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RTÉ News
5 hours ago
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Lara Gillespie earns historic Tour de France podium finish
Ireland's Lara Gillespie produced a superb ride on stage four of the the Tour de France Femmes on Tuesday to earn a historic third-placed finish. Gillespie (UAE Team ADQ) positioned herself near the front of the peloton in a bunched sprint finish to cross the line in third place behind Lorena Wiebes (Team SD Worx-Protime) and Marianna Vos (Visma Lease a Bike). It's a milestone achievement for 24-year-old Wicklow native Gillespie, who is 106th in the general classification. This is the first Tour de France Femmes to have an an Irish presence, with Gillespie, current national champion Mia Griffin and last year's title holder Fiona Mangan all present. Griffin (Roland Le Dévoluy) was 25th in today's stage and sits 109th overall. Mangan (Winspace Orange Seal) three places further back in 28th today; she's 97th in the GC. Wiebes stormed to her second consecutive stage victory thanks to a dominant sprint finish. The Dutch rider from Team SD Worx launched her move around 250 metres from the line and proved untouchable, sealing another emphatic stage victory ahead of compatriot Vos and Gillespie. The largely flat 130.7km stage from Saumur to Poitiers saw the peloton remain tightly packed until the closing stretch before a showdown amongst the sprinters. Wiebes timed her effort perfectly, leaving her rivals unable to respond before it was too late. She also triumphed in a chaotic sprint on Monday and now sits second overall, trailing Vos, who retains the yellow jersey.
Times of Oman
a day ago
- Sport
- Times of Oman
Pogacar crowned Tour de France champion for fourth time
Paris: Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) gatecrashed Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar's party as the Belgian put in a monster ride through Montmartre to deny the Slovenian a fifth stage win in the new-look Paris finale. On Sunday, Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was unable to match the Belgian's massive attack on the third and final ascent of the Butte de Montmartre in a sodden Stage 21 of the Tour in the French capital. World champion Pogacar could still raise his arms to the skies on the Champs-Elysees - not to celebrate his fourth place in the stage, but his fourth Tour triumph. Italy's Davide Ballerini (XDS-Astana) pipped Slovenia's Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) for second place in an absorbing final stage, which was livened by torrential rain and three laps on a similar lumpy loop that made the Paris 2024 Olympic Road race so memorable last summer, as per a press release. Van Aert's first stage win on the Tour since 2022 came after his American team-mate Matteo Jorgenson put in a series of accelerations to soften up the six-man leading group ahead of the decisive climb up the 1.1km ascent of the Rue Lepic. With times for the general classification taken after the initial four loops of the traditional Champs-Elysees circuit, Pogacar had no need to push for a fifth win. But the 26-year-old did the yellow jersey proud by going all-out for his 22nd career stage win on the Tour. Pogacar had attacked on the previous two climbs in Montmartre, and the race leader looked to have made the decisive move with another acceleration on the final climb. But as Ballerini slipped back the same way as Jorgenson, Mohoric and Matteo Trentin (Tudor Pro Cycling), Van Aert not only drew level with Pogacar but then achieved something no one else has managed in the past three weeks: drop the four-time champion on a climb. Van Aert held a five-second advantage over the summit - a lead which grew as he threw caution to the wind on the technical descent back into central Paris, while his pursuer Pogacar decided to sit up and wait for reinforcements. Victory for Van Aert was the tenth time the Belgian had won a stage on the Tour - but the first since 2022, thanks to a series of injuries that have hampered his performances. "It was a special day out - and really special to win here on the Champs-Elysees again, and on the first occasion where we climbed to Montmartre," the 30-year-old Wout said. "The rain made it quite sketchy, but I managed to stay upright, and I had the full support of my teammates. I really have to thank them for continuing to believe in me." "They helped me control this race so that I could leave it all out there on the last climb. It was our plan, and it worked. I came close a few times [earlier in the Tour], but I was quite far off on several occasions. Yesterday, I wasn't good enough to even make the breakaway." "The hardest thing was to keep the belief, but because