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Tour de France Winners List

The most successful rider in the Tour de France was Lance Armstrong , who finished first seven times before his wins were removed from the record books after being found guilty of doping by the USADA in 2012. No rider has been named to replace him for those years.

> see also more information about how they determine the winners of the Tour

General Classification Winners

* footnotes

• 1904: The original winner was Maurice Garin, however he was found to have caught a train for part of the race and was disqualified.
• 1996: Bjarne Riis has admitted to the use of doping during the 1996 Tour. The Tour de France organizers have stated they no longer consider him to be the winner, although Union Cycliste Internationale has so far refused to change the official status due to the amount of time passed since his win. Jan Ullrich was placed second.
• 1999-2005: these races were originally won by Lance armstrong, but in 2012 his wins in the tour de france were removed due to doping violations.
• 2006: Floyd Landis was the initial winner but subsequently rubbed out due to a failed drug test.
• 2010: Alberto Contador was the initial winner of the 2010 event, but after a prolonged drug investigation he was stripped of his win in 2012.

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Tour de France winners

Every winner of the Tour de France from 1903 onwards

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The roll-call of Tour de France winners contains the names of many of the world's best bike riders through time.

The most illustrious of the three Grand Tours, the Tour de France  has been taking place on an annual bases since 1903 - with two breaks in its history, one for each of the World Wars.

The most prolific winner would have been Lance Armstrong, who wore the yellow jersey in Paris for seven consecutive years between 1999 and 2005. However, he was stripped of all of his titles in 2012 following investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).

Next in line, we have a prolific quartet of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. All four have five titles to their names, Anquitel was the first to do it but Mercx is still the only person to have won the general, points and king of the mountains classifications in the same Tour - a feat he accomplished in 1969.

Chris Froome (now Israel Start-Up Nation) has four wins to his name - he won in in 2013 and then consecutively from 2015 to 2017 but hasn't managed to equal the record of five overall victories yet.

Tour de France titles won between 1999-2005 were formerly allocated to Lance Armstrong (USA) but stripped after he was found guilty of doping. No alternative winner has been announced for these years.

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How do you win the Tour de France?

In the first ever edition of the race, the winner of the General Classification earned their place based on overall riding time. However, following the disqualification of its 1904 victor, Maurice Garin, the organisers introduced a points based system.

Then, in 1912 they reverted back to awarding the win based on time. This remains the case today - the rider with the lowest overall accumulated time leads the General Classification and whoever holds that position once the peloton arrives in Paris is crowned the winner.

Youngest ever Tour de France winner

Henri Cornet, 19-years-old

Oldest ever Tour de France winner

Firmin Lambot, 36-years-old

First Tour de France winner

The first ever win went to a rider from the race's home country - Maurice Garin, in 1903.

First ever Tour de France GC disqualification

Also Garin. The Frenchman also won in 1904, however he was disqualified for allegedly using means of transport outside of the bicycle (car, rail).

The result was that Henri Cornet took his place, and at 19-years-old he will no doubt remain the youngest ever for a long time, if not indefinitely.

There have been quite a few disqualifications since, mostly for doping (Armstrong, 1999-2005, Floyd Landis, 2006, Alberto Contador, 2010).

First non-French Tour de France winner

The winner's list for the early years of the race is dominated by Frenchman. The first winner from outside the country of origin was 1909 leader François Faber of Luxembourg.

Britain took a while to catch up - the first British rider of the men's Tour de France race was Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) in 2012. GB now have five overall victories to their name thanks to Wiggins and Froome.

Smallest ever winning margin

In 1989, American Greg LeMond won over Laurent Fignon by just eight seconds.

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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!

I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.

It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.

After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.

When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.

My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.

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Jonas Vingegaard Wins Tour de France, Completing His Sudden Ascent to Top

Vingegaard, 25, won cycling’s most prestigious race on his second attempt, setting up a new rivalry with the two-time champion he dethroned, Tadej Pogacar.

By Juliet Macur

PARIS — Head down and legs churning, Jonas Vingegaard crossed the finish line of the penultimate stage of the Tour de France on Saturday and cupped his hand over his mouth, as if to stifle a gasp. He had done what he had come to do, and his astonishing accomplishment was sinking in.

In only his second Tour de France, and only three years after becoming a professional cyclist, Vingegaard, a 25-year-old Danish rider, had sealed his victory in cycling’s most prestigious race.

His victory became official on Sunday, when the race concluded with its traditional celebratory ride into Paris. But the Tour had been effectively over for days, and when Vingegaard finished second in Saturday’s time trial to his Jumbo-Visma teammate, Wout van Aert of Belgium, his effort on the 25-mile course was enough to leave him with such a large lead in the overall standings — 3 minutes 34 seconds ahead of his closest pursuer — that the final stage brought almost no drama at all.

Vingegaard steered clear of danger on the final laps in Paris, crossing — safely — alongside his teammates well behind the peloton. His winning time was 79 hours 33 minutes 20 seconds.

“We made a plan and we followed it 100 percent,” he said on the podium afterward . “And thanks to everyone in the team, behind the team. It has been really incredible journey for us and now we finally did it.”

After about three full weeks of the Tour, Vingegaard, as he had on Saturday, immediately sought out his partner and toddler daughter in the area past the finish line and gave them a long, sweaty hug.

While Vingegaard had pedaled up and down all the endless hills and unforgiving mountains, and across all the flat roads past fields of flowers and farms, he had wanted to win for them. During every day of searing heat that at times rose above 100 degrees, melting pavement and sidelining some riders with heat exhaustion, he said, he had steeled himself for them.

And, in the end, Vingegaard, who grew up in a small fishing town in northern Denmark, won what was arguably one of the most grueling Tours in history.

Tadej Pogacar, the Slovene rider looking for his third straight Tour win, finished second overall, 2:43 behind Vingegaard, after fighting Vingegaard for the lead until the race’s final days. Geraint Thomas of Britain, the 2018 Tour winner, was third, 7:22 off the pace. Every other rider was at least 13 minutes behind Vingegaard.

