PARIS \u2014 Tadej Pogacar confirmed his status as one of cycling’s all-time greats after winning a record-equaling fifth\u00a0Tour de France\u00a0title in emphatic style.<\/p>\n
Daring mountain attacks from deep, multiple stage wins and an ice-cool temperament all helped the 27-year-old Slovenian seal his victory on Sunday. He joined Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only riders to win five Tours.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m speechless. It\u2019s an incredible day, there was an incredible atmosphere,” Pogacar said. \u201cI\u2019ve ridden seven Tours already and I\u2019ve always finished on the podium. You might think this is a fairytale, it\u2019s incredible for me too.\u201d<\/p>\n
After competing strongly in Sunday\u2019s 21st and exciting final stage in Paris, Pogacar finished 6 minutes, 26 seconds ahead of Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel in the overall standings.<\/p>\n
Two-time Tour champion Jonas Vingegaard was Pogacar\u2019s main rival heading into the race, but the Dane\u00a0crashed out\u00a0on the 15th stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cShame that Jonas and others crashed out of this Tour,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cI hope we can all fight again next year.”<\/p>\n
Pogacar\u2019s UAE Team Emirates XRG teammate Isaac Del Toro, a 22-year-old Mexican making his\u00a0Tour debut, was third at 9:42 back from Pogacar, who smiled and held up his hand to signify his wins. His teammates then joined him as they stood proudly on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how I do it,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cI now have to find a new goal to chase. Which goal? Let\u2019s just not jump ahead of ourselves, and enjoy this moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pogacar\u00a0won the Giro d\u2019Italia in 2024\u00a0but has not won the Spanish Vuelta, which starts on Aug. 22.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill I be at La Vuelta in a few weeks?\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pogacar won five stages at this year\u2019s race to take his impressive tally to 26 overall.<\/p>\n
He tried to win on Sunday, too, but victory ultimately went to Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who just held off the chasing pack on the home straight for his\u00a0second stage win\u00a0at this year’s race and fourth overall.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s 88.7-kilometre (55-mile) stage looped around Paris and was mostly processional, although less so than in previous years, which were usually entirely flat stages for sprinters and not for the rest of the peloton.<\/p>\n
The stage was shortened from 133 kilometers and its starting point in Thoiry, west of the capital, was changed to Paris so as to reduce pressure on emergency services\u00a0combating wildfires\u00a0in the southwest. Some security forces initially mobilized for Paris were redeployed to help response efforts.<\/p>\n
For the second straight year, the stage featured the hugely popular uphill climb through the\u00a0Montmartre\u00a0district, a sharp one-kilometre dash which riders tackled three times before finishing on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es.<\/p>\n
It proved even too much for Pogacar, who could not match Van der Poel’s raw power in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
Shortly before 6 p.m. local time, Pogacar shook hands at the start line with Evenepoel and Ecuadorian veteran\u00a0Richard Carapaz, wearing the polka-dot jersey for the best climber.<\/p>\n
\u201cI battled hard to win this jersey; it was a great fight,\u201d the 33-year-old Carapaz said. \u201cIt\u2019s the best feeling to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van der Poel and Dane Mads Pedersen, the green jersey winner as best sprinter, were among the expected contenders for the stage win.<\/p>\n
Crowds roared as the riders began the first climb up Rue Lepic in Montmartre, with the famed Sacr\u00e9-Coeur basilica looming over them.<\/p>\n
Pogacar moved ahead after the second ascension of Montmartre, with Van der Poel, Evenepoel and Pedersen alongside him.<\/p>\n
Van der Poel attacked on the third and final climb with Pogacar responding well, and the\u00a0one-day classics rivals\u00a0surged ahead.<\/p>\n
But they were caught with 700 meters left and, after Pogacar faded, the 31-year-old Van der Poel still had work to do.<\/p>\n
He got his bike just over the line ahead of Belgian Jasper Philipsen, his Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate, and Pedersen. Pogacar eased up and finished 30th.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought the sprinters would catch us up so I launched (my attack) from very far away,\u201d Van der Poel said. \u201cI gave everything I had left in my legs and it was just enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Van der Poel is widely considered one of the best cyclists in the world. He has multiple victories in one-day classics and Cyclo-cross world championship titles, and is also a former world road race champion.<\/p>\n
His father Adri van der Poel won two stages on the Tour in the late 1980s.<\/p>\n
His maternal grandfather was French cyclist\u00a0Raymond Poulidor, who raced in the 1960s and \u201970s, finishing second on the Tour three times and third five times. Nicknamed \u201cPoupou\u201d and \u201cThe Eternal Runner-up,\u201d he was adored by French fans.<\/p>\n
The nine-stage women\u2019s Tour starts in the Swiss city of Lausanne on Aug. 1 and finishes in Nice on Aug 9.<\/p>\n
Frenchwoman\u00a0Pauline Ferrand-Pr\u00e9v\u00f4t\u00a0won on debut last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS \u2014 Tadej Pogacar confirmed his status as one of cycling’s all-time greats after winning a record-equaling fifth\u00a0Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":827987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-827986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}