Ewan Wins Stage and Bernal Makes History!

Caleb Ewan won his third stage in this year's Tour de France.  The loops around Paris are so much fun to watch at the end of the final stage.  Ewan just burst through at the end to win the stage (click on image for a larger view).

You can see Ewan on the far left in red and white.  You can also see Egan Bernal with the yellow jersey in the center of the screen capture.  He's about to come in 29th in the stage, but, more importantly, he's about to make history as the first Colombian to win the general classification at the Tour de France.  Before getting to Bernal, check out how our prediction fared today.

• Stage 21:  3h 04' 08", 3h 06' 05" (prediction), 01' 57" slow (1.06% error)

We've done well on the last stage in the past, and I'm thrilled with today's result.  Ewan's average speed is given below.

• Stage 21:  11.59 m/s (41.71 kph or 25.92 mph)

The ceremonial aspects of the stage make it a challenge to model.  Just after the stage commenced, Egan Bernal had a wonderful moment with Julian Alaphilippe (click on image for a larger view).

And it wasn't long afterwards that Bernal partook of the tradition of drinking champagne (click on image for a larger view).

Bernal won the Tour de France with a time of 82h 57' 00".  Given the two shortened stages in the Alps, the total distance came to 3365.8 km (2091.4 mi).  I'd have to bike from my office at the University of Lynchburg to Yellowstone National Park to match that distance.  What I couldn't possibly do is bike that distance in a three-week period while averaging 40.58 kph (25.21 mph) in the saddle!

The post-race ceremony was moving to say the least.  Julian Alaphilippe most definitely deserved the most combative prize.  It was a joy to watch Alaphilippe over the past three weeks.  He made France very proud.  Peter Sagan won his record seventh green jersey.  Romain Bardet recovered from a rocky start to win the polka dot jersey.  Besides the yellow jersey, Bernal won the white jersey -- and he's eligible to win it for three more years.  Check out the jersey winners (click on image for a larger view).

Bernal's muli-language speech on the podium was beautiful.  He stood with teammate Geraint Thomas, who came in second, and Steven Kruijswijk, who came in third (click on image for a larger view).

Can Bernal win another Tour de France?  At just 22 years old, he certainly appears to have a bright future!

Posting predictions on my blog has always added to the fun of watching the Tour de France for me.  I thank two of my research students, Carl Pilat and Noah Baumgartner, who both did excellent work this summer.  The real work always comes after the Tour de France ends when post-race analysis begins.  Stage 7 was our one really bad prediction.  Of the 20 stages we could predict, we hit 14 of them to better than 6%, including eight of them to better than 3%.  I'm on holiday beginning tomorrow.  I'll likely write one more Tour de France blog post after my return.