Tadej Pogacar won the Tour de France for the third time and celebrated in style with a victory in Sunday’s final stage — a time trial ending in Nice.
The 25-year-old Slovenian rider became the first cyclist to secure the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year since the late Marco Pantani in 1998.
Two-time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark was second overall. He also finished the 21st and final stage in second place.
Ottawa’s Derek Gee finished ninth overall, just the third Canadian to finish in the top 10. Steve Bauer was fourth in 1988 and Ryder Hesjedal was fifth in 2010. Gee will represent Canada at the Paris Olympics.
Pogacar won the 34-kilometer (21-mile) time trial on the French Riviera’s roads from Monaco to Nice in 45 minutes, 24 seconds. Vingegaard was 1 minute, 3 seconds behind him and Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel 1:14 back in third spot.
In the overall standings, Vingegaard finished 6:17 behind Pogacar and Evenepoel was third overall, 9:18 behind Pogacar — whose other Tour wins came in 2020 and 2021.
The race did not finish in Paris as it usually does because of the Olympic Games. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi called the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the southern French Alps “perfect cycling territory.”
Pogacar held out three fingers as the finish line and a sixth stage win approached on this year’s Tour — the same number of stages he won when dominating the Giro d’Italia.
It was Pogacar’s biggest winning margin of his three Tour wins — beating the 5:20 gap on Vingegaard three years ago, but below the 7:29 victory margin Vingegaard enjoyed over Pogacar last year.
Source Agencies
