With the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Tour de France pushed back to begin on Aug. 29, as the competition traditionally takes place in July. The competition was filled with challenges this year.

The Tour is a bicycle race amongst a few hundred professional cyclists that normally happens every year in July. This year, there were 176 cyclists that competed in the event.

There are 21 stages of this race. Some of them are in the mountains, some are time trials and others are considered hilly. Between all 21 stages, that came out to a little over 2,100 miles this year. Sometimes the cyclists deal with rain and headwinds as they ride through each stage which makes the stage victories even tougher. After each stage, the leader holds onto the yellow jersey, meaning they are currently in first place overall.

Tadej Pogacar was the winner of this year’s Tour, which he won a day before his 22nd birthday. Pogacar is from Slovenia and represented UAE Team Emirates. Pogacar is no stranger to winning cycling events, as he won the Tour of California in 2019 at 20 years old.

While Pogacar had an amazing experience this year being the winner, two other cyclists who I thought were very competitive were Richie Porte and Wout Van Aert.

Porte is from Australia and finished in third place overall, just three and a half minutes behind Pogacar. He represented Team Trek-Segafredo. While Porte did not have any stage victories in this year’s event, he still managed to compete at a high level and earned a spot on the podium on the last day of the event in Paris.

Van Aert is a cyclist from Belgium and finished in 20th place overall in this year’s event while representing Team Jumbo-Visma. While 20th place may not come across as a strong finish, Van Aert did win two stages of the Tour this year, including stages five and seven.

Van Aert is no stranger to winning championships in the cycling world. He was the winner three consecutive years in an event called The Men’s Elite Race at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

I admire what these athletes do and how strong mentally and physically they are. It doesn’t matter what place you come in. What matters is having the honor of competing in an event not many people can say they’ve been a part of. I look forward to the 2021 Tour De France with high hopes and great anticipation.
Alex Martin can be reached at [email protected] or @alexmartinjour on Twitter.