people around me were able to do it, I could as well," he concluded. A second stage win for his Visma-Lease a Bike team - following Simon Yates's victory in the Massif Central - was just reward for a team which did itself proud despite being unable to deliver Jonas Vingegaard to a third win, according to Wout. "We came here with the ambition to win the yellow jersey, but the strongest rider in the race and the biggest rider in the world, Tadej Pogacar, won it," said Wout. "We tried to give him competition, and I am proud of how we tried to beat him. We had a great group, and we won the team classification, so we should be proud," he added. Pogacar might have missed out on a final-day bonanza in the City of Light, but he nevertheless joins British legend Chris Froome on four Tour titles and moves within one of the outright record of five shared by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. With the final times for the general classification taken 50km from the finish because of the severe weather, there were no changes in the final top 10 in Paris. Pogacar won the 112th edition of the Tour by 4'24" over Denmark's Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), whose two Tour wins in 2022 and 2023 now seem like a distant memory. Germany's Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) joined Pogacar and Vingegaard on the final podium after an impressive debut Tour saw the 24-year-old take third place at 11'00" and the white jersey. Scotland's Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) was fourth and Austria's Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) fifth. "It was a great decision by the organisers to neutralise the stage because no one had to risk anything and it was fair play," Pogacar said. "I gave it a go because I was on the front. But Wout was incredibly strong today, and he did an amazing attack on the top of the climb, and he deserved this big, big win," he added. In a dominating display of his all-round invincibility this July, Pogacar won four stages and secured the polka dot jersey as the race's best climber. He also finished second in the green jersey standings, won by the Italian Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who won two sprint stages in his debut appearance. The world champion moved into the yellow jersey for the first time after finishing behind Belgium's Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) in the Stage 5 individual time trial at Caen, one day after he notched his first stage win on the punchy finish at Rouen. Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took back the yellow jersey one day later in Vire Normandie, before Pogacar's victory at Mur-de-Bretagne saw him back in the maillot jaune. Stage 6 winner Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) kept the jersey warm for Pogacar for two stages after the Irishman starred in the day's breakaway on Bastille Day. Pogacar then started the second week of the race with a bang, winning back-to-back stages in the Pyrenees and moving back into yellow at Hautacam in Stage 12. The 26-year-old Slovenian extended his lead in the Peyragudes mountain time trial before riding in a more measured manner in the Alps - eschewing extra stage wins for defensive riding that nevertheless saw his lead over Vingegaard stretch to almost four and a half minutes. "I am super happy that it is over. But I quite enjoyed the whole Tour, and I think I will maybe already miss it next week. It was a pleasure to be here, to wear this yellow jersey, to ride with my team-mates and fight against all my opponents," Pogacar said. It remains to be seen if Pogacar will join his big rival Vingegaard at the start of the Vuelta a Espana next month, with the four-time champion showing clear signs of fatigue in the third week. "Let us take one week off first. I want to enjoy some summer days - I want some hots days, but without the suffering on the bike. So, let's take a week off and we will see afterwards," he said, keeping his options open. A long season has already seen Pogacar win Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege in the sprint, as well as come second behind Van der Poel in his debut Paris-Roubaix. But it was at the Vuelta in 2019 where Pogacar exploded onto the scene - winning three stages on his way to a third-place finish in his debut Grand Tour - and victory in Spain would see Pogacar complete his clean sweep of Grand Tour victories a week before he turned 27. Should he do so, he would become only the eighth rider in history to achieve the Treble, and the first since Froome in 2018.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
Tadej Pogacar reigns in Paris after winning Tour de France for fourth time