“I think the battle between me and Jonas was really something special,” Pogacar, 23, said Saturday, acknowledging the eventual outcome. He offered Sunday’s only hint of a surprise: a late sprint into the lead on Sunday’s final lap, though he was immediately reeled back into the lead group.

“It’s going to be an interesting couple of years ahead for us,” Pogacar said of his nascent rivalry with Vingegaard. “He’s stepped up from last year, he’s taken control of things from the beginning, and he’s proved he’s a strong rider.”

Going into this Tour, Pogacar most likely expected Vingegaard to be his greatest rival after Vingegaard’s improbable second-place finish last year.

In 2021, Jumbo-Visma’s top rider, Primoz Roglic, had dropped out of the Tour after a crash and Vingegaard took it upon himself to show what he could do . His performance was breathtaking — and unexpected. On the daunting Mont Ventoux, he left Pogacar behind to record one of the fastest times ever for that legendary climb.

Vingegaard’s entire career has been nothing short of a fairy tale played out on two wheels and on fast forward.

Six months before joining Jumbo-Visma in 2019, he was working part-time in a Danish factory where he gutted, cleaned and packed fish into ice-filled boxes. Before that, he worked at a fish auction. He credits those days of waking at 4 a.m. and all that hard manual labor in the shivering cold with helping him get to where he is now, at the top of the cycling world.

His Jumbo-Visma team, especially van Aert, was at his side all the way.

Van Aert had his own remarkable race, spending every day of the Tour except the first in the green jersey, which is awarded to the rider who accumulates the most points for stage finishes and in midrace sprint sections. But his biggest achievement over the past three weeks might have been his support of Vingegaard.

Van Aert was there for Vingegaard when his teammate needed him the most on the grueling Hautacam climb that turned out to be the deciding stage in the overall competition. He took off on a breakaway and mercilessly dictated a fast pace, challenging the notion, at 6-foot-3, that light, smaller riders like Vingegaard and Pogacar are naturally the best climbers.

Pogacar, who was battling Vingegaard for the overall lead, couldn’t keep up. As Vingegaard and van Aert kept climbing, Pogacar faded, looking like a car with a sputtering engine as the Jumbo-Visma teammates powered ahead.

The Jumbo-Visma team had won six of the Tour’s 20 stages entering Sunday’s finale. After Saturday’s stage, though, Vingegaard faced questions about his fairy-tale career. One reporter asked him about his rapid rise in the sport, and about how he could have finished 22nd in the 2019 Danish national time trial and then go on to nearly win Saturday’s time trial after three weeks of the Tour.

If Vingegaard was familiar at all with Tour history, or Danish racing history, it was possible that he expected the question. The only other Dane to win the Tour was Bjarne Riis in 1996, and a decade later Riis admitted that he had doped to win the race. Many past winners, though none recently, have either been caught doping or have admitted to doing so.

No, Vingegaard said, he did not go fast because he had doped. It happened because he and his team improved his aerodynamics by toiling in the wind tunnel and adjusting his body position and bike.

“We’re totally clean,” he said in his news conference, broadening his denial to include his entire team. “Every one of us. I can say that to every one of you. No one of us is taking anything illegal.”

High-altitude training camps and attention to detail — in food, in equipment, in preparation — were behind Jumbo-Visma’s rise, he said. “That’s why you have to trust,” he said.

Vingegaard appears to take sportsmanship seriously. On one descent during Stage 18, Pogacar crashed on a section of gravel as he and Vingegaard zoomed down a hill nearly side by side. But instead of taking advantage of Pogacar’s fall, Vingegaard waited for him down the road, allowing his rival to catch up .

After coming back together, Pogacar reached out in an expression of gratitude and the two clenched hands in a moment that will be replayed for years as an example of the good side of sports.

But only one of them was invited to climb atop the podium in Paris and celebrate on the Champs-Élysées. Only one got to pose for photos and family memories that will last a lifetime. And only one will be celebrated in his home country this summer as the king of cycling.

A series of ceremonies honoring Vingegaard already has been scheduled in Copenhagen, the city that hosted the start of this year’s Tour — the kickoff to Vingegaard’s ride to victory.

Who Won the 2022 Tour de France?

Your stage-by-stage guide to the winners of the 2022 Tour.

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Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) won the yellow jersey as the overall winner of the 2022 Tour de France. The 25-year-old outlasted two-time defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) of Slovenia to win his first Tour. Pogačar finished second, 2:43 back of Vingegaard, and Great Britain's Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) was third, 7:22 behind the lead, to round out the podium for the Tour's General Classification.

Here’s a look at how every stage of the 2022 Tour unfolded.

Stage 21 - Jasper Philipsen

Who Won the Tour?

Surrounded by his teammates, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) finished safely behind the peloton at the end of Stage 21 in Paris to win the 2022 Tour de France. The Dane won the Tour by 3:34 over Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who started the race as the two-time defending champion, and 8:13 over Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers), who won the Tour in 2018 and finished second in 2019.

Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the field sprint on the Champs-Élysées to take the final stage, defeating the Netherlands’ Dylan Groenewegen (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) and Norway’s Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) to win his second stage in this year’s Tour.

But the real story was Vingegaard, the 25-year-old from a fishing town in northern Denmark who is only the second rider from his nation to win the Tour de France. He rode an almost perfect race, only losing little bits of time to Pogačar on Stage 1, a rainy individual time trial in Copenhagen, Stage 5, a road stage over the cobbles of northern France, and on Stages 7, 8, and 9, when the Slovenian scored time bonuses at the end of each stage.

But Vingegaard was clearly just biding his time for the Alps, content to let Pogačar make big efforts for only a handful of seconds. And when it mattered most–on the steep slopes of the Col du Granon at the end of Stage 11–Pogačar was unable to respond when Vingegaard attacked to win the stage and take the yellow jersey that’s awarded each day to the rider who leads the Tour’s General Classification.

