NICE, France (AP) — Tadej Pogacar won the Tour de France for the third time and celebrated in style with a victory in Sunday’s final stage — a time trial ending in Nice.
The 25-year-old Slovenian rider became the first cyclist to secure the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year since the late Marco Pantani in 1998.
Two-time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark was second overall. He also finished the 21st and final stage in second place.
Pogacar won the 34-kilometer (21-mile) time trial on the French Riviera’s roads from Monaco to Nice in 45 minutes, 24 seconds. Vingegaard was 1 minute, 3 seconds behind him and Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel 1:14 back in third spot.
In the overall standings, Vingegaard finished 6:17 behind Pogacar and Evenepoel was third overall, 9:18 behind Pogacar — whose other Tour wins came in 2020 and 2021.
The race did not finish in Paris as it usually does because of the Olympic Games. Nice mayor Christian Estrosi called the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the southern French Alps “perfect cycling territory.”
From early Sunday morning, fans camped along the popular Promenade des Anglais in Nice to guard a spot that would offer the best glimpse of cyclists.
Some fans chanted “Remco, Remco” as the race-against-the-clock specialist zoomed past them.
They may have been surprised to see Pogacar going flat out.
After his explosive attack on Friday, Pogacar said he would not try to win Saturday’s stage. But the UAE Team Emirates rider could not resist and won that to become the second man to win five mountain stages in one Tour after Italian rider Gino Bartali in 1948.
Pogacar had no need to attack on Sunday, either, considering he led Vingegaard overnight by more than five minutes.
But the lure of another stage win proved too strong and he flew down the winding roads past picturesque Èze and Villefranche-sur-Mer on the approach to Nice, where the route flattened out again.
Pogacar held out three fingers as the finish line and a sixth stage win approached on this year’s Tour — the same number of stages he won when dominating the Giro d’Italia.
It was Pogacar’s biggest winning margin of his three Tour wins — beating the 5:20 gap on Vingegaard three years ago, but below the 7:29 victory margin Vingegaard enjoyed over Pogacar last year.
The battle with Vingegaard was not as close as it might have been in different circumstances.
The 27-year-old Vingegaard was hospitalized for nearly two weeks in April following a high-speed crash in the Tour of the Basque Country. He resumed competitive racing only on this Tour.
Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz won the best climber’s polka dot jersey while Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay won the top sprinter’s green jersey and the 24-year-old Evenepoel capped a fine debut Tour with the white jersey for best young rider.
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Associated Press writer Barbara Surk in Nice contributed to this report.
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