Tadej Pogacar ignited an explosive final stage of the Tour de France in Paris, from Mantes-la-Ville to the Champs Élysées, while sealing his fourth overall victory in the race since 2020. Despite a downpour on the treacherous cobbles of Montmartre, Pogacar put in a daredevil performance, attacking on each of the three climbs to the Sacré Coeur, only to be finally distanced by the stage winner Wout van Aert, of the Visma Lease a Bike team. Pogacar had effectively confirmed his fourth Tour de France win during the final stage, after the cobbled climbs and descents over the Côte de la Butte Montmartre were neutralised because of the wet conditions, ensuring there would be no more changes to the overall standings. With the Tour won, there was no incentive for the Slovene to attack, but a prestigious stage victory was still at stake and on the first climb of Montmartre he and Van Aert led a group in pursuit of Julian Alaphilippe, who had made the first move on the steep cobbles of Rue Lepic. Despite the torrential rain, Pogacar and five others moved clear. Another devastating acceleration on the final climb of Rue Lepic blew the lead group apart, but Van Aert clung on and his explosive power eventually took him past the Slovene and ahead to victory. Pogacar, whose previous wins came in 2020, 2021 and 2024, comfortably beat his closest rival, Jonas Vingegaard, by almost four and half minutes, in what both riders acknowledged was the hardest edition of the race they have competed in. Germany's Florian Lipowitz, in his Tour debut, finished third, while Scotland's Oscar Onley, riding only his second, placed fourth overall. Stage wins in Rouen, Mûr-de-Bretagne, Hautacam and Peyragudes, further confirmed Pogacar as the most accomplished rider of his generation. He also won the 2024 Giro d'Italia, the 2024 World Road Race championship, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and multiple other stage races including Paris-Nice, Critérium du Dauphiné and the Tour of Catalunya. In his wake, the hapless Vingegaard has every reason to feel hard done by, although his pledge to risk all in pursuit of the yellow jersey, even if it meant losing second place, never truly materialised, save for on Mont Ventoux. It is the Dane's misfortune that he is racing in the era of Pogacar. He would almost certainly have added to his tally of two Tour wins if the Slovene was not his contemporary. At the same time, his Visma Lease a Bike team never had the measure of the task facing them and internal politics, cited by his wife Trine Vingegaard Hansen even before the race began, have also played their part. 'It can't be good for Jonas if you also focus on stage wins for others,' Hansen said. 'You can only have respect for how Pogacar does it. When he's at the start of a race, there's no doubt about who the leader is.' The uncertainty over Visma Lease a Bike's commitment to the cause became increasingly obvious as the race went on. As a contest, it was definitively over after the stage to Mont Ventoux, when Vingegaard's most determined attacks went unrewarded. After consecutive defeats in the Tour by Pogacar, the Dane's long‑term future with the Visma Lease a Bike team is now the subject of growing speculation. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Elsewhere, Ineos Grenadiers continue to look a spent force in terms of contending for the yellow jersey, but other Anglophone talents have come to the fore, with Onley and Ireland's Ben Healy, who placed ninth, both having excellent Tours. Onley's wholly unexpected performance, in a particularly gruelling Tour in which his own team manager, Matt Winston, had expected him to fall away, was one of the highlights of the race. Healy's stage win in Vire and his brief spell in the yellow jersey, allied to his top-10 finish, have reinforced his status as a team leader and fuelled his ambitions for future Grand Tours. But this was Pogacar's Tour, a race in which he never looked threatened and in which he maintained physical and psychological mastery of the peloton throughout. He has now won 21 stages in the Tour since winning the race overall on his debut in 2020. Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour, when asked on Sunday if Pogacar's domination was credible, said: 'Cycling has to live with the doubts, with suspicion, given the history of the sport.' He added: 'Pogacar was third in the Vuelta a España at just 20 years old and, when he won in 2020, he was the youngest winner of the Tour since 1904. He's a champion who wins from February to October, a champion who can win the Classics, challenge Mathieu Van der Poel in Paris‑Roubaix and dominate in the Pyrenean stages of the Tour, against Jonas Vingegaard. 'Yes, we hoped for more of a duel, but it wasn't to be.'
Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Times
Tadej Pogacar is exceptional but I think he is also clean
The rain poured and the roads in the capital were treacherous. So dangerous that Tour de France organisers agreed time differences wouldn't count. All that Tadej Pogacar had to do to clinch his fourth Tour de France was to avoid risk. Find a safe place in the peloton and stay upright. Simple, but he couldn't do it. Like Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Pogacar could only play the man he is. So on this first occasion of a splendid new route for the final stage, he got involved in a fierce battle for the stage victory, taking the same risks as the other five riders in the breakaway. There were three ascents of the 1.1-kilometre Côte de la Butte Montmartre, and each time he attacked. Every ascent was followed by descents in the driving rain. On the last circuit, Pogacar distanced four of the five in the group but Wout van Aert stayed with him and then near the top, the Belgian counterattacked. For the first time in the Tour, Pogacar himself was distanced. Van Aert went on to achieve a famous victory, slowing down better to savour the moment as he crossed the finish line on the Champs-Élysées. For his Visma-Lease a Bike team it was a terrific end to a difficult Tour. It was the team's second stage victory and their leader, Jonas Vingegaard, finished second overall, but that was still less than they had hoped for. 'We came to win the Yellow Jersey but came up against the strongest rider in the race and best rider in the world,' Van Aert said. In dreadful conditions, it was a compelling climax that validated the decision to dispense with what had long been a ceremonial end to the Tour, a race in which little happened and almost always ended with a bunch sprint. Pogacar knew the risks of trying to win the final stage. One bad fall and that could have been him out of the race. And still, he couldn't play safe. 'I found myself in the front,' he said afterwards, 'even though I didn't have the energy to motivate myself to race. I tried but hats off to Wout, he was incredibly strong. It was a really nice race in the end today. I am speechless to win a fourth Tour. Six years in a row on the podium and this one feels especially amazing. I am super-proud to wear this Yellow Jersey. 'The second week was the decisive week where we took the decisive advantage and we went more comfortably into the final week. Battling against Jonas was again a tough experience but respect to him and big congratulations for his fight. Now it's time to celebrate. I want to celebrate with peace this week and have nice weather, not like now.' The other general classification (GC) contenders stayed well clear of the fight on that hill in Montmartre and were happy just to stay upright. Vingegaard poured every ounce of himself into the three-week battle against Pogacar and though the contest was relatively close, he lost every round. His two bad days, in the Caen time-trial and on Hautacam, were two more than he could afford. Pogacar hasn't had a bad day at the Tour since Col de la Loze in 2023. Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hangrohe) and Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL), who finished third and fourth, were the revelations of the race. They will now be contenders in whatever grand tour they care to ride and it will be interesting to watch Ben Healy's development. Could he too become a grand tour contender? Lipowitz, Onley, Healy and plenty of others will wonder about Pogacar, 26, and how long he can continue at his present level. Their futures are connected to his. There is an interesting conversation about this, the most recent demonstration of one rider's brilliance. Many consider this to be a compelling renewal of the greatest bike race. Others shake their heads and bemoan the predictability. Didn't Pogacar, they ask without needing an answer, drive a stake through the heart of his only rival, Vingegaard, on the first day in the high mountains? And wasn't that ten days before the end? Like beauty, riveting sport is in the eye of the beholder. There is no right answer, only opinions. Each one as valid as the next. My view is complicated by more than four decades of following and writing about the Tour. First experience was 1982, the last two days, which are generally the two least interesting. We went because that year our Irish compatriot Sean Kelly won the Green Jersey for the first time. That Sunday's finish on the Champs-Élysées was curious . It was Bernard Hinault's fourth Tour and by then, even the French were growing tired of his success. That year Hinault had taken his advantage in the time-trials and then defended in the mountains. Breathtaking, it wasn't. Towards the end, the lament was that he hadn't been able to take a proper road stage. Reacting to the criticism, Hinault contested the bunch sprint on the Champs-Élysées. It wasn't something he did often but he won it. Through rookie eyes, it seemed an unusual outcome. How could a GC rider suddenly become a bunch sprinter and beat all the specialists? One rider in that Tour said that it was either let Hinault win on the Champs-Élysées or not be invited to post-Tour criteriums in Brittany. I'm still not sure if he was joking. Back then it was common for deals to be struck between riders and between teams. Results were