Pogačar vowed to keep fighting, and he kept his word. But Vingegaard responded quickly to each new assault, never faltering as the riders battled intense heat through the Massif Central. In the end it came down the Pyrenees, where Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates, each depleted due to the loss of key teammates, traded blows in the mountains. Again Vingeggard waited, following each of Pogačar’s accelerations with ease.

He delivered the coup de grace at the end of Stage 18 on the climb to Hautacam, the Tour’s last summit finish. Pulling away from Pogačar with about 4km left to climb, Vingegaard won the stage to put the Tour out of reach before Saturday’s time trial. Not leaving anything to chance, he still finished second in the race against the clock on Stage 20, confirming once and for all that the strongest rider won the 2022 Tour de France.

Pogačar isn’t going home empty-handed: in addition to finishing second overall, the 23-year-old won the white jersey as the Tour’s Best Young Rider and three stages during the Tour’s first week. But more importantly, he learned valuable lessons about how to better gauge his efforts during a Grand Tour. Pogačar remains the best all-around rider in the world, and with a little more tactical nous–and perhaps a bit more humility–he might get even better.

Who Really Won the Tour?

While INEOS-Grenadiers finished the Tour atop the Team’s Classification, Jumbo-Visma was the best team in the 2022 Tour de France.

In addition to winning the yellow jersey, Vingegaard also won the polka dot jersey as the winner of the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition. His teammate, Belgium’s Wout van Aert, won the green jersey as the winner of the Tour’s Points Classification and was also named the Tour’s Most Aggressive Rider. Along the way the team won six stages: three with van Aert, two with Vingegaard, and one with France’s Cristophe Laporte.

Perhaps even more impressive was the manner in which the team defended Vingegaard’s lead in the Pyrenees during the Tour’s third week. The team lost Slovenia’s Primož Roglič and the Netherlands’ Steven Kruijswijk on Stage 15, with Roglič not taking the start and Kruijswijk crashing out on the road to Carcassonne. Two of the team’s strongest climbers, some wondered if this would spell the end of the team’s dominance, but led by van Aert and American Sepp Kuss, the team had all the firepower it needed to defend and then extend Vingegaard’s lead.

Is it the best overall performance by a team in Tour history? It might be–at least in the modern era. In 2012 Team Sky went 1-2 with Britons Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome and took six stage wins. In 1984 Renault-Elf riders finished first- and third-overall (France’s Laurent Fignon and American Greg Lemond) and won an incredible ten stages. Lemond also won the white jersey as the Tour’s Best Young Rider.

But Jumbo-Visma is not a team that cares how it stacks-up against other teams in history–all that matters is that it finally won the Tour de France after several years of near-misses and heartbreak. As fans we’re all in for a treat in the coming years, as Vingegaard and Pogačar are both young and show no signs of letting up any time soon.

Stage 20 Winner - Wout van Aert

Who's Winning The Tour?

Jumbo has absolutely dominated this Tour, with six stage wins from three different riders and taking home three of the four jersey classifications. Much of that is due to van Aert, who was also awarded the race’s “Super Combativity” prize for being the most aggressive rider throughout the race.

A generational talent, van Aert is nearly unmatched in the sport for his versatility; perhaps only Ineos Grenadiers’ Tom Pidcock—reigning World Cyclocross Champion, Olympic MTB Champion, and Alpe d’Huez stage winner at this year’s Tour—has the same breadth of ability. The Belgian has now won nine Tour de France stages in four years, including time trials, field sprints, breakaways, uphill finishes, and mountain stages. He will also win his first green jersey, setting a record for the highest point total in that competition.

Who’s Really Winning the Tour?

Vingegaard, meanwhile, has cemented his rise to the top of the sport with a convincing Tour win that likely unseats Primož Roglič as Jumbo’s top GC rider. While Roglič has a deeper resumé of results, he’s been hit by bad luck in the Tour and at 32 is seven years older than Vingegaard.

At this year’s Tour, Vingegaard never seemed rattled by Pogačar’s aggressive racing to build an early lead, instead coolly waiting for the second half of the race where the long climbs suited his abilities. He withstood every challenge thrown at him, even when isolated in the Pyrenees on Stage 17 and almost crashing on the descent of the Col de Spandelles on Stage 18. As the strongest rider (this Tour, anyway) on the strongest team in the sport, Vingegaard put a decisive stop to Pogačar’s Tour-winning streak and showed that the foreseeable future of the Tour will be a massive fight between two of the sport’s best young racers, and maybe more.

Stage 19 Winner - Christophe Laporte

Who Winning The Tour?

In normal circumstances, Jumbo’s designated sprinter is Wout van Aert, winner of two stages this Tour, and who is mathematically assured to win the green jersey and score the highest points total ever in the competition. But on Stage 19, it was Laporte, who joined Jumbo in the offseason, who got the leadership nod and delivered the results.

An early breakaway of five was caught well before the finish, which soon triggered a dangerous move from three riders with just over 30km to go. So van Aert put in a powerful dig at the front in the final kilometers to help bring the group almost to the catch and then pulled off. Not long after, Laporte sprung his own perfectly timed move out of the pack, crossing the distance to the leaders and catching the others by surprise. On the slight rise to the finish and with leadouts in disarray behind, Laporte had plenty of room to hold off the chase and celebrate crossing the line.

Well, Jumbo. Entering the Tour, the Dutch powerhouse team was by broad consensus the strongest in the race. And even after losing two key riders to injury, they haven’t disappointed. Laporte’s victory is the fifth stage they’ve won this Tour, by three different riders, and they have excellent chances in the two remaining stages as well. They also will win three jerseys in Paris: van Aert’s green, plus Jonas Vingegaard’s yellow, and the polka-dot jersey for best climber, which Vingegaard also now leads after yesterday’s stage win.

