Race in Review: Tour de France 2022
Overall rankings at finish: Jonas Vingegaard (1st, JV), Tadej Pogacar (2nd, UAE), Geraint Thomas (3rd, IGD).The 2022 edition of the Tour de France has come to a conclusion, both happy and sad. Sad because the three-week tour lingers for long enough to become a fixture of daily life, then it’s gone. For those of us watching in America, the Tour is there when we wake up, occupying our mornings with exciting news breaks, and leaving us with plenty to wonder at and discuss for the afternoon and evening. It’s the life of July, no matter where else we are, at work, at play, or somewhere in between.
But of course, the bitter sweet farewell we must pay to the Tour would be nothing at all without the joy the race brings. And the 2022 brought a special kind of joy in the wake of the lowest lows of the pandemic. Fans once again lined the roads and there was plenty for them to watch. New names in the peloton struck out and announced their grandeur, along with favorite veteran domestiques who finally found stage glory.
The prelude of the 2022 Tour took place in Denmark – and it’s hard to imagine that the race has ever had a warmer or more enthusiastic reception in a host country.
Denmark enjoyed watching its countryman Magnus Cort Nielsen (EF) race out to an early lead in the King of the Mountains classification in the first three stages, but it did not yet dare dream that another strong young Dane would leapfrog the ostensible team leader on Jumbo-Visma and win it all in the yellow jersey.
Jonas Vingegaard, trophy, child in Paris at the 2022 Tour de France.
The King of the Mountains too!But win it, Jonas Vingegaard (JV) did. After Primoz Roglic (JV) struggled to project dominance in the first week, while Vingegaard seemed stronger by the day (a result foreshadowed in the Critérium du Dauphiné). Before long the GC duties were bestowed on the young Dane, while Roglic transitioned into a super domestique without parallel. For his efforts and endurance, Viingegaard won the yellow jersey, with the polka dots jersey to boot after being the strongest man in the mountains.
Tadej Pogacar (UAE) wins his share.The pre-race favorite to win Tadej Pogacar (UAE) looked every bit as strong as his two previous Tour de France wins suggest, but his team did not, and without team depth he was left alone in the pack a bit too often, and settled for an impressive second place. Geraint Thomas (IGD) came into the Tour with a massive pedigree, having won outright in 2018 and taken second place in 2019. And yet his third place finish in the 2022 edition seems to have caught the cycling commentariat by surprise. Shame on us for letting the fantastic spectacle of the Pogacar/Vingegaard duel lead us to soft pedal the efforts of such an established rider on a strong team.
If there was a moment the race was won, in retrospect, it was the moment that Pogacar cracked on the climb up Col du Granon at the end of Stage 11.
Pogacar suffered up the final climb on Col du Granon in Stage 11.Pogacar lost time in chunks to Vingegaard, and other lesser lights in the GC competition. At the time no one doubted that Pogacar had the talent and ambition to ride himself back into the Tour. There were many critical mountain stages remaining (Stages 12, 17, and 18) to give him opportunity. But we did not foresee how the powerful young Dane would endure, matching Tadej pedal for pedal, as the masterful team tactics of Jumbo-Visma wore down the Slovenian wunderkind.
Wout Van Aert in the green jersey at Paris.Wout Van Aert was a not-so distant second great revelation of the Tour. The cycling world was well aware of his abilities and already impressive palmares, but to see the Belgian in full force, on the biggest platform of the year, contesting every type of terrain – it was remarkable. Van Aert ran away with the green jersey race (and Most Combative rider) with 480 points, winning by the largest margin in decades.
A three-week race, however, does not boil down to a single moment. So come join us for the Tour de Twitter below, and relive the important moments, stage by stage and blow by blow:
