Was This The Best Tour de France Finish EVER? | GCN Racing News Show

Tadej Pogačar has won his historic fourth Tour de France, but was the real story the revolutionary and chaotic final stage on the cobbles of Montmartre? We break down one of the most exciting finales in recent memory and ask if this new route should be here to stay.
On this week’s GCN Racing News Show, we wrap up the final week of the fastest-ever Tour de France, including Wout Van Aert’s epic win and a look at the final GC standings. We also dive into Pogačar’s uncharacteristic fatigue and his surprising comments about retirement after the Los Angeles Olympics.

Plus, we cover the action-packed opening stages of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, say a fond farewell to Geraint Thomas’s Tour career, and round up the news from the Tour de Wallonie and the MTB European Championships.

⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 – Intro
00:26 – The Fastest Tour de France In History
00:58 – Pogačar’s Fourth Victory & Uncharacteristic Fatigue
02:16 – Pogačar Hints At Retirement
03:31 – The Montmartre Finale: A Change For The Better?
04:46 – Van Aert’s Epic Stage Win
06:20 – Final TdF GC & Jersey Round-Up
10:42 – A Fond Farewell To Geraint Thomas
11:25 – Goodbye ITV Cycling
12:13 – Tour de France Femmes Kicks Off!
15:38 – Tour de Wallonie & MTB European Champs News

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Welcome back to the GCN racing news show. Coming up this week, after an epic stage into Paris, should Mont Mart be a permanent inclusion on stage 21 of the Tour to France? I’ll be asking that question as well as wrapping up the final week of the race. How Pagata is thinking of retirement sooner than we thought, plus the opening stages of the tour to France fam, and the tour to Wallani. This week in the world of racing, we learned that whilst Quinn Simmons may not have got that elusive stage win at the Tour to France, he did get engaged. He proposed to his girlfriend Sydney, who said yes. Now that’s a win. We also learned that this year’s tour to France was the fastest in history. Now, the exact speed is still being debated due to the neutralization of GC times on yesterday’s stage, complicating matters, but it was somewhere between 42.45 45 and 42.9 km per hour. Crazy speeds. And finally, we learned that Tade Paga is the youngest rider ever to have reached the grand height of four overall wins at the Tour to France. But was it his hardest yet? Quite possibly. His final margin of victory was a comfortable one, close to 4 and a half minutes in front of Yunas Vinegal with Florian Lipovich at over 11 minutes. However, it really did feel like this addition was a draining one for everybody, including Pagata himself, in a way that we haven’t seen before. So, over the last week of the race, Patcha never looked in trouble, but he also didn’t win a stage, and his demeanor during post-race interviews was uncharacteristic. He was a little bit less sparkly, bit less bubbly, and a little bit less energetic than what we’re used to. For the first time ever, it felt like cycling hard for three weeks was even taking its toll on Pugaga and it led many to speculate as to whether he wasn’t enjoying it as much this year. Now, I would say that we’re probably overanalyzing things as we do with any great champion. You’re looking for signs of weakness, signs that their reign is coming to an end. But at the same time, it did feel a bit of a shift, didn’t it? However, given that he raced the UAE tour, all the classics, and the doofen ahead of this year’s tour front, it’s not really a surprise that even he is starting to feel the physical and mental fatigue at this point. Yesterday, post race, he even mentioned retirement to French newspaper Leip. As far as I can remember, I’ve never heard him hint at a date for retirement before. So, his quote was as follows. I don’t think I’ll stop right away, but I also don’t see myself going on too long either. The Los Angeles Olympics are one of my goals, which are three years from now. After that, I might start thinking about retirement. We’ll see. And that, of course, is the part that made the headlines, but his next sentence is also worth reading out. But if I keep riding like this with such a strong team and such great support around me, I’m not too concerned about my future. I’m just trying to enjoy the moment. I think it’s very hard for a sports person to know how they’re going to feel years into the future. It might be that by 2028, Pugata’s desire to win will have abated. By that point, he’ll have been a pro for 10 years, and I’d dread to think how much he’ll have won by then. Money, of course, won’t be a problem. It