The team is riding with huge confidence, as Laporte’s win shows. The 29-year-old Frenchman is a talented sprinter and Classics rider, but in his first year on Jumbo he’s showed a new level, highlighted by today's career-best moment. In eight previous seasons on Cofidis, his only other pro team, Laporte won 21 races, but it took his switch to Jumbo to get his first victories in WorldTour-level races. That’s a point that’s probably not lost on Cofidis, which is working a 14-year (and counting) dry streak since its last Tour stage win.

Stage 18 Winner - Jonas Vingegaard

Who’s Winning the Tour?

Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) won Stage 18, the final summit finish of the 2022 Tour de France, to extend his lead at the top of the Tour’s General Classification. With the help of his Belgian teammate Wout van Aert, Vingegaard dropped Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) 4.4km from the top of the climb to Hautacam. Van Aert pulled-off a few hundred meters later, leaving Vingegaard alone to take the stage–and barring catastrophe, the Tour.

Vingegaard won Stage 18 by 1:04 over Pogačar, extending his GC advantage to 3:26 over the Slovenian. Van Aert, wearing the green jersey as the leader of the Tour’s Points Classification, finished third on the stage, pumping his fist as he crossed the finish line.

Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) finished fourth on the day, losing more time to Vingegaard and Pogačar, but cementing his hold on the Tour’s final podium spot, a whopping 8:00 behind Vingegaard, but more importantly 3:05 ahead France’s David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) who moved up to fourth overall by finishing fifth on Stage 18.

With three days left in the 2022 Tour de France, Vingegaard looks assured of standing on the top step of the podium in Paris. Barring a crash, a mechanical, or a terrible ride in Saturday’s 40km individual time trial, the Dane’s lead is too much for Pogačar to overcome. Pogačar and Thomas look certain to stand next to Vingegaard on the Tour’s final podium. Thomas is one the Tour’s better time trialists, and there’s little chance of Gaudu overtaking him.

By winning the Tour’s final summit finish atop the Hors Categorie climb to Hautacam, Vingegaard also took the lead in the Tour’s King of Mountains competition. He won’t get a chance to wear the polka dot jersey as the leader of the classification, but with only three Category 4 climbs left in the race, he’s assured of taking the prize.

In the end, Stage 18 capped a legendary team performance for Jumbo-Visma, who looks set to go home with the yellow, green, and polka dot jerseys and at least four stage wins. And with two more stages expected to end in sprints and a long time trial on Saturday–all of which suit van Aert–the team’s tally could increase.

Stage 17 Winner - Tadej Pogacar

Two days in the Pyrenees down, one to go: Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) once again held on to the yellow jersey as the overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France after finishing second on Stage 17 in Peyragudes. Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won the stage, outsprinting Vingegaard to win his third stage of this year’s Tour. Pogačar’s teammate, the United States’ Brendan McNulty, finished third after doing much of the work in the latter parts of the stage.

Pogačar trimmed four seconds from Vingegaard’s lead thanks to the 10-second time bonus he earned for winning the stage. (Vingegaard took six seconds of his own by finishing second.) The Dane now leads the Slovenian by 2:18 on the Tour’s General Classification. Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) lost time to both riders, but remains third overall, 4:56 behind Vingegaard.

Once again Vingegaard and Pogačar proved to be the two best riders in the 2022 Tour de France. Despite winning the stage, the long-range attacks that we expected from Pogačar never materialized. This has been the fastest Tour in history (so far), and given the intense heat the riders have faced and the tenacity with which Pogačar has raced since the Tour started almost three weeks ago, we suspect he’s simply running out of gas he needs to make large gains on Vingegaard.

Even after losing Poland’s Rafa Majka to a thigh injury before the start of the stage, leaving him with only three teammates, Pogačar’s team was the strongest on Stage 17, with McNulty setting a pace that dropped everyone but Vingegaard. With one more day in the Pyrenees with three categorized climbs including two “Beyond” Category ascents, Pogačar will need a similar performance from the American if he’s to have any chance of gaining more time on Vingegaard.

Thomas looks firmly entrenched in third. Despite losing time to Vingegaard and Pogačar on Stage 17, he gained time on everyone behind him. He now sits 2:57 ahead of Colombia’s Nairo Quintana (Arkéa–Samsic), and with a long individual time trial on Saturday, he should have no problems defending his place on the podium.

So tomorrow, all eyes will be–again–on the Tour’s top-2 riders, with one day left for Vingegaard to solidify his lead before the time trial, and one day left for Pogačar to get close enough to give himself a chance of winning a third consecutive Tour de France.

Stage 16 Winner - Hugo Houle

Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) survived the first of three days in the Pyrenees to hold on to the yellow jersey as the overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France. The 25-year-old finished safely in a small group of GC contenders and their teammates in Foix at the end of Stage 16, maintaining his 2:22 advantage over Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the two-time defending champion. After getting gapped on the final climb of the stage, Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) managed to rejoin the group of favorites on the long road down to the finish. He remains third overall, 2:43 behind Vingegaard on the Tour’s General Classification.

It was a bigger day for Canada and Israel-Premier-Tech, though as Canadian Hugo Houle won the stage and his teammate and compatriot, Michael Woods, finished third. A career domestique who usually spends his time sacrificing his own chances for the sake of other riders, Houle crossed the line pointing to the sky in honor of his brother Pierrik, who was killed by a drunk driver in 2012 while out for a run. Houle’s win is only the second Tour de France stage win for a Canadian in Tour history. Steve Bauer, Houle’s team director, won the nation’s first stage back 1988.

