2024 Tour de France

On July 21, 2024 the Tour de France ended again. This time ending in Nice instead of the normal Champs-Élysées in Paris due to the arrival of the Olympics. The winner changed hands back to Tadej Pogačar of UAE who had claimed 2020 and 2021, but lost 2022 and 2023 to Jonas Vingegaard.

This tour was going to be insane and delivered - from just a pure bullet point hit list we had prior to the start.

• Tadej Pogačar returning to attempt to claim his 3rd title.
• Jonas Vingegaard returning after a severe crash months prior.
• Sepp Kuss catches COVID-19 and misses out on the 2024 Tour.
• Primož Roglič left Team Visma to join a new team (Bora) and compete for yellow.
• Remco Evenepoel joining his first Tour de France.
• Mark Cavendish doing one last tour to attempt to beat the stage win record.
• Jasper Philipsen returning to attempt another green jersey win.

When the sprint stage rolled around on stage 3 it was hectic finish with a crash occurring at roughly the 2km to go mark - this meant some stage favorites were out of contention with the sprint finish. This time we had Biniam Girmay from Eritrea securing a win and that was historic in itself. We had the first black African cyclist to win a stage and it seemed we had a new top contender for the green jersey.

Stage 4 was our first trip early into the mountains and this stage delivered. The pacing of UAE destroyed the peloton and we quickly saw only the few favorites left in the front of the race with a few kilometers to go on the climb. Tadej attacked and we saw that no one, not even Jonas, could stay on his wheel. With the bonus seconds awarded at top of the climb and end - it was an interesting battle. We had Remco coming in 2nd and Primož 3rd which meant the competition for the yellow jersey was already well underway.

Stage 5 was the stage Mark Cavendish secured a win and broke a nearly 50 year old record of 34 stage wins by a single person. Mark now had 35 wins and sits alone with most stage wins in the Tour de France than anyone else. The last kilometer of this stage was available on my rant about Peacock in this previous blog. It was an excellent final kilometer to watch as Mark moved around to sprint for the finish and succeed.

Stage 7 had the first time trial and we had Remco winning by 12 seconds over Tadej. Remco who crashed off a bridge a few years ago was coming back stronger than ever winning more and more races. When he started the time trial the estimations showed he was going to beat the current record by about a minute, which is insane. Prior to that nearly 170 riders had raced and he was going to be the best time by a minute. It looked to solidify that Remco was a solid contender for the GC (yellow).

Stage 8 was explosive with all the sprinters in contention (no crashes) and Biniam still won. This silenced a few that believed Biniam only won his last stage due to the favorites crashing out. This sprint finish was on a tiny incline so it was pretty cool to see a sprint stage slowing down due to the incline.

Stage 10 came after a rest day and we saw the sprint favorite Philipsen seal the victory over the others by a solid bike length. What I noticed in this sprint is how insane it is to have Mathieu van der Poel (the UCI World Champion) leading Philipsen out - the air stream he generates and thus resting Philipsen's legs gives him such an edge to coast to the finish line with a strong kick. Not all teams are lucky enough to have such a decorated champion leading another out.

Stage 11 ended with a bang having Jonas out sprint Tadej at the finishing line after crawling his way back to Tadej's wheel. This was big news as it showed that Jonas after spending almost 2 weeks in the hospital recovering from a crash was back and ready to compete. However, due to the bonus seconds being at end and top of climb - the only difference between the 2 riders was 1 second when all the bonus seconds were calculated. This was a big sign that the competition to win was going to be close.

Stage 14 came after 2 sprint stages (12, 13) in which Philipsen and Biniam both won one a stage a piece. This stage though was the first sign that Tadej was just the better rider out there - putting 40 seconds on Jonas and 1+ minute on the rest of the top ten. It was quite a sight to watch Team UAE lead Tadej up the climbs until he attacked and went solo the rest of the way up. This would be a pattern we'd see on the next stage (15) as well.

Stage 17 was another stage where the breakaway ended up taking the stage with Richard Carapaz (EF) winning 30 seconds ahead of Simon Yates (UAE). Richard was briefly in the yellow jersey in the beginning of the race, so to win a stage was a pretty large accomplishment for the pink jerseys of EF Education - Easypost. The GC timing stayed the same, but the polka dot jersey was moving closer and closer to Richard.

Stage 18 had the breakaway winning again, but this time the fan favorite Victor Campenaerts took the victory. His interview at the end rivaled Matej Mohoric interview which peeked a light into the life of a pro cyclist. Victor is one who normally is always leading a breakaway, jumping the start in the beginning of every day and such a fun rider to watch compete.

Stage 19 & 20 had Tadej just reinforce he was the best in this year's race. Both stages followed the same type of pattern where the fast pace setting of UAE dropped most of the peloton, then Tadej as the final climb approached would attack and drop the entire field. Of course these stages it went a bit different with others attacking first, but Tadej followed and counter-attacked winning both stages for stage win 4 & 5.

Stage 21 was the last stage and ending on a time trail - Tadej blew my expectations out of the water and beat the best time trial time by over a minute. He even had time at the end of the trial to celebrate and put 6 fingers in the air - for 6 stage wins in the 2024 race. I believe after watching this race that Tadej, assuming he keeps his current pace, will become the greatest of all time.

With another tour over - it'll be interesting to see the recoveries of Primož, Sepp, Jonas and growth of Remco. The upcoming 2025 Tour de France will be bound to pack a punch with either Tadej inching closer to GOAT status or a competitor taking the yellow away.