isn’t already. Physically, it shouldn’t be a problem either. He’ll only be 29 years old. And so, it will come down to motivation. Will he still have the motivation to win? And more importantly, the motivation to suffer in training, to still be at his peak in physical capabilities? Time will tell, I guess. But unto that final stage in Paris, much had been made of the rrooting of that final circuit to include three passages of Mont Mart. That’s the cobble climb that featured in last year’s Olympic road races. Traditionalists were unhappy. A lot of the rides were too. But the incredible scenes that we witnessed yesterday have changed a lot of people’s views. With rain forecast, the organizers took the decision to take GC times ahead of those final few circuits, meaning that only those who wanted to race really had to. And I think that says a lot about Pagatcha because whilst Vine and Lipovitz came in over 5 minutes down on the winner, Pagata was up front attacking because he wanted to race and he wanted to win. And seeing the yellow jersey taking risks on the wet colds when he didn’t have to really sums up who he is as a rider and as a person. He may be tired. He might be looking forward to a short holiday, but he was still up there racing it out and in doing so entertaining the huge crowd who’d come out to watch on the day. And my word, wasn’t it entertaining? Six riders found themselves out front in the finale. Pagata himself along with Vanard, Trenton, Mahorit, Ballerini, and Jorgensson. It was like a pure classic full gas racing just like the rest of the tour to France had been. Pagatar put in one final dig on the last des ascent of Mont Mart, but he couldn’t shake Vanart. And not only that, Vanard accelerated himself towards the top, and not even Pagatar could follow. It was the first time in 21 days, or perhaps more accurately, in about 2 years, that Pagata had been dropped on a climb. Leip described it as epic or epique, and it was. And Venard felt like such a fitting winner of that final stage, didn’t he? That was his 10th Tour to France stage win. Only one active rider has more than him, Pagata. And only one other active rider has as many, Yasper Philipsson. And I take my hats off to Van. I think it’s fair to say that he hasn’t been as good at this race as he was during his peak years, but he still got a win and he got it on arguably the most prestigious stage of the race. And I’d love to get your thoughts on that stage. What did you think of the final around Paris this year? Would you have preferred that they stuck with tradition or did you think it was a change for the better? Should they keep it or go back to the sprint or perhaps alternate between the two? You can let me know in the comments section just down below. Now, in answer to the question that was posed in the title of this video, was it the best tour to France finish ever? I’d say no, it wasn’t. I mean, it was amazing, but I’m not sure anything’s ever going to come close to the lemon final day upset back in 1989. I didn’t witness it at the time, but as Grand Tour finales go, it doesn’t really get much better than that, but yesterday was certainly right up there. It may not have had that GC drama, but it had pretty much everything else that you want to see in a great bike race. Anyway, once all was said and done, this is how the general classification looked in the top 10. Pagatar winning by 4 minutes 24 over Vinegore and exactly 11 minutes over Florian Lipovit, who won the white jersey as best young rider just behind him in that classification. In fourth overall was 22-year-old Oscar Onley. Felix Gal took fifth, which was a very solid performance for him as it was too for Tobias Johannes Uno X in sixth. In fact, there were so many standout riders in the top 10. You could do a whole show about most of them. Kevin Vlan seventh place on GC also made him the best French rider this year and it was a tremendous three weeks from him. Primos Roglitch took eighth. Ben Healey ninth despite not coming into the race for GC whilst Jordan J. Yeah, managed to get a top 10 himself, leaprogging Ben O Connor by getting into the break on the penultimate stage of the race. The gap though between JGA and Pagatcha was enormous, 32 minutes and 47 seconds, which is the widest gap between first and 10th on GC in decades. A few more stats on the race now. Ted Pagata is the first reigning world champion since Greg Leond in 1990 to win the tour to France. Until yesterday’s stage, he actually hadn’t lost a single second on the road to any key rival on GC. And by that, I mean the top five. The only rider ever to have done that previously was Morris Gar in 1903, which was the inaugural edition