Vingegaard to be crowned tour's new king

ROCAMADOUR (France) • There is a new king of cycling.

After two successive victories by Tadej Pocagar, Jonas Vingegaard will be crowned this season's Tour de France champion as the peloton embark on their 115.6km ceremonial ride to the Champs-Elysees in Paris today.

The Dane is set to become just his country's second winner of cycling's most prestigious race - an honour made all the more sweeter as the Grand Depart occurred in Denmark for the first time - after Bjarne Riis in 1996.

This Tour will equally be remembered as one of domination by his Jumbo-Visma team.

The Dutch pro cycling outfit won six stages - more than any other team, including the last three - and claimed all three jerseys of the race.

Vingegaard will end the 21-stage odyssey in possession of both the yellow jersey, as the general classification leader, as well as the "King of the Mountains" polka-dot jersey as the leader of the mountains classification, while teammate Wout van Aert has the green jersey as the leader of the points classification.

Sprint specialist van Aert yesterday won stage 20's 40.7km time trial - his third of this Tour - in 47min 59sec, while Vingegaard came in second, 19sec behind, and Slovenia's Pogacar, the UAE Team Emirates leader, was third, trailing by a further 8sec.

An emotional van Aert said: "I'm emotional, winning this Tour de France as a team is really special. Today was like a dream scenario. Jonas was such a strong guy but especially also such a good guy. I want to thank all my teammates and the whole team for this special three weeks.

"I gave it all today and actually I want to win races so I hoped to take the stage. I also hoped Jonas would take yellow. He hoped for the same. It's a great day"

Vingegaard had entered the penultimate stage of the Tour holding a commanding lead of over 3min and he never looked like he would relinquish his advantage, although there was a dicey moment when he nearly crashed into rocks after overcooking a turn on a descent.

But Jumbo-Visma's co-leader kept his balance to virtually wrap up the race and he embraced his family at the finishing line in celebration.

Welshman Geraint Thomas of Ineos Grenadiers, the 2018 champion, will be third on the podium today, behind runner-up Pogacar.

The men's race finishes today, just as the new women's Tour starts with live TV coverage for the first time and ambitions of making the sports' female stars household names.

"For this first edition, it was really important to us to leave Paris the day the men arrive, it's very symbolic," race director Marion Rousse said.

On the 21/2 hours of live coverage each day, she added: "The objective was to allow the general public to know as many riders as possible, to put a name to a face, to make women's cycling on TV not a curiosity but normality."

Dutch rider Annemiek van Vleuten, already one of the most well-known riders as the Tokyo 2020 gold medallist in the time trial and runner-up in the road race, is the favourite and will be up against rivals who include Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Marta Cavalli, Demi Vollering and Ashleigh Moolman.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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TOUR DE FRANCE

Stage 21: Singtel TV Ch116, 7pm