As expected, Pogačar started his assault on Vingegaard’s yellow jersey with a series of attacks on the day’s penultimate climb, the Category 1 Port de Lers. Accelerating multiple times on both the climb and the descent after the summit, the Slovenian was matched each time by Vingegaard, gaining no time on the yellow jersey. By the time the riders reached the day’s final climb, the Category 1 Mur de Péguère, Pogačar seemed happy to let others set the pace, resigned to the fact that Vingegaard wasn’t budging–at least not today.The stage a tactical battle between the Tour’s three best teams as Jumbo-Visma, UAE Team Emirates, and INEOS Grenadiers all sent riders on the attack early in the hopes that their team leaders would have an extra support rider for the long descent from the top of the final climb to the finish in Foix at the end of the stage. The plan worked well as Vingegaard had Belgium’s Wout van Aert (along with American Sepp Kuss, who stayed with Vingegaard over the final climb), Pogačar had American Brendan McNulty, and Thomas had Colombia’s Dani Martinez waiting to help. France’s Romain Bardet (Team DSM) was the day’s biggest loser. The former podium finisher entered the day fourth overall, but lost over 3:36 on the stage to fall to ninth, 6:37 behind Vingegaard. The Tour’s best Frenchman is now David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) who moved up to fifth overall (4:24 behind the leader) with another strong ride. And last but not least, there’s Colombia’s Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) who was the only rider able to hang with Vingegaard, Pogačar, and Kuss to the top of the Mur de Péguère. Currently fourth at 4:15, a podium finish might be a stretch given the fact that there’s a long individual time trial on Saturday. But a top-5 finish would be a fine result for the 32-year-old–especially if he’s somehow able to combine it with a mountain stage win on one of the next two stages. With Vingegaard and Pogačar locked in at the top of the GC, Quintana might be given a little bit of breathing room to go for the win on one the upcoming summit finishes.

Stage 15 Winner - Jasper Philipsen

Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) survived a long, hot day in the saddle to retain the yellow jersey as the overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France. The 25-year-old finished safely with the leading group at the Stage 15 finish in Carcassonne, but the day also saw the departure of two of his most important teammates. Heading into the second Rest Day, the top-3 riders on the Tour’s General Classification remain unchanged with Vingegaard leading Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) by 2:22 and Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) by 2:43.

Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the stage in Carcassonne, outsprinting Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Denmark’s Mads Pedersen to take the first Tour de France stage win of his career.

Despite defending Vingegaard’s lead for another day and van Aert’s second-place finish, Stage 15 was a day to forget for Jumbo-Visma. It began with the announcement that Slovenia’s Primož Roglič would not be starting the stage. The 32-year-old began the Tour as one of the favorites to win the race overall, but he crashed hard on the cobbled Stage 5, separating his shoulder and losing several minutes to the other GC contenders. With his own GC chances gone, he became a super-domestique on behalf of Vingegaard, and played a large role in helping his Danish teammate take the yellow jersey on Stage 11 in the Alps. But this morning he abandoned the race to begin recovering from the injuries he sustained, a calculated risk with three days in the Pyrenees still to come.

As if to emphasize that gamble, a crash with about 67km to go brought down the Netherlands’ Steven Kruijswijk, who was forced to abandon the race with a suspected broken collarbone. Another top climber for Jumbo-Visma, Kruijswijk was 13th overall at the start of the stage and his good form was likely one of the reasons why the team felt comfortable letting Roglič head home.

And then the unthinkable almost happened: as Kruijswijk was being lifted into an ambulance, another crash brought down Vingegaard and Belgium’s Tiesj Benoot, one of the team’s top all-rounders. The yellow jersey was quickly able to rejoin the peloton, but Benoot struggled behind, obviously hurting from the fall.

The loss of Roglič and Kruijswijk will be felt most in the Pyrenees, leaving the United States’ Sepp Kuss as Vingegaard’s best domestique in the mountains. Yes, Kuss is one of the best climbers in the peloton and is probably better than anyone else’s top mountain domestique, but losing Roglič and Kruijswijk decimates the team’s depth. And if Benoot’s injuries worsen during the Rest Day and he’s unable to start Stage 16, Jumbo-Visma will have only four riders left to protect the yellow jersey. That’s not good–especially with Pogačar clearly recovered from his bad day on Stage 11 and eager to throw everything he’s got at Vingegaard.

Stage 14 Winner - Michael Matthews

Australia’s Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) took a fantastic stage win, the fourth of his career. Riding with determination after several near-misses so far in this year’s Tour, the 31-year-old joined the day’s big breakaway, initiated the winning move in the stage’s final hour, dropped his two breakaway companions on the tough final climb, and was caught and gapped by Italy’s Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) midway up the ascent. But the Australian kept himself in contention, catching and then passing Bettiol while cresting the summit to win the stage—almost five years to the day after taking his last Tour de France stage victory. Bettiol finished second, and France’s Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) was third.

With the Pyrenees looming, the battle to win the 2022 Tour de France has been reduced to just two contenders, with Pogačar attacking and Vingegaard having no trouble following the Slovenian’s acceleration on the Côte de la Croix Neuve at the end of Stage 14. Behind them, the rest of the Tour’s general classification contenders all lost time.

But while the time gaps between Pogačar-Vingegaard and the other contenders weren’t huge on the finish line in Mende, it’s clear that everyone else is racing for third–a boon to Vingegaard as Pogačar will likely find few allies willing to risk a possible podium place by attacking the yellow jersey in the final week.

Even better for Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma is the fact that Pogačar and his team continue to make questionable decisions. The Slovenian launched a 200-meter sprint at the end of the stage–for no good reason–and the team put Spain’s Marc Soler in the day’s big breakaway, which might have made sense had the team not already lost two riders to COVID-19. If Pogačar is to win a third Tour de France, he’s going to need all the help he can get from his teammates, and allowing Soler to waste energy on a day like this might be something they later regret.

Stage 13 Winner - Mads Pedersen

Former world champion Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) put on a display of perfectly executed tactics as he won a three-way sprint from the remains of the day’s breakaway, to take victory in Stage 13 of the Tour de France.

Pedersen narrowly missed out on stage win chances back in the Tour’s start in his native Denmark. But he made up for that disappointment on a transitional stage out of the Alps, taking his first-ever Tour victory out of a day-long breakaway. Pedersen specializes in hard days in bad weather, and while that usually means cold, wet conditions like his 2019 World Championship title, he proved equally as capable in withering heat.

Pedersen joined a seven-rider breakaway that finally established itself after 50km of hard racing. With world-class time trialists Filippo Ganna (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) in the mix, the pack—led by sprint teams Lotto-Soudal and Alpecin-Deceuninck—kept a tight leash on the gap. American Tour debutants Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) and Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo) also joined.

