With the Tour unofficially over and only the ride down the Champs Elysees remaining stage twenty-four began with the peloton headed towards the finish line in Paris. There were a few escape attempts early in the stage including by Thurau and Zoetemelk, who was trying to get away from Hinault. At 124 kilometers into the stage Hinault left everyone behind and only Zoetemelk went off in pursuit. It took him four kilometers to catch Hinault and by 129 kilometers into the stage this 'royal escape' was turned loose with the teams of both riders controlling the peloton from then on. The time gap between Hinault and Zoetemelk steadily increased from that point on and continued to increase on the laps of the Champs Elysees. It must certainly have been an unfamiliar site for the fans in attendance to see the Tour fought over until the last kilometer had been ridden. Hinault crossed the line about a bike length ahead of Zoetemelk and about two and half minutes later the bunch sprint began for 3rd place with Dietrich Thurau edging out Jacques Bossis and Paul Sherwen. Just as the day began with Hinault in the lead by +3:07, it ended with Bernard Hinault as Tour de France champion by +3:07 over Joop Zoetemelk, who had now finished in 2nd place in the Tour de France for a record 5th time, which in and of itself is remarkable considering the ‘'Eternal Second’ Raymond Poulidor only finished 2nd three times. Something that did change was the 3rd place rider Agostinho was now nearly a half hour behind. Winning the points classification was Hinault, the mountains classification was won by Giovanni Battaglin, the young rider classification went to Jean-Renè Bernaudeau and the Combativity award was presented to Zoetemelk,