Tour de France Reflections

I’m not sure where to start. What a race!

This post will be a little bit different from what I normally write after Grand Tours. But this was a special race, so it deserves a special essay. And to be honest, I’m looking to change things up with this blog. I haven’t been getting the engagement I was hoping for at this point, 15 months in, despite my Twitter account gaining steam. In addition, I have been disappointed with my own writing, particularly during the Tour. Despite pumping out a decent amount of content, my recaps basically boiled down to simple play-by-plays, which is not what I set out to do when I started this blog. Hopefully, I can start to make more progress on readership and writing quality.

It’s impossible to tell every story in a Grand Tour, let alone in a single essay. But I will try to tell what I consider some of the most important ones.

First, I’ll run through the top 15 in the final GC and compare my predictions with the results.

1). Tadej Pogacar 83:38:56 2). Jonas Vingegaard +6:17 3). Remco Evenpoel +9:18 4). Joao Almeida +19:03 5). Mikel Landa +20:06 6). Adam Yates +24:07 7). Carlos Rodriguez +25:04 8). Matteo Jorgenson +26:34 9). Derek Gee +27:21 10). Santiago Buitrago +29:03 11). Giulio Ciconne +30:32 12). Simon Yates +39:04 13). Guillaume Martin +43:49 14). Felix Gall +46:12 15). Laurens De Plus +46:24

My prediction was 1). Pogačar 2). Adam Yates 3). Primoz Roglic 4). Remco 5). Rodriguez 6). Jorgenson 7). Egan Bernal 8). Almeida 9). Buitrago 10). Landa

So I had most of the top 10, just not in order except for Pogi winning. I did not expect Jonas to be nearly as strong as he was, which is why I predicted a DNF. Remco took a deserved third, one place higher than I had him finishing. Almeida flew in fourth, higher than I expected despite working for Pogi (though he almost never pulled so hard for his leader that he cooked himself). Landa did his best-ever Grand Tour performance at age 34 and finished fifth, even after doing a death pull for Remco on Stage 20 and losing a bit of time to Almeida, which sealed the fourth/fifth battle. That being said, I never really noticed Landa working for Remco besides on the final mountain (but it was not really necessary with UAE and Visma at the front the rest of the race). Adam Yates was a bit worse than I expected, but fully sacrificed himself for Pogi at all times necessary. I also believe he was a bit ill for part of the Tour. However, my thinking he could beat any one of the Big Four was delusional even at his best. Rodriguez finished two spots lower than I predicted, but was an enormous 25 minutes behind Pogi when all was said and done. That’s perhaps a bit worse than I expected, but really he was probably the most overrated GC rider in the pre-race discourse. Jorgenson had a great Tour, and even though I thought he would finish a bit higher, he had a crash in week one and also worked hard for Jonas most of the time. Gee rode amazingly well to secure ninth place; I did not expect him to contest GC so strongly. Buitrago finished 10th, one spot lower than I predicted, overhauling Ciconne on the final time trial. That’s a great result for the Colombian.

As for the guys I picked who did not make the cut, Roglic crashed out and Bernal was simply awful, finishing 29th on GC, over two hours down and not competing on any stages. Roglic would have likely finished fourth if he had stayed upright. Bernal just had a bad Tour, and should have ridden the Giro.

Other GC takes:

Most of the riders I counted out indeed could not compete with the onslaught of climbing records not only from Pogacar, but from Jonas and sometimes Remco too. Nor could they even hang within a half-hour of the winning time. I’m thinking of guys like Martin, Gall, Enric Mas, Richard Carapaz, and Louis Meintjes.

My worst prediction was that Jonas would show up, get crushed, and DNF. But he was so strong, there were moments during the race when he was the betting favorite to win the Tour de France. He fought valiantly to the end, reached a higher level than ever before, and was obviously the second-best rider in the race. Chapeau.

