Tadej finished his job at the Tour in style. He was fastest in the final time trial from Monaco to Nice on stage 21, which was his third consecutive and overall sixth stage victory the 111th Tour de France. “I started in a very good mood in Monaco, on the starting line of the best Formula One track in the world. At first I only listened to the time comparisons with Remco Evenepoel, I didn’t know what times the others were achieving. I felt very good. I was doing great at the top of the first hill, and I remembered Urška’s words that she almost hates me because we have been training on this climb all this year. I didn’t want to waste all the preparation I’ve done this year on these roads,” Tadej described his 17th stage victory on the Grande boucle in his career, which extended his final overall lead over second-placed Jonas Vingegaard to 6:17.
Thus, his third overall Tour win was also his most convincing to date. “It’s hard to describe how happy I am after two difficult years on the Tour, in which we made repeated mistakes, but this year everything was perfect. This is the first three-week race where I’ve been confident every day. I also had a bad day at the Giro, but I won’t reveal which one it was. But this time the Tour was amazing, I enjoyed it from the first day to the last. I had tremendous support behind me, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, so I enjoyed it for them as well,” Tadej said about the extraordinary journey from Florence to Nice, where he became the eighth cyclist in history and the first since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win the Giro and Tour in the same season. “I never imagined I would win both races. Maybe some people thought the Giro was my safety net if I didn’t make it in the Tour. It probably would have been if I had not been successful in France. This year is crazy, winning the Tour means that you are on a higher level, if you win the double, you are a level above that,” Tadej commented on the historic achievement.
He moved many milestones in the last three weeks. He became the youngest three-time winner of the Tour in history, he was the first to win a total of 12 stages in the Giro and the Tour in the same year, and on Sunday he put on the yellow jersey for the 40th time in his career. He has won 21 races already these season, making 2024 by far his most successful year since turning professional. “I know other people’s statistics, but I don’t care about my records,” Tadej says he is focused on the current events on the road. He will go to Slovenia to greet his fans in Ljubljana and Komenda on Wednesday and take a few days off to spend in the company of his family and closest friends. He will not be at the Vuelta, where he could become the first rider in history to win all three three-week races in the same season, although many media and cycling commentators are encouraging him to do so. “I have the Vuelta in my head, because I hear a lot about it, but I’m trying to let it go in one ear and out the other,” Tadej wants a peaceful August as he sets his next big goal for September’s world championship in Zurich. “Mathieu van der Poel looks very good in the rainbow jersey, maybe I’ll take it from him, I’d like to wear it once in my career,” he said of his pursuit of the world title in the golden age of world cycling. “We are living through perhaps the best cycling era in history. The battles with Jonas, Remco, Primož and others are something extraordinary for me, and there are some great young riders coming up behind us. We can all enjoy it.”