A look back at a busy weekend of sport, with the end of the Euro football championship and Wimbledon, and Tadej Pogacar’s double demonstration on the Tour de France.
:quality(50)/2023/06/28/649c1edd24ce8_loris-rond.png)
Published
Reading time: 3 min
:quality(50)/2024/07/14/design-sans-titre-21-66943f81ca035351704995.jpg)
The sports news was rich this weekend and it especially smiled on the Spanish athletes. In a few hours, Carlos Alcaraz won the Wimbledon final, then La Roja won the Euro football championship on Sunday July 14. For his part, Tadej Pogacar splashed his talent on the roads of the Tour de France, crushing the Pyrenean weekend. Finally, the extra-sporting news of the French XV eclipsed the defeat against Argentina.
Euro 2024: Spain, Queen of Europe
They were consistent until the end. Luis de la Fuente’s players dominated England (2-1) at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on Sunday evening. After a first half lacking in chances, everything was settled after the break. As if by symbol, the two young wingers Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal, revelations of the tournament, gave the advantage to La Roja, being respectively the scorer and the passer on the opening score (47th).
England came back against the run of play thanks to a strike from elsewhere by substitute Cole Palmer (73rd), but the Spanish machine still had some left in the tank. Mikel Oyarzabal gave his team the lead again at the very end of the match by cutting out a cross from Marc Cucurella (86th). Enough to allow the Spanish to win the fourth Euro in their history, a record.
Tour de France: Pogacar alone in the world
Double for Tadej Pogacar in the Pyrenees. Whether on Saturday at Pla d’Adet or on Sunday on the Plateau de Beille, the Slovenian left no chance to the competition to finally win alone: his 13th and 14th stage victories on the Tour de France. Already in control of the general classification, the leader of UAE increased his lead during the end of this second week of the Grande Boucle, relegating the double defending champion, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a bike), to 3’09” and the white jersey, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), to 5’19”. On the French side, after an excellent start to the Tour punctuated by three stage victories for Romain Bardet, Kevin Vauquelin and Anthony Turgis, the Pyrenean weekend was more complicated.
Wimbledon: Alcaraz wins against Djokovic, second major for Krejcikova
There was no debate between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic in the Wimbledon final. In a remake of the 2023 final, the young Spaniard dominated his elder in three sets (6-2, 6-2, 7-6 [7-4]), in 2h27 of match. By retaining his title, the world number 3 offers himself his fourth Grand Slam title at only 21 years old. In the women’s table, it is Barbora Krejcikova, who pulled off a masterstroke, three years after winning her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros. The Czech dominated the Italian Jasmine Paolini in the final (6-2, 2-6, 6-4), who had lost at the same stage a month earlier on the Parisian clay.
XV of France: the Jegou-Auradou scandal monopolizes minds
It was time for the French rugby team’s South American tour to end. Les Bleus finished with a defeat on Saturday against Argentina (33-25), after winning the first leg a week earlier. But the game was of very little importance to conclude a week “very complicated” as captain Baptiste Serin mentioned after the match. Oscar Jegou and Hugo Auradou were charged with “aggravated gang rape” on Friday and face between eight and twenty years in prison. Earlier, Melvyn Jaminet had been asked to pack his bags and return to France after uttering racist words on social media.