But a heavy crash by Lotto sprinter Caleb Ewan at around 75km to go disrupted the chase severely. Ewan, clearly hurt, briefly regained the main field but soon dropped back again, and his team pulled off the front. BikeExchange-Jayco took up the hunt, but without allies they were unable to make much of a dent in the gap given the raw horsepower driving the break. With the break’s survival all but assured, Pedersen attacked on a grinding false flat with 13km to go, dropping everyone but Bahrain-Victorious’s Fred Wright and Hugo Houle of Israel-Premier Tech, then positioned himself perfectly to outsprint them at the finish.

For yellow jersey wearer Jonas Vingegaard, today was a day to stay out of the wind and out of trouble. He had little issue accomplishing that, capably protected by his powerhouse Jumbo-Visma team. The day was not expected to offer difficulties for him and generally didn’t. But a brief split in the peloton with around 40km to go hinted at risks to come in the next two days.

Saturday’s Stage 14 is another lumpy one, through the Massif Centrale with an uphill finish in Mende on the short but steep Cote de Croix Neuve. Sunday’s stage has the risk of crosswinds, and both should be uncomfortably hot. Vingegaard will simply be looking to get through both without mishaps and try to recover as well as he can ahead of the Pyrenees.

Stage 12 Winner - Tom Pidcock

A day after taking the yellow jersey, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) remained atop the General Classification of the 2022 Tour de France after finishing sixth on Stage 12 atop the legendary climb of Alpe d’Huez. The Dane had little trouble following the attacks of Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the two-time defending Tour champion who lost the yellow jersey as the Tour’s overall leader on Stage 11. The Slovenian made three hard accelerations on the upper half of the climb, all of which were easily covered by Vingegaard.

Thanks to his efforts, Pogačar moved up to second overall at 2:22, overtaking France’s Romain Bardet (Team DSM) on the final climb to gain a spot on GC. Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) jumped over the Frenchman into third at 2:26. Bardet recovered enough to stay within sight of the podium; he now sits fourth overall at 2:35.

The stage went to Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock (INEOS Grenadiers), the third-youngest rider in this year’s Tour. Winner of the mountain bike race at the Olympic Games in Tokyo last summer, the Briton used his superior descending skills to bridge up to the breakaway earlier in the stage, putting himself in contention for the victory. South Africa’s Louis Meintjes (Intermarché - Wanty - Gobert Matériaux) finished second, and Great Britain’s Chris Froome (Israel-PremierTech), himself a 4-time winner of the Tour, finished third.

We learned two things on Stage 12: Pogačar has recovered from his jour sans on Stage 11 and has no intention of going down without a fight; and Vingegaard and his Jumbo-Visma team are up to the challenge of defending the yellow jersey. Pogačar pulled no punches when attacking on Alpe d’Huez, but Vingegaard immediately responded, riding tempo behind the Slovenian, almost daring him to blow himself up in a fruitless effort to dislodge the yellow jersey.

Pogačar’s final attack came as the riders approached the finish line, a questionable choice considering there were no time bonuses to be gained. Thomas even shook his head as he crossed the line, perhaps also wondering why Pogačar made such an effort to gain nothing on his rivals. Many have suggested that Pogačar’s relentless attacks during the Tour’s first week left him exposed on Stage 11. If true, his sprint at the end of Stage 12 perhaps indicates that he still has a few lessons to learn. Regardless, we’re in for a treat as the Tour continues. Vingegaard’s lead is large, but Pogačar is the most dangerous rider in the peloton. The Tour is far from over.

Stage 11 Winner - Jonas Vingegaard

Vingegaard’s team set the race on its ear midway through the 151.7km stage, when Primož Roglič accelerated out of the group of contenders and blew up the pack on the long, double ascent of the Col du Telegraphe and Col du Galibier. Pogačar followed along with some of the other top riders, but was isolated from his team, which has been reduced by COVID positives. The two favorites traded attacks but neither could get clear of the other, and small groups eventually reformed on the Galibier and on the descent to the final climb.

On the seldom-used Granon, which hasn’t been a Tour climb in 36 years, Vingegaard’s team strength of five against two for Pogačar’s UAE-Team Emirates squad was quickly reduced, but it didn’t seem to bother the Danish rider. After attacks by Nairo Quintana (Arkea-Samsic) and Romain Bardet (DSM), Vingegaard countered and quickly gained a significant gap on Pogačar (who didn’t really try to follow), then pressed his advantage to overtake all other riders on the road and take a convincing stage win.

Who's Really Winning The Tour?

Jumbo brought their full team strength today and was rewarded with the stage win and race lead for Vingegaard. And what a lead: after entering the day :39 down to Pogačar, he’s now 2:16 clear of Bardet in second, and 2:22 ahead of Pogačar. Jumbo has the strongest team in the race and is now well-positioned to defend Vingegaard’s lead.

For Pogačar’s part, the two-time defending Tour champion struggled on the final climb. Under attack and without teammates, he was visibly uncomfortable, rocking back and forth on the bike with his jersey fully unzipped. Whether it was the effort of responding to Jumbo’s aggression, the heat, the lack of teammates due to COVID, or his own as-yet unseen battle with the virus, Pogačar was in distress in a way that he has never been at the Tour or almost any other race. The next few days will tell us a lot about whether today was just a crack on a wickedly hard day, the start of a bigger fade, or rooted in some other cause.

Stage 10 Winner - Magnus Cort

A medium mountain stage that took a circuitous route past, but not over, some of the most feared climbs in the Alps, Stage 10 was always ripe for a breakaway. It took an hour for the move to get established, with repeated attacks, catches, and counterattacks. A first-hour average speed of 48.4 kilometers per hour decimated the field and briefly left yellow jersey Tadej Pogačar without many of his teammates around him.

