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Monday, July 22, 2024

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2024 Tour de France | 2024 Giro d'Italia

I intend to live forever. So far, so good. - Steven Wright

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Upcoming racing:

• July 27 - August 11: Olympic cycling

Latest completed racing:

• June 29 - July 21: Tour de France
• June 9 - 26: Many National Championships
• June 15 - 18: La Route d'Occitanie Cancelled because security forces busy with Olympics
• June 9 - 16: Tour de Suisse
• June 12 - 16: Baloise Belgium Tour
• June 2 - 9: Critérium du Dauphiné
• June 5 - 9: ZLM Tour
• June 7: GP Canton Aargau
• June 2: Brussels Cycling Classic

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Tour de France stage 21 reports

We posted the race organizer's report with the results.

Here's the stage 21 report from second-place Jonas Vingegaard's Team Visma | Lease a Bike:

The Tour de France is over. With Jonas Vingegaard's second place, Team Visma | Lease a Bike finished on the final podium of the world's biggest cycling race for the sixth time in a row. Satisfaction and pride prevail at the Dutch team.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike started the Tour de France three weeks ago in Florence, Italy, with some doubts. Due to a heavy crash in the Tour of the Basque Country, leader Vingegaard was not quite at his best at the start. Although the two-time Tour winner started with a clearly stated ambition, he fell just short against overall winner Tadej Pogacar, partly due to the lack of perfect preparation.

Jonas Vingegaard finishes stage 20. Sirotti photo

The highlight was experienced by Team Visma | Lease a Bike in stage 11 towards Le Lioran. Vingegaard sprinted to victory in the Massif Central after an exciting stage. Team Visma | Lease a Bike finished on the podium in nine of the 21 stages and, in addition to Vingegaard, also saw Matteo Jorgenson finish in the top ten of the general classification.

The team reached Nice, due to the upcoming Olympics in Paris for once the finishing place, with all eight riders. In addition to Vingegaard and Jorgenson, also Wout van Aert, Wilco Kelderman, Tiesj Benoot, Christophe Laporte, Jan Tratnik and Tour debutant Bart Lemmen finished in one piece in the southern French city.

Vingegaard summed up his feelings after his fourth Tour de France podium finish in a row in words. “At the beginning of the year I would have been disappointed with second place. But if you had told me three months ago after the crash that I would be able to finish second in the Tour, I wouldn't have believed it myself. I had doubts that I would ever be on the bike at all, let alone be able to return to level. To finish on the podium again this year and win a stage, that is definitely more than I could have dreamed of a few weeks ago,” stated the Dane.

“From the moment I was allowed to leave intensive care and the hospital in mid-April, only the Tour de France was in my head,” Vingegaard continued. “I was happy that I was able to make it to the Tour. Now it's time to put things into perspective. I've hardly had time for that in the past few months. I want to congratulate Tadej wholeheartedly. He is absolutely the deserved winner of this Tour de France. We made it, especially in the first two weeks, another great battle. With a super strong Team Visma | Lease a Bike we gave him a hard time, but Tadej was clearly the strongest this year. I myself am a more than satisfied person. I have suffered the last three weeks, but strengthened by my family and by a great team, I also enjoyed a great Tour de France. It is a privilege to be a professional cyclist."

Here’s the report from third-place Remco Evenepoel's Team Soudal Quick-Step:

Remco Evenepoel wrote history by becoming the first Belgian rider in 43 years to finish the Tour de France on the overall podium after an incredible three weeks during which he demonstrated his knack to thrive under pressure and established himself as one of the world’s foremost Grand Tour racers.

Remco Evenepoel (shown after stage 16) took home the best young rider's white jersey. Sirotti photo

A debutant in the Grande Boucle, Remco displayed calmness, a maturity beyond his age and an unbelievable consistency, as evidenced by the fact he finished half of the Tour’s stages in the top ten. Regardless of the terrain – and this edition threw all kinds of hurdles into the riders’ way – the former World Champion was always in the thick of the action, giving his best, showing an amazing grinta and fighting for every inch on the road and for every second, backed by a fantastic team that showcased its strength and cohesion on countless occasions.

In Nice, where the Tour de France came to an end for the first time in its 121-year history, Evenepoel concluded the last stage individual time trial on the podium and sealed a remarkable third place in the general classification – the cherry on the cake of a race which saw him take a stage victory as well as become the first Belgian winner of the prestigious white jersey and a result that left him overcome with emotion.

