There was no parade into Paris this year. Wearing the yellow jersey and celebrating a record-equaling fifth Tour de France victory, Pogačar blew the doors off the peloton with a flurry of attacks on the Côte de la Butte Montmartre. Van der Poel was the only rider capable of holding his wheel, resulting in a two-man breakaway across the cobbled Parisian circuits that threw the sprinters’ teams into panic.
Pogačar ran out of gas with 600 meters to go, but Van der Poel pushed on to edge out the sprinters, led across the line by his own Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate, Jasper Philipsen. Mads Pedersen rounded out the podium to take Denmark’s first-ever green jersey, while Richard Carapaz won the mountains classification and Isaac del Toro walked away with the white white jersey. Pogačar joins the exclusive five-win club alongside Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, and Indurain.