Tadej Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates Win the Tour de France on Continental Tires

Hanover, Germany, July 22, 2024. Yesterday’s individual time trial in Nice brought the curtain down on the Tour de France 2024. For Continental, the 111th edition of the event was again a big success. After 3,498 kilometers (2,173 miles) of racing, Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar from UAE Team Emirates celebrated victory in the general classification, Eritrean rider Biniam Girmay of Intermarché-Wanty secured the green jersey for best sprinter and Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates colleagues wrapped up the team classification – all on tires from Continental. Five of the top ten riders overall (Pogačar, João Almeida, Adam Yates, Carlos Rodríguez and Santiago Buitrago) relied on cutting-edge technology from the Hanover-based manufacturer. In total, nine of the 21 stages in this year’s race were won on Continental tires.

"Year in, year out, the Tour de France excites audiences around the world like no other sporting event. The riders suffer and celebrate, create dramatic stories and embed themselves in our memories as stage winners for decades to come. This summer was no different, with a fantastic performance from Tadej Pogačar," says Timo Röbbel, Head of Marketing Replacement Tires. "The advances made in the development of tire technology have played a key role in raising the average speed of the race from 25 km/h (15.5 mph) in the first ever Tour de France in 1903 to 42 km/h (26 mph) today – and that’s despite the route profile growing ever tougher and more challenging."

Some two billion people followed this year’s Tour de France on TV and via streaming services, with ten to twelve million spectators lining the route in person. At the heart of the action were the car and bicycle tires supplied by Continental. Seven of the teams contesting the 2024 Tour – Bahrain Victorious, Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale, Groupama-FDJ, INEOS Grenadiers, Intermarché-Wanty, Movistar and UAE Team Emirates – benefited from the quality and dependability of the high-tech racing bike tires.

As in previous years, the official service and support vehicles of Tour organizer ASO used tires from the premium manufacturer, with the new UltraContact NXT fitted for the first time. Using as much as 65 percent renewable, recycled and mass-balance-certified materials, Continental’s most sustainable production tire to date for passenger cars combines a high proportion of sustainable materials with maximum safety and performance; all the available sizes earn the top EU tire label rating ("A") for rolling resistance, wet braking and exterior noise.

In its role as a partner of the seven UCI WorldTeams, Continental supplied three different tires for the first time. The Grand Prix 5000 S TR is the latest evolution of the all-rounder racing tire from Continental that has a long history in the Tour. And two new special-purpose tires were added to the range for this year’s race: the Grand Prix 5000 AS TR is a more robust tire that offers much higher grip levels in wet conditions, and the Grand Prix 5000 TT TR is a particularly light and fast tire designed specifically for time trials. So on each occasion the teams could choose their preferred option. 

The "TR" on all three high-tech racing tires stands for Tubeless Ready – in other words, for tires that can work without an inner tube. Among the aspects in which these specialist items differ from conventional bicycle tires is that they have no tread. Instead, they have a central stripe running all the way around them, which ensures a large contact area. Providing the requisite grip is a tread compound adapted to optimal effect for the job at hand, combined with the correct air pressure. And additional control through corners comes courtesy of the Lazer Grip shoulder design, which has a checkered flag look.

Continental will line up as a partner of the Tour de France once again next year. The world’s toughest cycle race will get underway in Lille, northern France on July 5, 2025 and – in a return to tradition – finish in Paris.