Tour 2024: Super Combat Award Goes to King of the Mountain Richard Carapaz

Richard Carapaz has been named the most combative rider of the past three weeks by the Tour de France organization. The Ecuadorian from EF Education-EasyPost was allowed to wear the yellow jersey for one day and went into the final week – successfully – in search of a stage win and a polka dot jersey.

There was no Belgian or Dutchman among the nominees this year, after Wout van Aert (2022) and Victor Campenaerts (2023) won the award in the last two editions of the Tour.

The following ten riders were nominated for the Super Combativeness Award: Richard Carapaz, Jay Hindley, Julien Bernard, Ower Lazcano, Mathieu Vercher, Jonas Abrahamsen, Guillaume Martin, Ben Healy, Romain Grégoire and Michal Kwiatkowski.

As in previous editions, the public vote was equivalent to that of a select group of French jury members: Thierry Gouvenot (ASO), Laurent Jalabert (RTL), Fanny Lechevestrier (Radio France), Nicolas Giorgirou (RTL), Jacques Clube (AFP) and Philippe Le Jarre (L’Equipe). The public vote was calculated based on a popularity poll on X, the former Twitter site.

🇪🇨 @Richard Carapaz M He is the ultimate fighter of #TDF2024!
👏 After adding the jury votes and the audience vote, the Ecuadorian super fighter is elected for the tournament. #TDF2024with @21st centuryfr!

🇪🇨 @Richard Carapaz M He is a super combat dude. #TDF2024 !
👏 After… pic.twitter.com/wx450n6DGh

— Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 21, 2024

Carapaz has been particularly combative in the last week – Photo: Cor Vos

Carapaz eventually emerged as the winner, which is certainly no surprise: the Olympic champion was very aggressive, especially in the last week, and also linked his desire to attack to the results. The 31-year-old won the 17th stage for Superdévoluy from a breakaway. And it didn’t stop there, as he also finished fourth on the Isola 2000 stage and third on the Col de la Couillole stage.

The 2019 Giro d’Italia winner also managed to collect more than enough points in the battle for the polka dot jersey in the final mountain stages, thus crowning himself King of the Mountains for the 111th Tour. Carapaz will take two podium finishes today – without incident – after the final time trial in Nice.