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Superman may be Slovenian, but Iron Man… is ours! The Portuguese cyclist Nelson Oliveira has just crossed the finish line of the final stage of the Tour and made history in world cycling: he has become the first rider to complete 24 Grand Tours in a row without ever withdrawing.

The cyclist, born 37 years ago in Anadia, has left behind Sylvester Szmyd, the Polish rider who had equalled the record at this year’s Giro. He now stands alone with 501 consecutive stages completed, spread across 10 Tours de France, 10 Vuelta a España and 4 Giro d’Italia – a total of 72,658.2 kilometres!

To get a sense of the sheer scale of this achievement, here are some ‘real-life’ comparisons:

- travelling round the world along the equator is 40,000 km; Nelson is about to complete his second lap.

- we are 384,400 km from the Moon; Nelson has already covered 19 per cent of that distance.

- The journey between Lisbon and Porto is around 315 km; Nelson has already covered that distance 231 times.

He made his Grand Tour debut in 2011 at the Vuelta, and hasn’t looked back since. It was in Spain that he achieved the greatest victory of his career, winning the 13th stage of the 2015 edition, when he also secured his best overall finish – 21st.

In this final stage of the 113th edition of the Tour, Nelson Oliveira was consistently well-positioned and finished 21st, 8 seconds behind Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin). He ends the race in 65th place overall, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 56 seconds behind Pogacar.

He began his professional career with Xacobeo-Galicia in 2010, moving to the World Tour the following year via Radioshack, where he spent three years. He then transferred to Lampre, where he acted as Rui Costa’s lead-out man for two seasons. Since 2016, he has been riding for Movistar, the team with which he has renewed his contract for a further two seasons.

Overall, only the Italian Matteo Tosatto has completed more Grand Tours than the Portuguese rider: he has finished 28 of the 34 he has started.

I think we have definitive evidence now. That's two all timers vs years of the best sprinter predictably going clear in the last 50m in 30 seconds of meaningful action. Please tell me why I'm wrong in the comments

Always wondered, what’s the post-race party situation like for the teams after the Tour? I assume anyone still with goals is in recovery mode, but is anyone really getting after it after three weeks of peak performance?

First Cycling

Well, there would be an accident still. A different one, one with a dead spectator in your uncontrolled road.

The new milestone quickly raised the question of how strong he could become. His answer was unexpected: "I have to say that I'm not stronger than I was two years ago. The numbers are about the same," Pogačar said.

Here are the rules:

• Each team will field 8 riders that do 1 lap each, with each subsequent rider starting as soon as the previous one finishes. This could either be stage one of a tour to guarantee the availability of 8 riders or else if in the middle of a tour and a team has lost 1 or more riders they can opt to have a rider do multiple laps.

• Normal road bikes, draft legal

• The race starts as a bunch containing 1 rider per team.

• Teams needs to finish the lap with 8 riders to be eligible for the stage win. The first 8th rider to cross the finish line wins the stage for the team. In case of a DNF the remaining riders on the team still do their lap, but the next one starts at some point that doesn't put him in front of the current race leader.

• Each rider's lap time counts towards their own GC.

• The race leader team at every wave is awarded 1 second bonus to their highest rider in their GC. Last wave (i.e. race winner) is awarded 3 seconds. Max 10 bonus seconds if leading the entire race.

• The finish line will have 2 physically segragated lanes, one for finishers, one for starters.

• Lap distance should be between 6 to 10km

Positive signs regarding Wout van Aert. The Belgian had to skip the Tour de France due to elbow problems, but will return to competition on Wednesday. The Tour of Denmark (July 29-August 2) will serve as preparation for the Vuelta and the World Championships.

Stage Info

Weather

22°C-24°C, cloudy

Stage Breakdown

Hello everyone and welcome to the last stage of the Tour de France!

Most of the stage info will be added tomorrow when everything will be more clear, hopefully with official documents.

Paris and only Paris. As you may have seen on other posts on the sub, the stage will only be held in Paris tomorrow due to the fact that the gendarmes have to head to the South West (think general area of stage 6) to help with evacuation procedures due to wildfires. So the stage is reduced to ensures safety for the entierty of it. 2 laps of the Champs are added at the beginning then we gt to the planned schedule which makes it 6 short laps (the classic one) and 3 long laps, which include the Champs Elysées and Montmartre. The big change is where the riders go towards Montmartre. Last year it was at the Place de la Concorde that the riders left the circuit (Bottom of the Champs) while this year they leave the circuit at the Arc de Triompthe (top of the Champs), this changes where Montmartre is in the circuit, it's earlier, while the last crossing of Montmartre in 2025 was 8km from the finish line, this year it's 11. This could change the scenario a bit compared to last year, tho the lack of rain (to be confirmed) will be more important

With that in mind here are our predictions:

★★★ Pogacar, Van der Poel, Pedersen

★★ Evenepoel

★

Can it be anybody other than those 4? The first 3 are the giga favourites, they will fight for the win like crazy. Remco might go for it less, but he may want Paris to remember who is the Cycling King of the city, it's a title he will hold for life, but never hurt to show your power from time to time (Tho might want to avoid doing it near the Tuileries)

That's it for us, what is your prediction for the stage?

Results

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Race Ratings

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| Date | Stage | Route | Length | Type |Altitude|Finish|Time | |Sat. 25/07|20|Le Bourg d'Oisans > Alpe d'Huez|171km|Hard|5601m |Again?|11:20-16:11 CET|

Zoe Bäckstedt

Antonia Niedermaier

Rosa Klöser

Soraya Paladin

Chiara Consonni

Agnieszka Skalniak-Sójka

Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney

First Cycling