"It wasn’t an easy season, with that crash in the Basque Country that forced me to miss important racing days and the recovery, so to be on the podium of the Tour de France at my first appearance, after three long and demanding weeks, is a great achievement. I took a win, I took the white jersey, so I don’t have any regrets after this race, it was an incredible level here and I did my best every single time.”

“I want to thank my family and my Soudal Quick-Step team for their support and for believing in me, I couldn’t have done it without them. From here, I will go to Paris for the Olympics, where I hope to be in the mix for a nice result. We’ll see how that goes, but I carry a lot of confidence after these three unforgettable weeks. I hope I have made my countrymen proud”, a visibly emotional Evenepoel said in Nice, where he became the youngest Belgian rider in more than five decades to be on the Tour de France podium.

For the first time in the team’s history, Soudal Quick-Step had two riders in the top ten overall. Mikel Landa was of invaluable help for Remco Evenepoel in the mountains, guiding the Belgian through the Alps and Pyrenees in the latter’s attempt to finish on the final podium, but the Basque exceeded everyone’s expectations – including those he had before the start – by producing a vintage ride in his seventh appearance on the biggest race in the world.

“This Tour has been a hard race, but we achieved our goal of finishing with Remco on the podium. Our team, and Remco too, kept getting better and better and improving over the past three weeks, and I think we can look at this Tour as an important cornerstone for the future. The race was hard, but we showed that we were capable of doing a great Tour de France. Remco was under a lot of pressure, as people had many expectations from him, but he remained calm and put in an impressive ride. As a team, we kept a strong morale and remained confident the entire time.”

“On a personal level, I didn’t expect to have such a good race. Coming to the start, I was thinking more that I would help Remco and lose time on the climbs, but then I felt better and better with each day and now I am really happy to be in the top five here. It’s an important and morale-boosting result going into the next races in the second part of the season”, said Mikel after racking up his ninth top ten finish in a Grand Tour.

Here's the Tour stage 21 report from King of the Mountains Richard Carapaz's Team EF Education-EasyPost:

Tonight, we’re celebrating the end of an unforgettable Tour de France on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice.

As the sun set over the Mediterranean, Richard Carapaz smiled from the top step of the final podium and pulled on the polka dot jersey that he won in the Tour’s best climber classification.

Richie’s King of the Mountains win is a team victory. He could not have won it without the efforts that every one of his teammates put in to make sure he made the right breaks to go for points at the summits of the hardest mountains on the course. The same holds true for his stage 17 win, his day in the yellow jersey, and his super-combativity award.

King of the Mountains Richard Carapaz. Sirotti photo

From the grand depart in Florence three weeks ago, across the Pyrenees and Alps, to today’s final time trial up and over La Turbie, we attacked all 21 stages of this Tour de France with determination and grit, drawing on the indomitable creative spirit that inspires us to make our mark on France's great race, as well as the cheers of the crowds.

Tour rookies Ben Healy, Marijn van den Berg, and Sean Quinn rode their hearts out and can now call themselves Tour de France racers. Congratulations. We know you will be back for more.

Veterans Rui Costa, Neilson Powless, and Stefan Bissegger were consummate teammates, leading out sprints, closing gaps when the race split in crosswinds, and making the breaks in the mountains. There was no job that they were not willing to do. Thank you, Rui, Neilson, and Stefan.

Alberto Bettiol had to leave the race early. We’ll miss him tonight, but will never forget the contributions he made during the first half of the race and the joy he shared with us when we were racing on his home roads during the first three stages in Italy.

Richie showed what we have always known: he is one of the most exciting bike racers in the peloton, with the talent to go toe-to-toe against the best in the world on the hardest terrain in the hardest race in the world. Congratulations, Richie. Congratulations team!

You rode one heck of a great Tour de France!

Richard Carapaz
It’s been a really hard Tour and today my legs are sore. I am very tired, but happy. It was a really nice Tour in the end. When I got to Italy, where we started, I had some doubts because of the crash. I wasn’t in good health. I hadn’t found my form. But over the duration of the Tour, I’ve gotten better and better, and for me that’s been super good. By the second week, I’d found my legs and then I knew what I could do. That’s what’s been the best for me, finishing the week the way we have, winning the stage, being the King of the Mountains champions, and in the way that we’ve shown we can do it.

