This telling of the 2024 Tour de France is an addition to our two-volume The Story of the Tour de France: How a Newspaper Promotion Became the Greatest Sporting Event in the World, and five supplements: Volume One told the story of the Tour’s origins and of each edition of the race from 1903 through 1975—the year Bernard Thévenet was able to conquer the Belgian Lion, Eddy Merckx, and hold the great racer to five Tour wins.

Volume Two picked up the race in 1976 with super-climber Lucien van Impe’s victory and took it through 2018 and Welshman Geraint Thomas’ 111-second win over Tom Dumoulin. The 2022 Tour de France looked to be a shootout between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar. But Pogačar ran out of gas before he ran out of Tour. In stage eleven, a monster climbing stage, Vingegaard attacked on the final ascent, and finished alone, almost three minutes ahead of Pogačar. The Dane now led the Tour. Keeping the lead, Vingegaard rode the final stage in Paris conservatively, wanting to stay safe in the Tour’s final kilometers, letting Pogačar grab 50 seconds, but the Tour was the Dane’s after riding a near-perfect Tour.

As expected, the 2023 Tour started out as a duel between Vingegaard and Pogačar. By the end of the mountainous sixth stage Vingegaard was in yellow with Pogačar just 25 seconds back. After crashing early in the seventeenth stage, Pogačar lost his legendary climbing power. While riding the stage's final climb Pogačar said into the team race radio, “I’m gone, I’m dead.” He finished nearly six minutes behind Vingegaard. And that’s how the 2023 Tour ended. Vingegaard had won his second consecutive Tour as Pogačar had done in 2020 and 2021. The 2024 Tour would probably break the tie. So please join us for the 2024 Tour as we go on the 111th trip around La Belle France.