The eventually successful breakaway had 25 riders from a whopping 18 of the 22 teams in the race. With such broad representation, the chase lacked enthusiasm and the gap grew to seven minutes, then nine after a brief on-road stop due to climate protesters blocking the race route. With Bora-Hansgrohe’s Lennard Kämna in the move, that put Pogačar’s yellow jersey up for grabs. On the final climb, the break splintered under the pressure of repeated attacks and counters. It briefly re-formed on the finishing ramp of the Megeve Altiport runway, where Cort’s bike throw got him the stage win by just centimeters, from BikeExchange-Jayco’s Nick Schultz.

Yellow jersey Pogačar had no real personal difficulty defending his race lead on the long but relatively gentle climb to the Megeve Altiport. But his grip on the top spot in the standings is looking a bit more tenuous. A second teammate, George Bennett, was forced out of the race with a positive COVID diagnosis, and a third, Rafal Majka, is reportedly positive but allowed to stay in the race for now because he has a low viral load. But UAE is already down to six riders, and if Majka—who has been Pogačar’s best teammate in the mountains—gets worse and has to drop out or even simply can't do his usual workload, that will put major pressure on the remaining riders in the team.

At the same time, challengers like Jumbo-Visma and Ineos Grenadiers are still at full strength. And Jumbo did a savvy move in the final kilometers to lift the pace just enough to ensure Pogačar kept yellow over Kämna. That forces UAE to continue defending the race lead. What’s more, Jumbo and Ineos each have two riders high on the overall standings, which presents a possible strategy of sending someone like Primož Roglič up the road to force Pogačar’s team to chase. If that effort isolates Pogačar, he is vulnerable to attacks that he will have to respond to personally. While the two-time defending champion has looked sharp and aggressive in the race’s first 10 days, it’s worth noting that his 39-second lead over his nearest real challenger, Jumbo’s Jonas Vingegaard, is far less than at this point in last year’s Tour, when he had a five-minute advantage.

Stage 9 Winner - Bob Jungels

Who Is Winning The Tour?

Four years ago, Jungels was a rising star in the sport. A talented time trialist, the 25-year-old had shown his abilities in everything from cobbled classics to the Ardennes, capped by his 2018 win of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, one of the most prestigious one-day races in the sport. But his career was instead sidetracked in a slow fade due to what was diagnosed in 2021 as iliac arterial endofibrosis, a narrowing of pelvic arteries that causes pain and power loss during hard exercise. Surgery forced him to miss last year’s Tour and the Olympics, but appears to have fixed the problem.

His stage win here—along with that LBL win the highlight of his career—is his first victory since 2019 outside Luxembourg’s national championships. It also salvages some of what has so far been a rough Tour for his Ag2r team, which has seen yellow jersey contender Ben O’Connor’s GC hopes go up in smoke the past few days with his own health issues, plus the COVID-forced withdrawal of Geoffrey Bouchard yesterday morning.

Five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault, nicknamed “the Badger” for his tenacious, gritty racing style, has a motto for yellow jersey contenders: no gifts. It’s one that Pogačar appears to take to heart. On a day where the current race leader could have simply rolled across the line with his rivals, he was instead aggressive, punching out in the final few hundred meters even though no stage win or time bonuses were on the line.

Whether surprised or just exhausted after a hard week of racing, most of the rest of the diminished group of contenders didn’t immediately respond, save one rider: Jumbo-Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard, who is rapidly emerging as the lone candidate with any credible shot of denying Pogačar a third straight Tour victory. Vingegaard fought hard to claw back to Pogačar’s wheel at the finish line. The rest of the group conceded another three seconds to Pogačar’s steadily growing lead. One rider—Ineos Grenadiers’ Dani Martinez—fell out of contention entirely after being dropped on the final climb. He gave up 16 minutes and dropped 20 places on the overall classification. Another hopeful, Cofidis’ Guillaume Martin, was ruled out at the start with COVID-19, the third rider to be sidelined by the virus once the race started. Monday is a rest day in Morzine, where the race will test every rider. More forced withdrawals are likely.

Stage 8 Winner - Wout van Aert

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) remained the overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France after finishing third on Stage 8 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Thanks to the 4-second time bonus he earned with his third-place finish, Pogačar extended his lead on the Tour’s General Classification to 39 seconds over Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and 1:14 over Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers). Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) outsprinted Australia’s Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) to win the stage, his second victory in this year’s Tour.

At one point it looked as if Pogačar was about to take his third victory in a row, as the Slovenian covered every surge on the climb to the finish line, his team firmly in control of the race. In effect, his team’s efforts handed the race to van Aert by setting such a high pace that no one could accelerate away before the inevitable small group sprint. With one stage left before the Rest Day, Pogačar is firmly in control of the race, and with a longer, Category 1 climb to the finish line at the end of Stage 9, the 23-year-old could extend his lead some more.

Van Aert was the day’s biggest winner, as the Belgian essentially put the green jersey away with his second stage win. He now leads the Netherlands’ Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) by 75 points on the Tour’s Points Classification, and few chances for the sprinters remaining in this year’s Tour, should have little trouble defending the jersey all the way to Paris. The Belgian’s large lead also means that he can now focus his energy on supporting Vingegaard’s efforts to try and upset Pogačar at the top of the Tour’s General Classification, a tall order that will take a coordinated team effort to pull off.

Stage 7 Winner - Tadej Pogacar

The Tour’s first true summit finish always leads to a clarification on who’s got the legs and who doesn’t, and the steep gravel ramps of the Super Planche des Belles Filles held true to that rule. When Pogačar’s last teammate, Rafal Majka, swung off the front with just a kilometer to go, the opportunity was ripe for an attack on an isolated yellow jersey. Instead, it was Pogačar himself who jumped, quickly going clear with a handful of challengers including the Jumbo duo of Vingegaard and Primož Roglič and Ineos Grenadiers’ Geraint Thomas and Adam Yates.

