‘Positively completely completely different’: the blended feelings of Tadej Pogačar and others on a final-day Tour de France time trial

Ending off a Grand Tour with a time trial is not going to be an unusual concept – it’s how the Giro d’Italia ended three years in a row very currently, finally. For the Tour de France though, it hasn’t occurred in 35 years – since the celebrated 1989 model when Greg Lemond beat Laurent Fignon by a historically small eight-second margin.

There’s somewhat rather a lot to unravel within the case of this yr’s reprise of the final-stage ‘contre la montre‘. For one, not solely does the Tour not end in its common sprint stage, it moreover ends a very good way from the Champs-Elysées in Good. It couldn’t be farther from enterprise as common.