Stage 21: Champagne à Paris
The peloton arrived in Paris in style. Riders enjoyed bubbly and vamped for photo-ops along the route. The 21st stage of the Tour de France is traditionally non-competitive for the bulk of the course, picking up speed only in the final sprint laps on the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Deceuninck beat out rivals in the sprint finish.
The peloton must negotiate the cobbled streets at high speed. Tough on the rear end after 80+ hours of cycling over three weeks!
The sprint held some surprises. Third-place overall Geraint Thomas (IGD) attacked on the Champs-Elysees with teammate Philippo Ganna. Second-overall Tadej Pogacar (UAE) joined in the attack for a very unusual high stakes moment in the 21st stage. Jonas Vingegaard played it safe in the yellow at the back of the peloton. The strange attacks eventually subsided, making way for Jasper Philipsen (ADC) and the true fastmen in the final sprint.
Jersey parade, Stage 21. Left to right: Jonas Vingegaard (JV) in the yellow, Tadej Pogacar (UAE) in the white, Wout Van Aert (JV) in the green, and Simon Geschke (Cofidis) wears the polka dots as 2nd-place KOM to 1st-place KOM Vingegaard. The wearers of the prize jerseys were fixed in place before the stage. The young Dane Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) wears the yellow jersey, ranking first in the overall classification and winning his first Tour de France.
The white jersey for Best Young Rider goes to Tadej Pogacar (UAE). It’s a paltry substitute for the yellow, but the Slovenian wunderkind, already with 2 Tour wins to his credit, will be back and motivated next year.
His teammate Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) wears the green jersey, ranking first in the points classification and utterly decimating the competition. Van Aert collected upwards of 480 points – the next closest competitor didn’t break the 300-point mark.
The polka dots jersey for King of the Mountains fell to the winner of the overall time, Vingegaard. As long as the big mountain stages play key roles in creating time gaps between GC contenders and the summits are rewarded with big KOM points, the yellow jersey winner will often win the polka dots jersey. Simon Geschke (Cofidis), who lost the polka dots jersey on Stage 18, was crushed when he lost the prize to the young Dane, but dual yellow/polka-dots winners are nothing unusual.
Notable DNSs: Michael Woods (IPT) due to Covid-19. The great fear throughout the race was that Covid-19 would strike the peloton en masse, ending the Tour. Although big names bowed out to Covid-19, we never saw the kind of widespread infection that would have forced a race stoppage. The highest placed American at the end of the 2022 is Neilson Powless (EF) who ranks a very respectable 13th overall. Cause to celebrate!
That’s all for the 2022 Tour de France, folks. Tour recap coming soon, and then it’s on to next summer. Au revoir!