I wonder where Juan Ayuso and Aleksandr Vlasov would have finished in the end, had they not abandoned. I’d put Ayuso in fifth and Vlasov in 12-15th, in part because he had shipped time early working for Roglic.

Overall, almost every other GC contender finished the race except Roglic, which is nice to see (though obviously even more devastating for the Slovenian veteran).

To finish in the top 10 in this year’s Tour de France is an immense accomplishment, considering the level was clearly the highest it has ever been, and almost every one of the top 20 GC riders in the world showed up at the Tour at or near top form, many in better shape than ever before. I’m fairly confident that everybody above eighth place, perhaps even 10th, would have podiumed the Giro d’Italia.

I have a multitude of questions: How many Tours will Pogacar win when all is said and done? Will Jonas, with better preparation, be better next year and will the race be close? Can the level continue to get higher? Can Remco improve enough to get on Pog’s and Jonas’ level? If not, can he stick around after they’re gone and win the Tour de France in his career? Will Roglic ever again compete for the win in France in July? How good can Derek Gee get? Can Almeida or Adam ever win a Grand Tour? What debutants will finish in the top 10 next year? Can INEOS get back on top anytime soon? Who will win La Vuelta?

Ciconne, though he lost 10th place on the final day, outperformed my expectations to finish 11th in GC (though perhaps should have gone stage-hunting). Martin should be happy with 13th considering how gargantuan the gap in level between him and the top guys is. I’m not sure De Plus cares about 15th.

It was a Tour to forget for Simon Yates and Felix Gall, who were fourth and eighth overall in 2023 and the some of the best climbers in the third week of last year’s Tour (Gall in particular). Simon was not awful, getting second and third on a stage from a breakaway, but was never able to compete with the top climbers in the GC cohort. For a rider of his stature, a Grand Tour winner, Simon should be performing better. Gall was indeed awful, achieving nothing. It’s back to the drawing board for those guys.

Finally, I want to give a special shout-out to Steff Cras, a Belgian rider on TotalEnergies, who finished 16th, just three months after brutally crashing out of Itzulia Basque Country (the same crash that wiped out Remco, Roglic, and Jonas). Cras’ injuries were serious, but he fought back and rode a solid Tour. He’s a good rider for that squad; at age 28, even with the crash, he’s having his best season ever. I’d love to see him win his first race soon.

Since I’e already analyzed the GC power rankings, I’ll go through my winners and losers of this Tour de France based on my expectations beforehand, divided into stage results and then jerseys & vibes (combativeness, television/sponsor time, interviews, etc.)

Winners (Stages): Tadej Pogacar, Anthony Turgis, Mark Cavendish, Biniam Girmay, Romain Bardet, Kevin Vauquelin, Victor Campanaerts, Matteo Vercher

Par (Stages) (Not exhaustive): Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Jasper Philipsen, Richard Carapaz, Dylan Groenewegen, UNO-X Mobility, Matteo Jorgenson, Arnaud De Lie

Losers (Stages) (Not exhaustive): Simon Yates, Mathieu van der Poel, Bahrain Victorious, Michael Matthews, Mads Pedersen, Groupama – FDJ, Ben Healy, INEOS Grenadiers, Red Bull – Bora – Hansgrohe, Oier Lazkano, Maxim van Gils, Stephen Williams, Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale

Winners (Jerseys/Vibes): Tadej Pogacar, Biniam Girmay, Richard Carapaz, Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Abrahamsen, Ben Healy, Victor Campanaerts, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet

Losers (Jerseys/Vibes): Jasper Philipsen, Visma | Lease a Bike, Groupama – FDJ

Here are my thoughts about these categorizations:

Pogacar won six stages. He attacked relentlessly, mostly while wearing yellow, and animated the race every chance he got. Nobody in the modern era has ever ridden like he does. It’s a joy to watch. He remained positive and charismatic throughout the race, despite some criticism and stupid questions from journalists. Pog’s victory in the 2024 Tour de France is a W for him and for the sport. He’s the best rider we’ve ever seen, and he should be winning the biggest race and setting records. He has the potential to be an international superstar that transcends cycling. I hope it happens. He deserves it, and cycling does too.

