TOUR DE FRANCE 2024 | STAGE 15 | LOUDENVIELLE > PLATEAU DE BEILLE
The 15th stage of the 2024 Tour de France – held on Bastille Day in the Pyrenees – was won by Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) who conquered the Plateau de Beille in style, finishing 1’08” ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike). It is Yellow Jersey Pogačar’s third win at this year’s Tour and is a significant victory, giving him a 3’09” GC advantage over his great rival Vingegaard going into Monday’s final rest day and with six stages remaining. Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) finished the stage in third place at 2’51”, meaning he now trails in the GC by 5’19”.
More points for Girmay
154 riders started Stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France, which would cover 197.7 km between Loudenvielle and Plateau de Beille. The immediate ascent of the Col de Peyresourde (Cat. 1, km 7) generated a continuous series of attacks that did not form into an established breakaway, with David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) taking first position on the Peyresourde summit. Gaudu, Oier Lazkano (Movistar) and Romain Bardet (dsm-Firmenich) descended together, only to soon be caught by the bunch. It was at km 21 that Bob Jungels (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) began a round of attacks that went on all the way to the very top of the Col de Menté (Cat. 1, km 50), with Javier Romo (Movistar Team) the first over the summit accompanied by 16 other riders. They had a 1’35” advantage over a peloton which Visma-Lease a Bike was leading. Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) was in the leading group when they arrived at the intermediate sprint at Marignac (IS, km 37). Girmay won that sprint but was relegated to third after deviating from his line, with Michael Matthews (Jayco-AlUla) being awarded first place. Nonetheless, the Eritrean now already has enough points to guarantee him ownership of the green jersey on Stages 16 and 17.
17 riders in the breakaway
Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla), Laurens de Plus (Ineos Grenadiers), Jai Hindley, Bob Jungels, Matteo Sobrero (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ), Richard Carapaz, Ben Healy (EF Education- EasyPost), Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech), Guillaume Martin (Cofidis), Enric Mas, Alex Aranburu, Javier Romo (Movistar Team), Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Wanty), Oscar Onley (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Magnus Cort and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Uno-X) collectively took on the Col de Portet-d’Aspet (Cat. 1, km 65.4), which was conquered in first position by Johannessen, with the peloton 1’05” behind at this point. Meintjes dropped back from the breakaway due to a mechanical problem which returned him to the main group, where Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma teammates continued to set the pace. On the way from the Col de Portet-d’Aspet to the Col d’Agnes (Cat. 1, km 138.6) there was some respite from the intense climbing for the riders, with the break building up an advantage of 3’30” by km 123.
Intensity on the Col d’Agnes climb
With 73 km to go, before the Col d’Agnes climb, the breakaway was divided into two: De Plus, Hindley, Jungels, Sobrero, Healy, Mas and Romo leaving the rest behind. It was at the foot of the climb that these frontrunners would register the maximum advantage over the main group, of 3’45”. Jungels, Sobrero, Healy and Romo lost ground on the climb, whilst Carapaz managed to return to the front of the race 2 km from the summit, which was reached in first place by De Plus. The Yellow Jersey group was reduced to 15 riders, with all the GC favourites in position and guided by Visma-Lease a Bike, reaching the top of the climb 3’05” after the breakaway.
All decided on a tough final climb
It was a five-man breakaway of De Plus, Hindley, Mas, Carapaz and Johannessen who reached the foot of the final climb of Plateau de Beille (HC, km 197.7) together and 2’25” ahead of the GC group. The lead group gradually disintegrated on that final climb with Mas and Carapaz resisting for as long as they could before Vingegaard attacked from the main group with 11km to go. The Dane accelerated, with Pogačar on his wheel and the two GC favourites soon took the lead. With 5.4 kilometers to go, the Slovenian overtook Vingegaard and powered to a dominant victory by more than a minute, with Evenepoel struggling to limit the damage and eventually following the winner over the line almost three minutes later.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates): “I Was Aware I Might Crack As Well”
“It has been an incredible day. I would have never imagined this kind of outcome seeing how the second week began. I’m super happy with my shape. It was a super hard and super hot day, and I normally struggle a bit with warm weather. My team did a super job with all the cooling down strategies. Visma decided to control the race today and set a hard pace on the climbs. It was fair racing, and it sat well with us as we had already created some meaningful gaps yesterday. I was never worried – all I cared about was keeping myself cool, hydrating and eating enough. The Visma team knew that the final climb was so steep that using somebody’s slipstream was not so influential, and they were probably hoping that I wouldn’t survive Jonas’ strong pace all the way to the finish. I was a bit on the limit when he first attacked, but afterwards I could feel he was suffering a bit. He tried to drop me one more time and I saw he didn’t have the legs to do it, so I gave it a go myself even though I was aware I might crack as well. Luckily, it went well. The Tour GC is looking really good right now. We have a comfortable lead and just need to keep focused on these final six days of racing. I have won a lot of stages in the Pyrenees. Somehow I like these mountains, and it is reciprocal! As for Plateau de Beille in particular, Adam Yates had told me this was the hardest climb he had ever done and I’m very glad I could win here.”
