Slovenia's Tadej Pogačar outraced his top rivals to win the Tour de France

By Willem Marx,

Ayana Archie

Published July 22, 2024 at 3:12 AM AKDT

Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar celebrates Sunday as he crosses the finish line to win the twenty-first stage of the Tour de France cycling race, an individual time trial over 33.7 kilometers (20.9 miles) that started in Monaco and finished in Nice, France.

Tadej Pogačar of Slovenia has won this year’s Tour de France, making it his third championship title.

He beat Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard by 1 minute and 3 seconds during a 21-mile time trial that finished in Nice, France, on Sunday. Pogačar and Vingegaard have developed a rivalry over the years after Pogacar won the Tour de France back-to-back in 2020 and 2021, while Vingegaard won back-to-back in 2022 and 2023.

Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, the reigning world champion in time trials and another of Pogačar’s rivals, finished third.

“I must say how happy I am to win this Tour de France and how crazy the journey was, how crazy the battles we had with Jonas here and Remco,” Pogačar said during the podium ceremony. “It was one of the craziest tours, I think, in the history.

The championship is typically held in the Paris area, but was moved as the city prepares for the Olympics there, which begin Friday.

Pogačar's title was his sixth daily win in the three weeks of the Tour. He also won the sport’s other major race, the Giro D’Italia, earlier this year, making him the first man to win both in a season since the turn of the century.

Corrected: July 22, 2024 at 10:03 AM AKDT

An earlier version of this story mistakenly said that Jonas Vingegaard achieved six daily wins at the Tour de France and also won this year's Giro D’Italia. Those victories were in fact accomplished by Slovenia's Tadej Pogačar.