For me, this is the best team to work with, because we were all very clear on what our goals were and that helped us a lot with our objectives. That is what made the difference. We’re a team that works as a team. Personal results are for the whole team – the riders, the staff – everyone has worked super well this whole Tour.

My favorite memory is my stage win. That was the best feeling, because it was a very, very hard day and it was one of those days I had marked down that I wanted to go for it. That it happened was huge.

Rui Costa
This Tour has been an experience. It’s been familiar in a way, but also different. The past three weeks were very fast and hard. The pace during the mountain stages was so fast. And then the stages that maybe one would think would be calmer were raced at an incredible speed too. It has been a very exhausting Tour. We had a good time and I think the team did a great job. From the first week to the last, we were very active.

Marijn and Ben and Sean, who were doing their first Tour de France, did a great Tour de France. They took it all in and learned how to manage the efforts. Richard showed that he really is a special rider. He achieved great things for us and we are very happy about that.

It was a very nice group, a very united group. Everyone knew what they had to do. We are professionals. No one had to insist, you do this, you do that. Everyone did their job. And I think that because of that, we have achieved very interesting things for the team, for all the sponsors, for the staff. It is also important to remember all these people, all of the staff beyond us eight riders. It was important for us to give joy to the whole team, to the sponsors, to the staff, who are behind the scenes doing a great job. We are proud to get all these results here in the Tour. Thanks to them.

My favorite memory was when Richard got the yellow jersey. That was a very special moment for me here in the Tour, that day when Richard became the leader of the Tour de France.

Ben Healy
On a personal level, I'm really, really proud of where I got to and how I raced this race. Unfortunately, I got a bit sick in the last week, but sometimes you can't help that. I was still able to help the team where I could. Overall, it was a really good race.

We came into it with Richie not really knowing where he was at, which made for a last minute switch up in plans, but everyone really just bought into the plan. Every day, we had a different leader. On some levels, that actually helps a lot, because everyone knew they were going to get their chance. If you did your job for this guy, this guy's going to pay you back. That really, really helped this team bond.

It was a different sort of way to race and that really helped us. Everyone was fully committed every day. By the end, Richie was flying. We all came together and that helped him get his stage win. My favorite memory is coming across the line and hearing that Richie won. I’d had a pretty tough day that day and was really slogging it home. We had lost the radio connection over the mountain so we didn't know if he’d won or not. And then people started chanting to me and Neilson. We were like, “Richie, has he done it or has he not?” When we finally found out, it was just this massive relief, because we'd been fighting for this for almost three weeks at that point. That he could finally pull it off was just an amazing moment for the whole team.

Stefan Bissegger
I feel pretty tired. I suffered a lot over the past week and am happy that it is over now, but we had a good race.

We started out really well. We took the races in our hands and made them hard and tried to put our stamp on the races, which worked out really well. At the end, we have a big reward with Richie having a stage win, being in yellow, and also now winning the polka dots jersey.

We had really good team spirit. Everybody was happy. I was hoping for a bit more in the TT myself, but it was a bit too hard, and I didn't have my best day. But we had a good time all together. When we decided we'd do something, we really did it, which was super nice and also made it a lot easier for us. Richie winning was my favorite memory.

 Sean Quinn
Talking to all the directors and staff and riders who have done the Tour in the past, we had a really good Tour. We set the goal of winning stages. That was the main item to check off the list, which we did.

And then, this goal with the polka dots came late, but we still got it done. We're all just really proud of the way we raced every day. We took every opportunity we could. My role was mostly to work for the team, but I'm super proud of the way I was able to do that and help Richard.

Having a good group around the dinner table is so important. Obviously, you still want guys who are fast enough, but if you gel well off the bike you're going to gel together in the race. It was just a fun group around the dinner table and on the bus every day. When you have that connection off the bike, it makes racing together so much easier and you actually want to help each other in the race.

The last night before the time trial is my favorite memory, just sitting around, hanging out with everyone, enjoying it while we're all still together. It feels like the group has just come closer and closer. There’s a ton of staff here. At the beginning, there were almost too many people to really feel comfortable around everyone, but last night the whole group was there and just enjoying it. The Tour has gone well so it was just a happy moment together.

Neilson Powless
I finished this Tour really strong. The last two days were exciting, going for the mountain points with Richie. I felt like I was able to play a pretty important role for him.

I'm really, really happy with the way I finished the Tour and the way that the team finished the Tour. I still wish I could have won a stage myself, but it was a pretty incredible Tour for the team, so I'm happy.

