The 2024 Tour de France has reached its conclusion.
I’m sad that it has to end, but happy with the result.
Stage 16: A sprint stage won by Jasper Philipsen. Biniam Girmay crashed in the final kilometer and limped to the finish; I thought his green jersey dreams were over.
Stage 17: With crosswinds and a 130-kilometer false-flat uphill to start the stage, the battle for the breakaway was fierce. It basically went on for that entire segment (2.5 hours of mayhem) with a group of four riders, none of whom were incredible climbers, dangling off the front for most of that period In the chaos, Biniam defeated Philipsen in the intermediate sprint to all but seal the green jersey. Finally, a massive ensemble of 43 riders slipped away including some major climbing names including Grand Tour winners.
UAE was disinterested despite the obvious likelihood of Pogacar winning the stage if the break was kept on a leash. The leaders got an advantage of nearly 10 minutes before Richard Carapaz attacked on the penultimate climb, dropping everybody and winning the stage ahead of a dejected Simon Yates.
Pogacar also attacked on the penultimate climb but was caught on the descent. It was Remco who gained 12 seconds on Jonas on the final ramp, with Pogacar doing his ridiculous sprint behind (he let Remco go) to take two on Jonas. I don’t think Pogacar should have attacked on the penultimate climb, but who cares I guess? He seems immune to the whole “wasting energy in a Grand Tour” concept.
Stage 18: A nailed on breakaway day in the Alpine foothills. There was a war to get into said break before 33 cyclists went up the road and the peloton took a day off. Victor Campanaerts won an emotional stage ahead of Matteo Vercher (one of the most surprising second places of the season) and Michal Kwiatkowski. Victor gave a lovely interview afterwards and everyone liked that.
Stage 19: Arguably the Queen Stage, not by length or vertical meters, but by the monstrous Bonette in the middle of the stage, three mountains over 2,000 meters, and a MTF on Isola 2000.
I was not certain that Pogacar would have his team control the race, but when Visma sent three riders in the breakaway, including Matteo Jorgenson, the team of the yellow jersey arguably had no choice. Conventional wisdom held that Jorgenson was a satellite rider for the expected attack of Jonas in the peloton, presumably on the Bonette.
But Jonas clearly was not feeling well and never attacked. The German Monster Nils Politt kept the gap at four minutes maximum over the highest pass in France (and in part for this effort, was voted the best domestique of the third week). Politt is really flying right now.
Jorgenson (among other super climbers in the break, including Yates and Carapaz) were going full-gas for the stage win and rode up to the lower slopes of Isola with an advantage of just under four minutes. Pog’s team just needed to reel them in a bit so the Slovenian could attack, pass the breakaway riders one by one, and win another stage.
That is exactly what happened. Pog ruined Jonas and Remco and broke Jorgenson’s heart in the final few kilometers, winning his fourth stage of this Tour de France and putting almost two more minutes into a tearful Jonas and a resilient Remco. If the GC battle was not over after the Pyrenees, it was well and truly done after Isola.
Pogacar did the second-best climb in history on Isola 2000. More information about his effort can be found in the article below.
The speed of his ascent of this mountain went somewhat under the radar, given the GC implications of the stage (which most people found irrelevant due to his already large lead and obvious strength) and what I will call “legendary performance fatigue,” a phenomenon which will be familiar to political analysts. People can only get excited or outraged about shocking events, statements, performances, etc. so many times, and even the second or third of these occurrences cannot generate the same reaction as the first did. And the viral nature of the article covering his Plateau de Beille effort certainly fits the bill of a shocking story.
So with the Tour de France wrapped up, what would happen on Stage 20, the final chance for climbers to snag a stage from the breakaway? Pogacar said in his post-race interview that he would not go for the stage win.
Before I discuss what actually happened the next day, I want to address some of the reactions to Pog’s victory on Stage 19. Some commentators, particularly Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, and Tejay van Garderen, criticized Pogacar harshly for going for extra stage wins when the General Classification was already assured. I obviously find this absurd.
But I was happy to see that the backlash to the backlash was stiff and sweeping, with Twitter, rival cyclists (some of whom were even in the race against Pog) and other commentators defending Pogacar, the first reason for which was the obvious point that it’s the Tour de France, a professional sport, and Pogacar has every right to win as much as he can/wants.
From what I gathered, the vast majority of cycling fans/observers/riders themselves believe that there are no gifts. That’s good.
Stage 20: After a four-hour war with everybody except the top three on GC aiming to get into the breakaway, Pogacar outsprinted Jonas atop the Couillole to win number five of this Tour. It was a thrilling battle, and Pogacar had aimed to let Marc Soler win the stage from the breakaway, but eventually all of the leaders were swept up and the best two climbers of all time contested the stage win, with the yellow jersey easily stamping his authority on the Tour de France. He also easily smashed the climbing record on the Couillole without trying.
Stage 21: Pogacar ruined the competition on the time trial to win by over a minute ahead of Jonas, and Remco took third. The GC positions of the top ten remained the same with the exception of Buitrago overtaking Ciconne for 10th, 29 minutes behind the yellow jersey.
Pogi clinched his third yellow jersey and 17th career Tour de France stage, and is well on his way to establishing himself as the greatest cyclist of all time. More of that later.
Jonas finished second and Remco third, in addition to the white jersey.
I’m going to do a full recap soon. But that’s how the third week played out.
Jamie
Puncheur 
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