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Tadej Pogacar Wins Tour de France, Capping Dramatic Comeback
Sep 20, 2020
Tadej Pogacar on Sunday became the youngest champion to win the Tour de France in the post-World War II era, a day after the 21-year-old cyclist took the yellow jersey off the shoulders of his friend and rival Primoz Roglic in an epic time trial that turned the tables of a pandemic-delayed edition of the race. Pogacar, who will turn 22 on Monday, also became the first rider from Slovenia to win the Tour, and the first to claim three of the event’s simultaneous competitions in the same year: the yellow jersey for the general classification, the polka dot one as the race’s top climber, and the white jersey awarded to the Tour’s best young rider. Sam Bennett of Ireland won Sunday’s 21st stage in a sprint on the Champs-Élysées but, keeping with tradition on the race’s final day, the cyclists rode at a slower pace than the one they had maintained for three weeks, and the overall standings remained unchanged from Saturday’s penultimate stage.
All eyes were turned on Pogacar, though, who on Saturday had accomplished what many thought impossible: He wiped out Roglic’s 57-second lead by beating his rival by almost two minutes in a time trial. In doing so, he opened an insurmountable lead of his own entering the final day.
Pogacar’s dramatic finish lit up a Tour that took place amid stringent coronavirus-related regulations — imposed by both Tour organizers and French health officials — that affected everything from how the teams competed in the race to how the fans watched it from the roadside. This year’s Tour might not have been as spectacular as last year’s edition, when Colombia’s then 22-year-old Egan Bernal became, at the time, its youngest champion since World War II. But the rivalry between Pogacar and Roglic, two friends from Slovenia, kept the race captivating as it became clear in the final week that one of them would win the Tour. Throughout this year’s 2,165-mile-long journey, many focused not so much at who might win but at all the things that could go wrong. The race had already been pushed out of its traditional summer window by the pandemic, and in recent weeks France, one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, has seen a surge of new infections. Even as the race wound its way across the country’s roads and up and down mountain passes, local authorities have reimposed restrictions to contain new outbreaks. Taking hundreds of cyclists and staff around France in that context seemed a risky endeavor. But organizers went ahead anyway, even as the Tour’s race director and several team members tested positive and entered isolation. Fans were scarcer during many stages, and their access to start and finish areas limited. Selfies and autographs were forbidden, and masks were everywhere. On Sunday in Paris, hundreds lined up on the Champs-Élysées and around the Arc de Triomphe plaza to congratulate the 146 remaining riders, as they rode on Paris’ most famous avenue.
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