2022 Tour de Twitter
Hump Day News provided end-to-end coverage of the 2022 Tour de France and captured the greatest moments and most important results on our #humpwheels hashtags as part of our own Tour de Twitter. In the build up to the race, HDN previewed all the stages, teams, and key contenders.
Our Tour correspondent Mike Gutierrez reported the unfolding action.
Yves Lampaert beat a field of bigger name favorites to get the Tour off to a surprising and pleasant start. Many more surprises were yet to come.
The prelude in Denmark continued on Stage 2 with coastal winds threatening to shred the peloton.
Magnus Cort Nielsen embarked on a King of the Mountains campaign that thrilled his countrymen in the prelude.
Team Quickstep-AlphaVinyl enjoyed their second win in two stages. The team specializes in stage wins over GC ambitions, but 2 out of 2 was incredible. It also put to bed (for some) the controversy surrounding the placement of dynamite sprinter Fabio Jakobsen on the Tour team, over veteran fan favorite Mark Cavendish.
As part of our Tour de Twitter, HDN provided mini-previews & analysis of the next day’s stage.
Plus, live reactions to race results in real time.
And post-stage wrap-up analysis at Hump Day News. In Stage 3, Dylan Groenewegen of Team BikeExchange steals the winning mantle off the shoulders of Quickstep-AlphaVinyl.
On Stage 4, Magnus Cort Nielsen continued to take care of business in the King of the Mountains competition, while Wout Van Aert shook off three consecutive second-place finishes in stages 1, 2, and 3 to take first on Stage 4.
Stage 5 brought on the dreaded cobbles.
Cagey veteran Simon Clarke (IPT) outlasted the cobbles competition.
In Stage 6, returning winner Tadej Pogacar (UAE) won the stage and moved into the yellow jersey. Many observers thought he was strong enough to hold it all the way to Paris.
If Pogacar wanted to show his strength in 2022, Stage 7 was the first big mountain stage opportunity. He won with authority, and the Pogacar Hat Trick Tour narrative started to take shape.
Stage 8 offered some inclines, but leaned toward the puncheurs rather than GC riders.
No one picked him as a GC-man, but Wout Van Aert refused to abandon the spotlight throughout this Tour.
Stage 9, the last stage before the rest day, was another chance for the breakaway.
Everyone loves the underdog story. Bob Jungels (AG2R) delighted fans with his first Tour stage win.
After a well-deserved rest day, the peloton was looking at another breakaway opportunity. Mid-Tour wackiness started to take hold as riders, officials, and fans started to feel the July heat and daily grind. And Covid-19 made an unwelcome cameo.
Magnus Cort Nielsen showed his Tour was about more than a futile KOM attempt, with a Stage 10 win in style.
As part of HDN’s Tour coverage, we tracked the top GC contenders (and some oddball favorites) with beautiful data visualizations available at the end of each stage recap.
Stage 11 (and Stage 12 to follow) brought the first real big mountain test for the riders. It also brought a critical turning point in the fortunes of Tadej Pogacar — in retrospect, it decided the race.
Was Stage 11 a mere hiccup for Tadej, or a sign of things to come? Everyone looked for the Revenge of Pogacar in the mountains of Stage 12.
No revenge was forthcoming in Stage 12, as Vingegaard proved himself a capable defender of the yellow jersey. We did, however, enjoy seeing some old and new riders find their form on Alpe d’Huez.
With Pogacar and Vingegaard locking horns in the mountains, the stages that followed let some capable lesser knowns claim the spotlight.
But all was not quiet on the GC front. The race was turning into a battle of attrition between Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma, in one corner, and Tadej Pogacar and United Arab Emirates, in the other corner. Each team was losing riders through crashes, injury, Covid-19 and who knows what else. Stage 15 was particularly brutal for Jumbo-Visma.
Stage 16 brought another underdog story from Hugo Houle (IPT) — this time with an emotional backstory not to be outshined.
Stage 17 brought mountains, and with the mountains the focus returned to the GC duel between Pogacar and Vingegaard. Was Vingegaard’s edge in Stage 11 a mirage to be swept away on the peaks of stage 17 and 18? Pogacar does not gain much time back with his Stage 17 win, but to win at all is a morale boost.
Stage 18 was the last big mountain stage in which Pogacar could realistically reel back the time lost to Vingegaard on Stage 11. It didn’t happen, but the stage was a stage for the ages. Covid-19 continued to work its devil magic. And fatigue was leading to bad decisions in the motorcade.
After dueling up and down the Col de Spandelles, and nearly coming to catastrophe in the descent, Pogacar and Vingegaard signal a brief truce. It was a moment of great sportsmanship, but, also, quite possibly, a signal that somewhere in the deepest recesses of Pogacar’s heart, he had resigned himself to second place in the 2022 Tour de France. The pair would resume their duel up the final climb, but far too little road was left for the Slovenian to gain back the necessary time.
With a superior support squad of Sepp Kuss and Wout Van Aert, Jumbo-Visma launched its GC man Jonas Vingegaard up the road for a solo breakaway win up the final climb on Stage 18.
For most race watchers, that was the race. Barring catastrophe, Jonas Vingegaard would hold onto the yellow jersey to Paris. But there was still a time for glory with individual stage wins before the peloton reached the Champs-Elysees. As it turns out, all the glory went to Team Jumbo-Visma, as tireless domestique won a surprise Stage 19 and Wout Van Aert proved his time trial prowess in Stage 20. There was never a realistic chance for Pogacar to steal back time in these final stages.
Stage 21 into Paris is all about tradition, bubbly, and photo-ops. The final sprint glory went to Jasper Philipsen (ADC), but the bulk of the post-race festivities were about honoring the overall winners in the jersey competitions: Jonas Vingegaard (yellow and polka dots), Wout Van Aert (green jersey), and Tadej Pogacar (Best Young Rider).
Thus concludes the #humpwheels Tour de Twitter. For more race recap, with winners, losers, and analysis, visit:
