Tour de France.
The 25-year-old Slovenian beat out Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark, the two-time defending champion who came in second overall and on the stage.
Pogacar finished Sunday's 34-kilometer (21-mile) time trial tace through the roads from Monaco to Nice in 45 minutes, 24 seconds, just over a minute ahead of the second-place Vingegaard.
Pogacar claims the Tour de France fresh off a win at the Giro d'Italia, making him the first cyclist to win both events in the same year since Marco Pantani did in 1998. Pogacar win on Sunday gives him his third Tour de France general classification win since 2020. He has also won 17 individual stages of the race since 2020.
Rather than finishing in Paris as it does in typical years, this year's Tour de France finished in Nice, France, due to the upcoming Olympic games.
Pogacar's rivalry with riders like Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič has made for an interesting storyline over the past few years, and Pogacar admitted he's enjoyed the high level of competition.
"Yeah, I think in the last two years we've been hearing that this is the best era of cycling, the best competition ever," Pogacar said in a post-race interview (h/t the Guardian). "If I would not be competing myself, I would think it myself [and] I could also say it's the best cycling era ever, at least for the GC. This kind of competition with Remco, Jonas and Primož, it's just incredible … I think we can all enjoy this moment of cycling. It's beautiful in my opinion."
At just 25 years old, Pogacar has already established himself as a legend, but he'll only look to further submit his cycling legacy in the coming years.