Mark Cavendish broke the record for career stage wins in the Tour de France with 35. It was a beautiful moment for the Manxman. Everybody liked that.

Turgis won a shocking victory for TotalEnergies, the gravel stage no less. That was not a gift. His win was probably the biggest stage win upset of the Tour.

Binaim became the first Black African to win a stage of the Tour (he won three) and to win the Green Jersey. Hopefully, he inspires a generation of Eritrean and African cyclists to make it to the Tour de France. The celebrations in Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, were pandemonium. I can’t wait to see what sort of homecoming parade he gets when he returns home. And he couldn’t be a nicer guy AND importantly speaks flawless English, which is great for his international marketability.

Bardet won the first stage and got the yellow jersey for a day in his final Tour de France. He fought until the end and was honored by his fans in the Massif Central on Stage Eleven. We will miss him.

Vauquelin confirmed his talent by shockingly winning Stage Two for France. He is quite young, so we’ll have to keep an eye on how he progresses.

Campanaerts won Stage Eighteen in lovely fashion and gave a beautiful, tearful interview afterwards. The sacrifices and suffering these guys endure, sometimes just to win one race, are insane.

Vercher was the second-lowest ranked rider in the Tour de France in the PCS ranking before the race, yet he finished second from the breakaway on the stage Campanaerts won. That might be the most surprising stage result of the entire Tour. Good for TotalEnergies; I wrote them off as the worst team in the Tour beforehand, but they in fact were the best French team of all.

Jonas won a stage and finished highly on plenty more. Par.

Remco won a stage and finished highly on plenty more. Par.

Philipsen won three, one less than last year. Not unbelievable, not terrible. Three is still a lot, but it was kind of expected. He lost he green jersey and continued his habit of cutting people off in sprints. That makes him a loser in the vibes classification in my view.

Carapaz won a stage and attacked relentlessly, earning the super-combatif award. He also wore the yellow jersey for a day and won the mountains jersey. All of these achievements are firsts for Ecuador. He salvaged EF Education – EasyPost’s Tour de France. But he still gets a par because he is a Grand Tour winner and has finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours in his career. He should have been better in the GC dust-up.

Groenewegen won a stage but was mostly not competitive in the sprints. Given his career I’ll say one stage is par for the course.

Uno-X Mobility finished second on Stage Two with Jonas Abrahamsen and Alexander Kristoff finished third on a a few stages. They badly wanted a stage win, but that was going to be hard to achieve. Abrahamsen should have won the super-combatif for the whole Tour de France for his ruthless attacking (and strength). He wore polka-dots for much of the race. Magnus Cort generated a lot of engagement by dyeing his mustache blue later in the Tour. Overall, the second-division, low-budget Scandinvian side earned a lot of attention and positive reactions for their role in this Tour de France.

Jorgenson finished second on a stage from the breakaway and rode with the GC group on many of the mountain stages. That’s about what I expected from him.

Arnaud De Lie finished top-five on five stages, including two thirds. He performed better than I expected from bunch sprints, but did not really come too close to winning. So that’s a par for him.

As the race has 176 riders and only 21 stages, there were obviously a lot of losers. But in particular, I want to highlight some riders and teams that really failed this July.

Simon Yates had a second and third, but a rider of his caliber should be winning from breakaways if they don’t go for GC.

MVDP did absolutely nothing besides a few leadouts. It was a Tour without many stages suited to him, but he still did not perform at anywhere near his Classics level.

Bahrain Victorious had COVID in the team, which would explain why they were utterly awful in stage results this year.

Michael Matthews did nothing after riding at his top level in the spring.

Mads Pedersen was sprinting decently, but sadly crashed out. He would have been hoping for a stage win.

