PARIS – In surprising functionality for all ages, Tour de France rookie Tadej Pogacar won the flagship cycling race on Sunday on the eve of his 22nd birthday, the moment when the youngest winner of the 117-year-old occasion this year, and won, the worsening of the coronavirus epidemic in France.
Wearing a yellow mask to match the race winner’s yellow jersey, Pogacar climbed the backlit podium through the pink tones of twilight, from a promising prodigy to a cycling superstar, the youngest winner since World War II and the first in Slovenia. the mask concealed his smiles, the wrinkles around his eyes betrayed them.
“This is just the top summit,” he said. It was a three-week adventure. “
His victory also stands out for the way he sealed it: at the last moment, at the penultimate level before sunday’s end on the Champs-Elysies in Paris. During the cycling marathon on all five levels of the French mountain and more than 3482 kilometers (2164 miles), Pogacar maintained the race lead and the iconic yellow jersey for a singles level , the last and maximum vital in Paris, with a yellow motorcycle to match.
Pogacar eliminated the race and fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic took off his shirt he wore for days in a dramatic time trial on Saturday.
His 1-2 is the first for a country since Britons Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome also held the most sensitive spots on the 2012 Tour. Australian Richie Porte finished on the podium this year, at the age of 35, after of his brilliant time trial that raised him from fourth to third overall.
Irishman Sam Bennett won the prestigious final race of the Champs-Elyses, which gave him his victory at the moment level on this Tour. He also won the green jersey of the race, awarded for collecting the highest points in the races and at the end of the race. Levels.
With jets dragging columns of red, white and blue smoke over cyclists as they crossed Paris, on the Champs-Elyses covered with French tricolor flags, the Tour also celebrated a victory over the coronavirus.
When the Tour, delayed due to the outbreak of its same location in July, left the initial city of Nice 3 weeks ago, he was not sure that a sufficient number of cyclists could remain virus-free for the race to succeed in Paris. .
But none of the 176 headlines, nor the 146 finalists, tested positive for several stack checks, validating the hermetic bubble of measures they were given for contagion.
Road enthusiasts have encouraged them, usually respecting cyclists’ calls to wear masks, but have stayed away during exits and level arrivals.
The positives of COVID-19 affected a handful of team workers and the race director, even as the number of infections skyrocketed across the country.
The director, Christian Prudhomme, returns after a week of self-de-islanding. Mask, pointed to the start of Sunday level in Mantes-La-Jolie west of Paris with a movement of his flag through the sunroof of his car.
Masked spectators waiting for the roar of the riders’ arrival over the shaky cobblestones of the Champs-Elyses said the functionality of the Tour had illuminated a dark year and showed that the coronavirus did not want to prevent all life, if health measures are respected. The famous side street lacked the same fervor as ever, victim of the virus, with crowds buried in rows limited to a socially distant maximum of 5000 people, accumulated in corrals through police and barriers.
But Pauline Bourbonnaud, a 22-year-old podiatry student, said it was nothing less than a “great feat” that the Tour had negotiated the epidemic with unscathed cyclists. On previous routes, she went through the look of the road as they flew over her region of central France. This year’s postponement to September, with his return to Paris to study, allowed him to absorb the arrival for the first time.
“It’s just that occasions like this are fun. People needed the Tour after a year like this,” he said.
One of the Pandemic-defying Tour’s top enthusiastic supporters was also its most powerful: French President Emmanuel Macron. As his government tried to revive the COVID-hit French economy, Macron hailed the race as “the pride of the country” and an example. how you will need to be informed to live with the virus and the restrictions it imposes.
“Even in September, the Tour de France is magical!”Macron tweeted saturday after Pogacar Roglic in the time trial.
Largely at a disadvantage from racing as the epidemic destroys the world, and with the blocked being able to remain alone with compatibility with domestic trainers, cyclists arrived at the Tour a little rusty, but with the repressed power of caged dogs, their interrupted seasons reconfigured to be physically successful on the most important cycling scene.
After a slow start, with accidents, the race has become increasingly furious. Roglic, winner of last year’s Vuelta a España and favourite before the Tour, was subsidized through a tough Jumbo-Visma team of star drivers committed to putting it in yellow. received in the ninth tier — and then keep the prized T-shirt all the way to Paris.
But the driving force of the Emirates Pogacar team had read its script.
First he demolished Roglic’s 57-second lead, then built his own 59-second tour victory margin on the time trial, a surprising change of luck.
The birth of Pogacar’s supernova is now expected to spread the cycling galaxy in the coming years. His long-term rivals are unlikely to repeat Jumbo-Visma’s mistake to allow him to return to competition, as he did after wasting time in crosswinds the first week, when he moved from 3rd to 16th place.
Upon conquering the Tour on his first attempt, Pogacar joined an elite recruit club that included, among others, the wonderful Eddy Merckx, who eventually won five. Pogacar beat Egan Bernal, who was 22 when he won last year, as the youngest tour champion since World War II and has become the youngest winner of the race, only Henri Cornet, who was just under 20 when he was crowned in 1904.
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