of the race. It was the fifth time that Pagata and Vineord finished first and second on GC. That’s never happened before with two other riders. I would go so far to say actually that their rivalry is the biggest and best that we’ve ever seen at the race or perhaps in cycling in general. Pagatar has equaled Merks and Olrich as the only riders to finished on the podium of the race in their first six participations. But where Pagatar eclipses all others is that he’s now finished on the podium of his first eight grand tours. Nobody before has ever done that. He’s also won at least two stages in all those eight grand tours, but still has some way to go to beat Merks, who according to Killian Kelly won multiple stages in his first 11. Right, a quick word on the other stage winners from the final week of the race. Kaden Groves of Abson Darnney while on stage 20 from the day’s breakaway after a nasty crash took down Romeo and Gregoire. He found himself in front with Stuart and Vanden Brooker. However, they basically took themselves out of the running. Stuart got frustrated with Vanden Brooker, stopped riding to try and force him to come through and in the end they both got dropped. Tamman Arensman of Inos Grenaders did one of the most impressive rides of the whole race on stage 19. So he started the final climb that day in the group of Pagata and Vinegar, attacked them as they played cat and mouse and then managed to cling on by the smallest of margins to take his second victory at the race, Chapo. Equally as impressive was Ben Oconor’s win on the Cordel the previous day. He did so by breaking away some distance before that final climb, but it was a fantastic ride nonetheless. Valance Parand gave the French their stage win this year on Monontono less and the fourth for Sudal Quickstep whilst Jonathan Milan took a second stage win the following day which brings me nicely on to the green jersey competition. Milan took that ahead of Pugatar by what was in the end quite a comfortable margin. Last year’s winner Binmite was third for Antimar. Pugatar did take the KM jersey though with Vinegor in second whilst Vizma Lisa Bike won the team’s classification. Some kudos now to Lipovitz and Onley who gave us what was probably the most exciting battle in GC at the race. They were vying it out both for the young riders white jersey but also the third step of the podium. Lipovitz looked to have it sewn up both of them in fact until the cold low because there Lipovitz also tried to take advantage of the games being played between Pagata and Vinegor but whilst he did build up quite a nice advantage by the foot of that final climb he paid for his earlier efforts. Onley meanwhile was on the best day of his life. Just like Leapovitz he had been dropped on the previous climb but on Lao he managed to match the two big guns almost to the line and in doing so he came to within 20 seconds of Lipitz on GC. Unfortunately for him he didn’t have the legs to back that up the following day but he can be extremely proud of fourth overall. That was mightily impressive but hats off to both of them. They were brilliant for the whole three weeks. Next up Garin Thomas. This year marked his 14th participation at the Tour of France and his 13th finish. Over that time, he’s been three times on the podium, once on the top step, and taken three stage wins. As it brings to a close an amazing relationship that he’s got with the race from 2007 when he was the youngest participant to 18 years later when he was the oldest. Now, he’s not finished racing completely just yet. That’s going to happen in his home of Wales at the end of the tour of Britain in September. But I’d like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to him for everything he’s achieved and for everything he’s done for the sport. Right, just before I move on from the men’s tour of France, I’ve left the final word for this year for the team at ITV Cycling. Now, this is a very British ccentric take, but I make no apologies for including it now because yesterday was the final time that ITV Cycling broadcast the Tour of France live here in the UK, which means in turn it’s the last time for the foreseeable future that fans here in the UK will be able to watch the race on a freeto view basis. It’s been an institution of the sport here in the UK from the times of Phil Liot and Paul showing through to Ned Bolting and David Miller. Now, there’s no doubt that the cycling landscape over here would not be what it is now without that coverage, and it’s probably shaped the race itself as well. By that, I mean that many British pros, present and past, were introduced to this great sport by ITV and Channel 4’s coverage. So, thank