Groupama – FDJ was one of the worst performers in the Tour. There were no GC or stage results. They will be devastated. I also gave them a loser for vibes because they normally at least add some character to the race, and I did not see that this year.

Ben Healy was strong as hell in breakaways, but got no results. I gave him a winner for vibes though, he helped Carapaz a lot and Healy’s aggression is awesome to watch. Here’s hoping he gets a bit better and can really wreak havoc in the future.

INEOS Grenadiers did not win a stage, and that has to be considered a major failure for the high-budget British squad, especially with their top GC hope stuck in seventh.

Bora lost Roglic after Vlasov and proceeded to do nothing on any stage. They had the lowest prize money of any team in the race, which is of course utterly disastrous because it correlates pretty closely to UCI points. They are not going to get relegated, but let’s just assume that Red Bull is probably not too thrilled with their investment at the moment.

My man Lazkano was often decently strong, but did not really do anything on any stage, only once finishing fifth. That’s a major disappointment.

Van Gils did finished fifth on the first stage, then did nothing and eventually abandoned. After the first part of the season in which he was inside the top ten riders in the world, that’s a surprise.

Stephen Williams won Fleche Wallonne this year, but he was awful in this Tour de France. His top result was 12th on a stage, and aside from that,never finished about 37th.

Finally, Decathlon has been having a dream year, but in this Tour de France, achieved nothing. I thought it might happen with the team they brought, and unfortunately, it did.

Okay, I think the only rider I haven’t mentioned in the jerseys/vibes category is Remco. He won the white jersey for best young rider and rode a brilliant Tour to finish on the podium. He gave great interviews throughout the race, underscoring his cerebral approach to racing. He has been under immense pressure in the Belgian press since his junior days, and kept a level head for years. Now he’s ridden to third place in the Tour de France in his first appearance. I think he gained a lot of fans this July.

I would be remiss if I did not dedicate a few paragraphs to the best rider in the world, the best rider of all time, who won the Tour de France for the third time in his young career, completing the first Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.

Tadej Pogacar has already won 21 races this year, including a Monument, two Grand Tours, and 12 Grand Tour stages. He also is of course statistically the best rider in the world rankings on ProCyclingStats (the post-Tour UCI rankings will come out tomorrow). For my thread on Twitter analyzing his season thus far in statistics, go here.

Pogacar is finishing 200-kilometer mountain stages by shattering records on legendary climbs in France, rampaging away from a desperate, exhausted, and thoroughly dejected peloton during an 81k solo on the rolling gravel roads of Tuscany, destroying MVDP (the greatest Classics rider ever) on the Flemish cobbles, outsprinting Wout van Aert in Montreal, nearly winning the World Championship Road Race on a rainy day in Scotland against all of the heavy hitters on a Classics parcours, and even annihilating the other hapless GC contenders on tricky descents from the Galibier to Nice.

He is almost more impressive than his statistics indicate. The only races he cannot win are pancake-flat sprint days against the best pure sprinters in the world. That means that he can and will win all five Monuments in his career, the World Championships, and the three Grand Tours (Of course, he is already almost there), and many more important races.

He imposes his will on most races he enters, having stated earlier this year that he wants to be the best-ever cyclist. It would be foolish to bet against him becoming just that when he finally hangs up his wheels. It’s time to start thinking about his legacy, and fortunately he already is.

I’m in awe almost every time Pogacar races. It’s truly something to behold. I don’t foresee any more “I’m gone. I’m dead” moments in the future. I’m going to make another post predicting what his palmares will look like when it’s all said and done. For now, we just have to wait for the Olympic Road Race as the next time he races.

It’s quite sad that the Tour de France has to end for another year. I’m already counting down until the next one. But fortunately, there is an Olympics, another Grand Tour, a World Championships, and another Monument remaining this year. So there will be plenty more cycling to watch in 2024.

That’s it for the 2024 Tour de France. I’ll be back soon.

Jamie

*All results courtesy of ProCyclingStats.com