Five highlights from the year, presented in no particular order. They’re picked for great sport and the value of hindsight.
Second is the Tour de France, named in the whole but picked for several great days along the way that could have been individual highlights but for economy we’ll bundle them together.
Stage 1 had plenty with a long battle to get in the breakaway, the drama of Mark Cavendish being dropped and fighting for the time cut and then Roman Bardet’s breakaway antics, joining team mate Frank van den Broeck to form a tandem that just held off the bunch. There was variety, suspense and even sentimentality with Bardet taking his first ever yellow jersey in his last Tour. Netflix had just released the second series of its “Unchained” product but why subscribe when live TV was more gripping, the script more daring?
Talking of sentimental endings, Stage 5 saw Mark Cavendish get his record-breaking triumph in Saint-Vulbas, coming off Jasper Philipsen’s wheel to win emphatically. If a win was possible it seemed improbable. Until suddenly it wasn’t with 200m to go. Beating Eddy Merckx’s record is a stat but could be short-lived given the appetite of Tadej Pogačar. Cavendish has the widest span of years, winning in 2008 and 2024 alike and that should last a long time. With hindsight the construction of victory was notable, joining a team in search of a purpose and assembling a lead out train, even down to tire selection.
Stage 7 was exciting… for a time trial, the course had a balance of flat sections and twisting roads and Remco Evenepoel won by 12 seconds ahead of Pogačar. With the GC already shaped by the Galibier the best riders were off late so the hotseat occupant kept changing. With hindsight this was a form test that showed Pogačar putting one second per kilometre into Vingegaard.
Would a stage win have changed anything for Ineos? Tom Pidcock came close in Troyes on Stage 9 but lost to underdog Anthony Turgis of the underdog TotalEnergies. Turgis got a fine win after being one of several who had their spring spoiled by the Dwars Door Vlaanderen maxi-crash and the outcome kept changing win with Jasper Stuyven looking a likely winner in the final minutes.
Best of all though we got a big day’s racing with the GC contenders in the mix with Jonas Vingegaard playing it cool by not cooperating with Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel on the grounds that if the trio were able to distance rivals, he’d then be the most exposed to a direct attack. The day may not have killed off “does gravel belong in a stage race?” bait for good but does give a green light to more off-road adventures. One irony with hindsight is that if Pidcock had won then Tour wildcard invitations could be easier inside ASO HQ as Turgis’s win now gives his team a hope of another ride even if they’re up against Tudor… and now Q36.5.
Stage 11 to Le Lioran saw Tadej Pogačar bite off more than he could chew, and Jonas Vingegaard get his come-back win. It was exciting in the moment for another stage of action from start to finish. Some riders warmed-up in anticipation of infiltrating the breakaway, others deliberately did not because they knew it would take an hour or more of relentless racing anyway so why use energy?
Pogačar attacked on the hardest part of the course but Vingegaard got across to him on the following climb, then out-sprinted him in the finish. This rebalanced the race, or at least the script: Pogačar wasn’t invincible. Indeed it wasn’t so much losing the sprint but the way he was reeled back and then looked beatable for the final kilometres. Fortunately on a day when Covid was making its return – this blog was first to report the Bahrain squad quarantining its riders – Pogačar’s pale pallor was just from defeat. With hindsight this was best day for the GC too.
Stage 13 to Pau was the surprise, a day that beat expectations as the bunch split early and 50km/h was covered in the first two hours with Adam Yates as a GC contender in the front echelon forcing other teams to chase. The eighth fastest stage in Tour history and because of a crosswind rather than a tailwind. Jasper Philipsen won after Wout van Aert probably launched too early.
Stage 17 was also a pick, action from start to finish and “two races for the price of one” with the GC contenders making their moves behind . Up ahead Richard Carapaz (pictured in the shadows bridging across) won from the breakaway, the only time the breakaway stayed away in the Alps or Pyrenees and EF had been working hard at trying to win this way and got some just rewards. The glory of the stage was the action from start to finish, to watch the bunch nervous in the opening crosswinds, to see it speed up the Eygues valley and this to continue for hours on end, all with Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel making moves in the finish.
Stage 18 was almost as good too, breakaway action for hours as a big group finally got away and then its participants tried to find a way to win. In the end Michał Kwiatkowski seemed to have the race craft but Victor Campenaerts supplied the power for the win ahead of Mattéo Vercher.
Why the picks?
Got an abiding memory of the Tour? Chances are it’s Pogačar away solo for another stage win, helping himself to lashings of time. Only plenty of days were packed with surprise, and all live from start to finish, mid-week stages as a good as any classics. With depth from a high quality field we got the breakaway world championships day after day.
You might note none of the mentions above have Tadej Pogačar winning but Stage 15 could go on the list as well, the Pla d’Adet finish saw Ben Healy drop David Gaudu in a bid to win the stage but he was mown down by UAE and Tadej Pogačar, there was plenty of sport all day but the suspense fell out in the finish as Jonas Vingegaard lost ground. It was still a big day, just not a top pick. Similarly watching Stage 15 was dramatic all stage, but the knock-out blow halfway up the road to the Plateau de Beille was where any suspense was killed, and with a week left.
With hindsight
Having explored some of the hindsight angles already, to reprise each day rather than the three weeks as whole is because the GC contest fizzled out in the Pyrenees and the return to the Alps just entrenched the podium hierarchy of Pogačar-Vingegaard-Evenepoel who were so far ahead of the rest that you need good powers of recall to name the next three, to save many looking it up João Almeida was fourth at nineteen minutes.
Could a bonus of Pogačar’s win be the Giro-Tour double? It’s possible but so is a winter ascent of K2. The 2024 Giro route was softened and future Giri will held a week closer to the Tour so this year’s conditions suited more than ever. Instead Pogačar’s original motivation of winning a grand tour after a series of defeats and then seeing what happens in July may prompt others to explore this.
Every year when July comes the hope is a GC battle that goes down to the wire but events conspired otherwise. Pogačar’s was injured in 2023, Vingegaard this year but both made commendable returns. The hope is for an even and sustained battle for 2025 even if history cautions otherwise.