Richard Carapaz (EF Education – Easypost): “I Feel That My Legs Are Getting Better”
“It was a good breakaway, but the peloton did not give us enough of a gap to win on the final climb. We fought with everything we had, but we knew that it was very difficult for our breakaway to be successful. When Tadej and Jonas reached us, I tried to follow them for as long as I could… but they had a different pace. Before the Tour I was sick and that made me a little worse than I expected. Even so, I managed to wear the Yellow Jersey one day. Now I’m doing another race. There are many opportunities left in the mountains, and I am very happy because I feel that my legs are getting better.”
Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step): “Tadej Is On Another Planet”
“Today Tadej and Jonas showed that they are the two best riders here. Tadej is even better, he is on another planet. I think Visma understood that he is unbeatable, but they still wanted to try. It wasn’t a bad choice, but I don’t think it could have worked. For my part, I felt that I didn’t have enough explosiveness in my legs to stay with them. I tried to follow Jonas a little, but he kept a very high pace. So then I chose to concentrate on the gaps with the riders behind me, Carlos Rodriguez then the others. I saw that my teammate Mikel Landa had a very good stage too, so we can be happy with this week. Tadej is having a perfect year and he has reached his peak level. As far as I’m concerned, it’s my first Tour de France and I’m still here to learn, I still have time to progress.”
TOUR DE FRANCE 2024 | STAGE 15 | LOUDENVIELLE > PLATEAU DE BEILLE | DAILY STATS
1972: POGAČAR RULES LIKE MERCKX
As a stage winner in the Giro with the Maglia Rosa on his shoulders and in the Tour with the Maillot Jaune, Tadej Pogačar already achieved a feat not seen in the 21st century. And now that he’s won multiple stages as the race leader both in the Giro (5 times) and in the Tour (2 times), Tadej Pogačar emulates Eddy Merckx, when he won 4 times as the leader of the Giro and 3 times as the leader of the Tour.
14: POGAČAR SPRINTS TO THE SUMMITS
With a 14th stage win in the Tour, on a 14th of July, Tadej Pogačar joins Marcel Kittel as the 13th best scorer in the history of the race. The German giant was a pure sprinter… The Slovenian rules over the high summits, with 11 mountain stage wins (+ a victory in the uphill ITT at La Planche-des-Belles-Filles in 2020).
8-2: POGAČAR HAS THE EDGE ON VINGEGAARD
For the 10th time in a Tour de France stage, Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard finished 1st and 2nd. And the Slovenian has now claimed 8 of these duels, opening on the way to Plateau de Beille the biggest margin he ever gained on Vingegaard on a summit finish (1’08’’, surpassing the 39’’ on stage 14). When it comes to the 1-2s in the overall standings, Vingegaard still has the edge, winning the 2022 and 2023 editions ahead of Pogačar, while the Slovenian won in 2021 ahead of Vingegaard (who wasn’t there in 2020).
53’22”: A MASSIVE BATTLE FOR THE TIME-CUT
As Tadej Pogačar claimed a triumphant victory, the last riders on the road still had 14.4km to go. They needed to average 16.2km/h to survive a time-cut of 53’22’’ while Pogačar did 24.6km/h over that segment.
In the end, Mark Cavendish and his Astana Qazaqstan teammates made the cut with a small margin of 1’47’’, ahead of Fernando Gaviria (1’20’’) and Arnaud Démare (45’’). But Bram Welten finished 4 minutes too late.
17: POGAČAR CAN’T STOP WINNING
Tadej Pogačar is now up to 17 wins in 2024, matching his best record in a single season, with 17 wins last year. He has now 80 victories as a professional, claiming 50 of them in the last 3 seasons.
1-2-3X2: FOLLOW THE LEADERS
The two Pyrenean summit finishes saw the same 3 riders take the first 3 places, in the same order: Tadej Pogačar ahead of Jonas Vingegaard, with Remco Evenepoel in 3rd.
The same situation happened on the 14th and 15th of July 2021, already in the Pyrenees, when Tadej Pogačar won in Saint-Lary-Soulan and Luz Ardiden ahead of Jonas Vingegaard and Richard Carapaz.
