Tadej Pogacar's third Tour de France triumph on the 2024 edition will live long in the memory as the Slovenian rider simply towered above his rivals.
As the dust settles on a relentlessly eventful edition, SuperSport looks at how the race was won and lost.
GROWING PAINS
Asked if he might emulate his rival Jonas Vingegaard in growing a moustache, Pogacar smiled and confessed he didn't much need to shave yet. But the feisty Pogacar, who couldn't help but attack whenever things looked dull, has learned his lesson. It could be argued he lost the 2022 and 2023 Tours by failing to keep his powder dry. "This is heavy, stressful," Pogacar complained as he skulked moodily through the second week under strict instructions to keep his self-destructive impulses tethered. In week three, the swagger was back, energy conserved, rivals wilting, he was still munching on his favoured sweets throughout press conferences, still possibly not shaving much, but the boy who threw away two tours had grown into the giant who won two in a single season, completing a landmark Giro-Tour double.
THE 'LITTLE GUY'
To his eternal credit, two-time defending champion Vingegaard stubbornly refused to give up until he was five minutes adrift with two stages to go and little gas left in the tank.
From the off the question loomed large, with only six weeks training, could the softly spoken "little guy" as his Visma teammates call him, cope with a 21-day race? The answer was yes, but the strength needed to attack deep into the third week was missing, robbed by his crash in March. "It's only a few months ago that my loved ones feared for my life," Vingegaard said. "By coming here I have nothing to lose and everything to win. Nobody is going to blame me if I don't win." And so it proved as the Visma chief Grischa Niermann said: "Jonas is second best this year, and we're very proud of him."
CLEMENT CLIMATE
An often overlooked factor in winning and losing races is the elements – sun, wind, rain, cold, everyone has their preference. Four-time Tour winner Chris Froome was famous for faring well in extreme heat and Vingegaard often repeats how he loves to ride with the sun beating down on him.
Pogacar said ahead of week three he had addressed his own aversion to heat. "If you look at when Jonas has dropped me, this may be coincidence, but it has been in great heat and at high altitude, I've been training for both." Until the Tour hit Nice on the final weekend with Pogacar already riding off into the sunset and the silverware in his saddlebag, the mercury had barely bothered him.
COVID COSTS
When Pogacar loped into the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, anyone could see he was under a cloud. His beloved grandfather had passed away and he announced he was getting over a bout of Covid. "It was mild, I already had it once so just a bit of fever, like a cold really," he said.
On first glance, this looked bad for the pretender. But it proved otherwise because it effectively rendered him immune while Ineos, for example, staggered under the weight of the infection spreading through their team. Outside hope Evenepoel was wary, the 2022 Vuelta champion had to quit the 2023 Giro while leading, due to a bout of Covid, and spent this Tour behind a large bright red mask, as if to remind everyone.
SHEER TALENT
The 2024 Tour was sold by the organisers as a four-way struggle between Vingegaard, Pogacar, the long-awaited debutant Evenepoel and the veteran four-time Grand Tour winner Primoz Roglic. But after watching Pogacar romp to his Giro win in May, organisers had to be hoping he couldn't win this year's Tour with such ease. Luckily for the fans, he curbed his enthusiasm. Pogacar has an amazing cycling physique, the best-funded team, the strongest teammates barring Vingegaard's Wout van Aert, and the final vital ingredient, the will to win. "This is racing, expect me to continue," Pogacar often says about his hunger for stage wins.