By Joiner Martinez
01 Jul 2024, 17:42 PM EDT
Historic day in the Tour de France, for the first time Ecuador will have a representative wearing the yellow jersey: Richard Carapaz is the new leader of the general classification.
The third stage of the Tour de France reserved the most excitement for the final kilometres with a tight sprint finish. Eritrean Biniam Girmay did his thing to beat Colombian Fernando Gaviria by a few centimetres on the finish line and thus give the African continent a historic victory.
Despite Gaviria’s second place on the day, Latin America is celebrating at the request of Richard Carapaz. The Ecuadorian took advantage of the carelessness of Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard in the last few metres, added to the zero difference in times in the general classification, to win the yellow jersey reserved for the leader of the Tour de France.
The EF Education rider, winner of a Giro d’Italia, a Tour de Suisse and podium finisher at the Tour de France in 2021, did not hide the excitement of being the provisional ‘Sun King’ of cycling.
“I saw it as very far away, but after yesterday [30 de junio] It was a big change, we felt very good and today we had to take a risk because we knew it was a very dangerous sprint. The team did a great job until the end, until the finish line. I am very happy, because of the meaning of this jersey, which is from the best race in the world. For me, wearing it [la camiseta amarilla] “It has always been a dream,” Carapaz said at the end of the stage.
The Ecuadorian rider also achieved a feat that neither Pogačar nor Vingegaard have ever achieved. The 31-year-old now joins a select group of cyclists who have worn the three leader’s jerseys in the Grand Tours: Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espana. Only two other cyclists present at the ‘Grande Boucle’ have done so in the past: Primoz Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mark Cavendish (Astana Kazakhstan).
Plasencia and Turin will forever remain in the history of the French Grand Tour for all the milestones that made up the third day of the 111th edition of the ‘Grande Boucle’. From the very beginning, the route was marked by significant events for cycling.
The 230-kilometre-long route started from the home of Giorgia Bronzini, a leading figure in women’s cycling, two-time world champion and current sports leader. In addition, from the start Pogačar was able to wear the yellow jersey again, which he had not worn since stage 11 of the Tour de France in 2022; that is, since July 13 of that year.
The Slovenian wore the yellow jersey for the 22nd time in his sporting career and became the seventeenth cyclist in history to have led the ‘Grande Boucle’ for the most days, alongside three other notables of the French Grand Tour: Joop Zoetemelk, Laurent Fignon and Greg Lemond.
Keep reading:
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Richard Carapaz finishes La Vuelta a España strongly: “A very important victory for me and for my record”