Tadej Pogacar wins 2021 Tour de France as Van Aert takes final stage

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Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) sprinted to victory on the Champs-Elysées, beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) and Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) to the line on stage 21 to take his third stage victory of the Tour de France.

The Belgian edged out Philipsen at the line by less than a wheel length to win, while Cavendish, who had started his sprint behind Van Aert and couldn't come around, banged his bars in frustration.

Deceuninck-QuickStep may have led the way around the final corner, but it was Jumbo-Visma who had the best lead out up the 700-metre finishing straight with Mike Teunissen in front of Van Aert.

The Dutchman hit the front at 500 metres to go, with Van Aert stuck to his wheel and Cavendish next in line with his own lead out not at the front.

Van Aert launched at 230 metres to go, hugging the barriers on the left-hand side of the road as Philipsen jumped around Teunissen to the right. Cavendish couldn't make it past up the inside, even briefly freewheeling at one point late on in the sprint.

Instead of the record-breaking 35th stage victory for Cavendish then, it was Van Aert who added to his Ventoux and time trial wins, just ahead of Philipsen, who finished second for the third time this Tour.

"This Tour has just been amazing, such a rollercoaster," Van Aert said after the finish. "To finish off with a weekend like this is beyond expectations. A victory like this is priceless. Thanks to my incredible small team, especially Mike Teunissen who delivered me into a perfect position.

"It was more chance for a team like us to still come after the corner. I was fully confident that Mike was going to deliver me in the right position, I just had to hold his wheel - it was a world class lead-out today, hats off."

Tadej Pogačar crossed the line safely alongside his UAE Team Emirates teammates to claim his second Tour de France overall victory in two years. He tops the podium by 5:20 ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) by 7:03.

For the second year in a row Pogačar swept up the polka dot and white jerseys too, beating Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) by 29 points to the climber's award as Vingegaard finished runner-up in the young rider's classification.

Cavendish nonetheless secured the green jersey, beating Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) by 56 points at the top of the points standings. Finally, Bahrain Victorious won the team competition by 19 minutes ahead of EF Education-Nippo, and Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels p/b KTM) claimed the super-combativity award after an aggressive three weeks of racing.

How it unfolded

The final stage of the Tour de France took the riders on a short 108.4 kilometres from Chatou to the Champs-Élysées in the heart of Paris in the traditional finish to the race, with eight laps of a circuit in central Paris to close things out.

The opening 56 kilometres would see the peloton ride in from the western outskirts of the capital, tackling the final climb of the race, the fourth-category Côte de Grès, after 7.4 kilometres.

After that – the final 52 kilometres of the stage once the riders pass through the finish line for the first time – the racing began in Paris, with the eight finishing laps left to decide the winner of stage 21.

As the flag dropped for the final time at a stage start in the 2021 Tour de France, there were – as is traditional on the final stage – no attacks as the peloton rode along at a club run pace. Instead, there was the usual parade of jerseys at the front and celebrations, with the full UAE Team Emirates squad, clad in special-edition, yellow-banded jerseys, riding off the front early on.

Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Team Emirates) jumped off the front at the top of the climb, jokingly celebrating his first mountain point of the race ahead of his teammates. Shortly afterwards, after the peloton passed the 100-kilometre mark, Pogačar was joined off the front by fellow Slovenians Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) and Luka Mezgec (Team BikeExchange) to celebrate together.

The team rode on the front of the peloton from that point onwards as the riders neared Paris, the average pace a pedestrian 32 kph.

The first two laps of the Champs-Élysées circuit saw a flurry of attacks from the peloton, with Harry Sweeny (Lotto Soudal), Stefan Bissegger (EF Education-Nippo), and Casper Pedersen (Team DSM) the three riders managing to get off the front with 50 kilometres to go.

They held a 30-second gap over the peloton on the high-speed laps in Paris, though that advantage was brought down to 20 seconds as the sprinters battled for the intermediate sprint at 40km to go.

There, Cavendish grabbed 13 points for fourth place as Matthews ceded two more points to the green jersey holder, ensuring that the green jersey would be his if he finished at least eighth at the finish.

The three-man break was brought back at 32 kilometres and four laps to go, prompting counterattacks from the peloton. Bora-Hansgrohe's Ide Schelling, who was in the first break of the race back in Brest, was among them as he, Michael Valgren (EF Education-Nippo), and Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal) tried a move.

Back in the peloton Deceuninck-QuickStep and Alpecin-Fenix had taken control of the situation, holding the gap to 20 seconds ahead of the nailed-on bunch sprint finale. B&B Hotels p/b KTM sent two men on the move heading into the penultimate lap with Cyril Gautier launching Bonnamour in one final show of aggression from the super-combativity prize winner.

He was brought back at the 10-kilometre mark, while Schelling, Valgren, and Van Moer managed to hang out front until the final lap, sticking it out until six kilometres to go. More counterattacks followed, but Deceuninck-QuickStep worked hard to keep the situation under control at the front heading into the final five kilometres.

A mixture of teams – including Team BikeExchange, Deceuninck-QuickStep, EF Education-Nippo, and Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert – were up front heading into the final two kilometres, with no one team able to wrest control and establish a full lead out at the front.

Around the final corner onto the final run to the line – which this year was elongated from 400 metres to 700 metres – it was Deceuninck-QuickStep on the front, though not with a full train as they have previously in the race.

Nonetheless, Cavendish had the best wheel in Van Aert, who was following teammate Teunissen to the line. He launched just inside the final 230 metres, pulling off a long sprint and holding it to the finish to beat Philipsen and Cavendish.