Tadej Pogačar Finishes First Once Again at the Summit on a Grueling Stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France

 

Stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France set out from Loudenvielle to begin a route through the Pyraneese mountains which would test the peloton and likely separate the general classification on the French national day of celebration, Bastille Day. Clear skies and lighter winds meant that the race would be in for nice surrounding but punishing elevation gain on a day sure to be filled with tactics and intrigue.

The first climb would arrive at the Category 1 Col de Peyresourde. First to summit the climb was French rider David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) to capture 10 points in the King of the Mountains classification, followed by Oier Lazkano (Movistar Team) who would get 8 pts in the classification, after both riders were coming off a strong Stage 14 in the mountains the day before. Stage 1 winner of the 2024 Romain Bardet (Team dsm–firmenich PostNL) reached the summit in third, followed by Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates), Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost) and Maillot Jaune holder Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) reached the summit in sixth to capture an additional point in the King of the Mountains classification, which he also led on going into the stage.

With 182 km to go to the finish Lazkano, Gaudu, and Bardet took a few seconds advantage on the peloton. Romain Bardet had stated previously that he would attack in the Pyrenees, and he does so with impressive speeds up and down the Col de Peyresourde, hitting speeds of over 90 km/h. 

The three-man break, however, would last long and a new breakaway group of 11 rider had then formed by the approach to the Category 1 Col de Menté. Javier Romo Oliver (Astana Qazaqstan) reached the peak first, followed by Richard Carapaz , Alex Aranburu (Movistar Team), Enric Mas (Movistar Team), Laurens De Plus (Ineos Grenadiers), and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X Mobility).

132 km from the finish, rider would reach the Category 1 Col de Portet-d’Aspet. Tobias Halland Johannessen summited first, with Javier Romo Oliver in second, pursued by Bob Jungels (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe), Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost), Jai Hindley (Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe), and Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech).

With 85 km to go to the finish, the breakaway group held a 3:30 lead on the peloton and with 70 km to the line the breakaway group at the front split in two as the reached the start of the penultimate major climb of the day at the Category 1 Col d'Agnes. At the top of the Col d'Agnes, with 59 km left to go on the day, Laurens De Plus led on the summit, followed by Richard Carapaz, Enric Mas, Jai Hindley, Tobias Halland Johannessen, and Simon Yates (Team Jayco–AlUla) in tow.

46 km from the finish, Norwegian rider Tobias Halland Johannessen reconnected to the breakawy group of four, which had dropped him from the breakaway at the Col d'Agnes. At the foot of the summit of the final climb of the day up to the summit of the Plateau de Beille, a group of five riders then remained, at 1:30 ahead of the Yellow Jersey Group.

11 km from the summit, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) looked comfortable and the number of riders off the front had fallen to 3. Richard Carapaz put in a final attempt to attack and hold off the chasing yellow jersey group, which had whittled to just Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), maintaining a 30 second lead with 10 km to go. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick-Step), third place overall and Best Young Rider going into the stage, had fallen off the pace of the top two rider in the general classification.

Under 6 km to go, Pogačar made his move, separating from Vingegaard , who say 15 seconds back with 4 km to go and 1:30 ahead of Evenepoel who remained in third. Less than 2 km to the summit, Pogačar had more than doubled his lead over Vingegaard, expanding it to 40 seconds, while Evenepoel was 2:10 back. The Spanish cyclist Mikel Landa (Soudal–Quick-Step) sat in fourth, 3:00 behind Pogačar.

Ultimately, Pogačar continued to open his gap to the end, finishing 1:08 ahead of Jonas Vingegaard, 2:51 ahead of Remco Evenepoel, and 3:54 ahead of Mikel Landa. Pogačar would expand his lead in the general classification to over 3 minutes ahead of Vingegaard after the day.

Remco Evenepoel will retain his Best Young Rider lead, while Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) will keep the Green Jersey as leader of the points classification. Pogačar also leads in the King of the Mountains classification. UAE Team Emirates holds the lead in the team classification.

Stage 16 of the 2024 Tour de France will return after a rest day following Stage 15. The race will flatten out for this stage, serving as a day prepared for the sprinters once again, covering 188.6 kilometers with 1,200 meters of overall elevation gain before the race enters the Alps.