traded; sometimes for the promise of future help, sometimes for cash. The more you thought you knew, the less you actually knew. Two days in 1982 became two weeks in 1983, and in 1984, the entire Tour with the sacred green badge given to an accredited journalist. Though the race had a certain global appeal, no one would have mistaken it for a slick global operation. They were elite-level athletes staying in school dormitories while riding the Tour. Dormitories without air conditioning, on the hottest Tour nights. It was, though, a good race for journalists. Walk into a hotel, or indeed a school dormitory and there was a list on the wall telling the room number of each rider. No one wondered where you were going or worried too much about the demands on riders. And on the Reims to Nancy stage of the 1985 Tour, Ludwig Wynants consummated my relationship with the Tour. For years, I had struggled with a speech disorder. In any kind of pressurised situation, I stuttered. It wasn't much fun. That year I agreed to do daily reports for RTE radio from the Tour, thinking that if I could survive live radio, the speech problem would be overcome. Shock treatment, you could say. I knew from experience that words beginning with L and W were particularly challenging. So Ludwig Wynants was a nightmare. The last two words of the report delivered live on RTE that Saturday afternoon were 'Ludwig Wynants'. The name emerged almost fluently and, from that day, things improved. So I owe the Tour. The Eightiess were good: Laurent Fignon against Hinault in '84; Hinault against Greg LeMond in '85; LeMond against Hinault in '86; Stephen Roche against Pedro Delgado in '87. They were interesting races but if we'd been more honest in those, we would have wondered aloud about the abuse of testosterone, cortisone and other banned drugs. Without ever talking about it, riders informed us that what they took was their business, not ours. For the most part we agreed. There was a price to be paid for our compliance with omertà, the law of silence. In 1990 Paul Kimmage's Rough Ride was published and the ex-professional laid bare the endemic doping culture within cycling, not that many were ready to accept the truth. For this was the beginning of the EPO years and however bad things had been, they weren't getting any better. For so long, it was impossible to believe in the Tour. The Nineties were a continuation of the Eighties, the Noughties were as bad as the Nineties and then along came Team Sky, winning seven out of eight Tours. They talked of winning clean but since 2016 there has been scandal after scandal related to how that team was run. The latest surfaced two weeks ago and now the International Testing Agency has opened an investigation into former Sky, now Ineos Grenadiers', soigneur David Rozman. In 2020, along came Pogacar. The then 21-year-old won his first Tour de France. He's now ridden the race six times; four victories and twice runner-up. He improves a little every year but he is essentially the same rider now as back then, and pretty much every week of every season. There hasn't been any evidence of wrongdoing. I believe he's an exceptional, credible champion. Consequently his victories are never boring and his dominance is a joy, not a reason for suspicion. This era has been the most credible that cycling has known and it should be celebrated.
ABC News
3 days ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Marianne Vos wins Tour de France Femmes first stage after stirring late attack
Cycling great Marianne Vos won the opening stage of the women's Tour de France with a brilliant late attack. The 38-year-old Dutchwoman overtook her Visma-Lease a Bike teammate Pauline Ferrand-Prévot approaching the line, and then held off Mauritian rider Kim Le Court in the closing metres of a gruelling uphill finish. Ferrand-Prévot looked set to win the stage, but the Frenchwoman attacked too early from 600 metres and could not withstand the late surge from Vos, who punched the air with her left fist as she crossed the line. Moments later, Vos hugged an exhausted-looking Ferrand-Prévot, the Paris-Roubaix winner. "I didn't now if Pauline was still hanging in the finish, but in the end I sprinted a bit with Kim," Vos said, praising her teammate's effort. "I'm really grateful to the team and to Pauline." The hilly 78.8-kilometre route from Vannes to Plumelec in Brittany featured two small climbs and was completed in 1 hour, 53 minutes, 3 seconds by Vos — a multiple world champion, a former Olympic road race champion and a silver medallist at last year's Paris Games. Former Olympic time-trial silver medallist Marlen Reusser was one of 10 riders to crash some 30 kilometres from the end. She continued for a while but was clearly struggling and had to abandon the stage. The second stage from the port city of Brest to Quimper stays in Brittany and is slightly more hilly and longer at 110.4 kilometres. The nine-stage race, which ends August 3, began a day before the end of the men's Tour, set to be won for a fourth time by Slovenian star Tadej Pogačar by a comfortable margin. The women's race could be far closer. Last year provided the smallest winning margin in the history of the women's and men's races, with Polish rider Kasia Niewiadoma beating 2023 champion Demi Vollering by four seconds, and Pauliena Rooijakkers only 10 seconds off the pace in third place. AP