The energy in the team was nice. It was always really relaxing around the table, and in the race we always had a super clear goal that everyone was committed to every day. We were in the race every day, sprinting with Marijn or going for breakaway with pretty much everyone. Every day was pretty exciting. My favorite memory was having Richie in yellow. That was pretty awesome.

Marijn van den Berg
I’m tired but happy I made it. With Richie, we had a great leader in the team at the end and we really had something to work for. That inspired me to go a little bit deeper. I couldn't do much, but wanted to do every bit I could.

This Tour was really intense. It was a nice experience for me to get up there in the sprints and learn from that as well. That experience will be really important when I come back here. I have to improve some things, but that also gives a lot of motivation to train again and come back a little bit stronger and be able to fight for victory, because that's what I'm cycling for.

We had a super nice team here. Everybody wanted to work for each other. That was really, really special and made these three weeks together a lot easier.

I really enjoyed these three weeks actually. My birthday was really special. We had it with the whole team. But my favorite racing memory was doing the lead out with Richie on my wheel. That was a special experience.

And here's the Tour de France stage 21 report from Dylan Groenewegen's Team Jayco-AlUla:

Team Jayco AlUla leave the 2024 Tour de France satisfied after a fully committed and successful performance across a relentless three weeks of racing from Florence to Nice.

The Australian squad got back to winning ways at Le Tour with sprint star Dylan Groenewegen returning to the top step of the podium thanks a scintillating sprint victory on stage six.

Dylan Groenewegen wins stage six. ASO photo

The team continued to hunt for glory across all terrain, racking up further top-10 results throughout the three weeks, including two top-three finishes for British climber Simon Yates.

Sprint Success
After a brutal start to the race in Italy, the sprinters finally got their chance to do their thing on stage three, with Groenewegen showing he had the speed, but not the space as he sprinted to fifth place in Torino.

A frustrating stage five saw the powerful Dutchman out of contention for the win in a messy finish, but he bounced back in style on stage six as he finished off an impressive team performance to claim his sixth Tour de France stage win.

Aggressive Approach
An illness for Yates scuppered the team’s general classification ambitions, but it didn’t dent their drive to go on the offensive in their search for more victories. That determination was on show when former stage winner Michael Matthews put it all on the line on the much anticipated and feared ‘gravel’ stage at the start of the second week.

As the carnage ensued around him, Matthews was in and amongst the chaos as he battled to a strong top-10 result. The four-time Tour de France stage winner also made it into the break of the day on stage 18 as he once again negotiated a hectic and aggressive stage to secure his second top-10 finish of the race.

Won’t Back Down
The final week of racing saw Yates demonstrate his climbing prowess and his pure racing talents as he infiltrated three key breakaways on stages 15, 17 and 19. The former La Vuelta a España champion went closest to victory on stage 17 as he went head-to-head with Richard Carapaz after a daring solo attack on the summit finish to Superdévoluy.

Two days later the 31-year-old was back in breakaway action as he displayed his abilities in the high mountains once more with a hard-fought third place after attempting to hunt down Matteo Jorgensen in a thrilling finale to stage 19.

Simon Yates:
“Not getting sick would have helped, but to be honest I’m actually quite happy I finished, the last couple of Grand Tours I got sick, I didn’t finish because I was so sick. This time I was actually able to recover a little bit and at least try something in the final week and it was good to at least be involved in the race in the final week.

"I think a lot of people are already forgetting that we’ve had a successful Tour, not many teams have actually won a stage, so we’ll celebrate tonight.”

Mat Hayman (Sport Director):
“If you win one stage of the Tour de France, you have to call that a success. We had a bit of a rollercoaster, we were up there on a number of stages, Michael having a good crack a few times, Simon coming very, very close and then Dylan winning and being up their in the sprints.

"So it’s been a great three weeks and I need to thank all the staff and the riders, and everybody who has helped us along the way.”

Victories:
Stage 6 – 1st place – Dylan Groenewegen

Top-5 placings:
Stage 3 – 5th place – Dylan Groenewegen
Stage 17 – 2nd place – Simon Yates
Stage 19 – 3rd place – Simon Yates

Top-10 placings:
Stage 9 – 10th place – Michael Matthews
Stage 12 – 9th place – Dylan Groenewegen
Stage 18 – 10th place – Michael Matthews

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