Last Etape Champion, Tadedj Pogacar Wins Tour De France 2024 Title

Tadedj Pogacar became the first racer to win the Giro d'Italia doubles title and Tour de France (photo: x @letour)

JAKARTA - Tadedj Pogacar became the first racer to win the Giro d'Italia doubles title and Tour de France since 1998 after winning his third Tour de France on Sunday, July 21. Pogacar confirmed his dominance by winning the last stage, making him a total of six etape wins.

The Slovenian racer defeated defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark and Belgium's Remco Evenepoel, who finished second and third overall and in the last stage, with a time difference of six minutes 17 seconds.

"I'm so happy, I can't describe how happy I am after two difficult years at the Tour de France, there's always been a mistake and this year, everything is perfect," said Pogacar.

Pogacar won a 33.7 km individual time trial from Monaco to Nice with 45 minutes 24 seconds, beating his rivals by a one-minute three-second gap from Vingegaard, the winner of the last two Tours. Despite starting the final day with a sizeable advantage, Pogacar did not play safe and again showed his dominance by winning the last stage, winning their third stage in a row, to finish the Tour in a style.

Eritrean's racer, Biniam Girmay, won the green jersey for point-classification, while Ecuador's Richard Carapaz won the polkadot jersey for mountain classification. The Pogacar team, UAE Team Emirates, won the team's classification, while Evenepoel, who won the time trial stage seven, won the white jersey for the best young racer in his first Tour, finished 9:18 behind Pogacar.

Tour de France this time finished outside Paris for the first time in 121 years history, due to preparations for the upcoming Olympics and this is also the first time the Tour has ended in a time trial since 1989. Even so, this time it was not as dramatic as Greg LeMond's time to beat Laurent F fire on the last day, due to Pogacar's very dominant advantage.

Pogacar took the lead since winning etape four, widening the gap to more than three minutes after winning etape 14 and 15, before two consecutive wins at etape 19 and 20 almost confirmed their overall win.

Vingegaard joined the Tour this year after three months of not competing due to a fractured lung injury and ribs at the Tour of the Basque Country. Even though he failed to defend his title, he managed to win one stage.

In etape 11, Vingegaard held Pogacar to win the stage, and moved up to second after finishing runner-up at etape 14. Evenepoel, who hopes to repeat a previous time trial victory, was soon passed by Vingegaard at the first checkpoint. However, when Pogacar started the race, it was clear he was determined to win etape, showing his dominance on the Tour this time.

No racer has completed the Giro/Tour doubles since the late Marco Pantani, and Pogacar became the eighth racer to achieve this feat after also winning six etapes on his way to winning Giro.

"I think it's the first Grand Tour where I'm really confident every day, even at Giro I remember I had a bad day but I won't tell you which one," Pogacar said. "This year's Tour de France was really amazing and I enjoyed it from day one until today.