you for everything you’ve done. You are going to be sorely missed. And with that, I shall move on to the Tour to France Fam Aig Zift. This year, the race has been extended to 9 days, the longest in its short history. And as such, it started on Saturday in northwestern France. And we had a couple of really tough stages already. Actually, day one was a short punchy affair to Plume with three ascents of a climb to finish with. Elise Shabby took the points on the climbs, but the second time up it, it was actually a bonus sprint, one that wasn’t really contested, certainly not as much as I expected it to be. Lina Vbez rolled across the line there to take maximum points, but Maros’s absence there was perhaps a sign of things to come. On the final ascent to the line, Pauline Fermpo took a fly with about 600 meters remaining riding Anna Thunderbreen off her wheel and she opened up a huge gap and it was only when Kim Leort went that the gap started to reduce. Now unfortunately for Leort, she had Mariana Voss on her wheel. She came past the court before they caught her teammate Feron Provo looking over her shoulder to assess things as she considered gifting the stage to her teammates. But with Lort still going quite fast, Voss had no choice but to go round and take the victory herself. Her 258th career win over 19 years since her first. And with that, of course, came the yellow jersey as well for the second time in Voss’s career. Stage two was also a hilly affair to compare. Another one that looked perfect on paper for Voss. At least Shabby was once again up the road picking up more QM points. And for a while that breakaway looked like it might threaten the win. Visman’s work behind though put pay to that. But after the break was caught there was a bit of a lull which is where Livilla Jacob put their plan into action. They brought Mavi Garcia towards the front and she went on a solo attack. Having lost 5 minutes the previous stage. She was no threat on GC. I was still surprised to see how much leeway she was allowed given that a stage win was on the line. Now too much leeway as it turned out. With 1k to go, she still had a 22nd advantage. And despite the efforts of Lot Capeek, Khloe Diger and others, she was never caught. So at 41 years old, she’s just taken the biggest win of her career. Second on that stage was Lorina Vbezes of SD Works, who was length clear of Laort in third. However, that third place was enough to put Lort into the yellow jersey. She’s on the same time as Voss, but the difference is made through cumulative stage finishing positions. Voss was fifth on that second stage. So going into stage three today, Lor is equal on time with Voss with Fairon Provo third and Nubia Doma fourth. Pre-race favorite Volering is currently fifth at 13 seconds, but then you’d imagine her main aim was just to get through those opening stages trouble three. Julie Bego leads the young riders classification for Copus whilst Voss leads the points although that might well change today. Stage three looks likely to end up in a bunch sprint and if it does of course Lina Vbezes will be the big favorite. Unfortunately, there was also a couple of high-profile withdrawals in the opening days of the race. Mara Royce being the biggest of them all. She came into the race as the second favorite behind former teammate Demi Vering, but started stage one with a stomach illness. She tried valiantly to finish that stage, but unfortunately it was all too much and she was forced to abandon. Charlotte Cole of Picnic Postel didn’t start yesterday either. Still suffering the after effects of a crash recently at the Tour of Belgium. Right, just finally the tour to Wallan. So after two stages of racing, Cough is Oliver Knight leaves the GC. He won the second stage yesterday from a group of three that had gone clear with just under 20ks to go. They were caught but not passed by the bunch at the finish line. Corbyn Stronger won the opening stage and now it’s 1 second behind night on GC with three stages still remaining. And you’ll be able to watch those stages live on Discovery Plus and Max where you can watch a full season of bike racing including mountain biking. And actually I’ll finish with that. Tom Pitcock won the European Championships yesterday. Head of British compatriate Charlie Aldridge with Simon Andreas in third. In the women’s Jenny Rissffs of Sweden doubled up. She took both the short track and the exo titles. In the exio, Eevee Richards took second with Nicole Coller in third. Okay, that is all for this week’s racing news show. I look forward to reading your comments about Mont Mart. I’ll be back next Monday to wrap up the tour to France fam a Zift. See you then.