As other riders—DSM’s Romain Bardet, David Gaudu of Groupama-FDJ, and Movistar’s Enric Mas—slipped off the front, it was Vingegaard who made the attack in the last 200 meters that finally overhauled lone breakaway survivor Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe). Vingegaard briefly got a gap on Pogačar, but the two-time Tour winner dug deep and put in his own massive acceleration to come past Vingegaard just before the finish line. Roglič led the others across the line, 12 seconds behind.

Just as in 2021, it’s looking like a two-rider race for the overall, and it’s the same pair: Pogačar and Vingegaard. Roglič looked surprisingly strong for a guy who separated his shoulder two days ago, but Vingegaard has been the only rider in the peloton capable of even briefly challenging Pogačar the last year or so.

Pogačar, for his part, seems entirely capable of withstanding that challenge. While his team performed decently today, what’s been clear the first week of the Tour is that Pogačar is not only capable, but confident, riding on his own. His calculated aggression at the finish today speaks to a deep reserve of mental strength; briefly gapped, he could have told himself a few seconds weren't worth the effort. But in hauling Vingegaard back and going past him for the win, he sent an unmistakable message: there are no cracks here. Vingegaard is the only rider within a minute of Pogačar on overall time, and with Roglič well back in 13th place, almost three minutes down, if Jumbo wants to win the Tour it’s going to require Roglič to take a secondary role in service of the team that he normally leads.

Stage 6 Winner - Tadej Pogacar

Pogačar was always going to be the most-marked rider at the Tour, but he seemed entirely untroubled by that focus as he struck out for a stage win and the overall lead. A day-long breakaway by yellow jersey Wout van Aert was caught with 11km to go, but having the race leader out front meant the pace was infernally high: Pogačar’s average speed for the four-and-a-half hour stage was an astonishing 49.4kph: more than 5kph higher than the fastest expected time.

The fatigue from the pace showed in the final kilometers: a touch of wheels on a straight section of road just inside 10km to go brought down a handful of riders and caused a split in the pack that delayed Vlasov. Then, the two final climbs whittled the lead group to under 40 riders, then 30, and finally just 14. Surprisingly, it was Jumbo-Visma’s Primož Roglič—suffering a separated shoulder from a crash yesterday—who started the sprint, but Pogačar quickly countered and no one could match his speed. He’ll enter Friday’s seventh stage as overall leader by four seconds over EF Education First-Easypost's Neilson Powless, and a likely repeat stage winner.

Stage 5 Winner - Simon Clarke

Clarke missed the day’s breakaway but bridged across and held tough over 11 sectors of rough cobbled roads to take a photo-finish sprint victory over Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty). The 35-year-old Australian has been a pro since 2006, with 11 seasons on the WorldTour. And he’s twice won stages of the Vuelta Espańa. But his improbable win here—he’s a climber, not a cobbled Classics specialist—is the jewel in his long career.

Van Aert managed to stay in yellow despite any number of challenges. An early crash left him looking uncharacteristically hesitant on the first sections of cobbles, well back in the pack. But when disaster befell his Jumbo-Visma team in the form of mechanicals and crashes, van Aert sprung into action, putting his formidable TT skills to work pacing teammate Jonas Vingegaard. As a result of his efforts, he managed to stay in yellow, but his lead shrank to 13 seconds.

Who’s Really Winning The Tour?

Two-time defending champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE-Team Emirates) looked as unruffled and at ease as one can be while bouncing over cobbled roads at 50 kilometers an hour. Pogačar was attentive and at the front all day, and usually had at least one or two teammates nearby. He had no crashes and no mechanicals of note. When Trek-Segafredo’s Jasper Stuyven struck out in late pursuit of the breakaway, it was Pogačar—and only Pogačar—who managed to match the pace. The pair never made the catch, but finished 14 seconds clear of the furious, van Aert-led chase. Although Pogačar drops one spot on GC to fourth, he put time into every one of his competitors. The Ineos Grenadiers trio of Geraint Thomas, Dani Martinez, and Adam Yates stemmed most of the damage, as did Bora’s Aleksandr Vlasov. All came home in the van Aert/Vingegaard group close behind Pogačar.

By contrast, Jumbo had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day saved only by van Aert’s heroic pulls. Co-leader Vingegaard had a panicked series of bike changes after a flat and looked to lose serious time until van Aert steadied the chase. Ultimately, he lost just 14 seconds and sits seventh overall, 21 seconds behind Pogaçar. Far less fortunate was teammate Primož Roglič, caught in a senseless crash on the pavement caused by an errant haybale in a roundabout. Roglič quickly dropped off the pace and, despite help from teammates, conceded over two minutes to Pogačar. He’s now way back in 44th overall. Ag2r’s Ben O’Connor had an even worse day, shipping almost three and a half minutes to Pogačar, while Bahrain-Victorious’ Jack Haig dropped out.

Stage 4 Winner - Wout van Aert

It had been a bittersweet overall lead until now for van Aert, who took the yellow jersey on time bonuses, but had finished second on three straight stages. The Belgian superstar left nothing to chance on Stage 4. After a relatively quiet stage, his Jumbo-Visma team laid down a blistering pace leading into the day’s final climb, the short and not-particularly steep Côte du Cap Blanc-Nez, at 10.8km to go. Van Aert's average speed over the final 20km was a time-trial like 52.2kph.

The pack seemed unprepared for such a strong, team-wide move, and a small group briefly went clear with van Aert, teammate Jonas Vingegaard, and Ineos Grenadiers’s Adam Yates. The bulk of the pack came back together shortly over the summit, but van Aert took advantage of the chaos to keep the tempo high, and the expert time-trialist quickly got a gap of almost 30 seconds on a demoralized, disorganized chase. By steadily accruing time bonuses, van Aert has stretched his lead out to 25 seconds over second place. And with the next two stages—Wednesday’s cobbled affair and Thursday’s punchy uphill finish in Longwy—suiting his talents, he could add to both his lead and career stage win totals.

Jumbo’s attack showed the team’s aggression and discipline, as the move was almost perfectly executed and caught not just van Aert's rival sprinters, but many GC hopefuls, by surprise. Although the race came back together before the finish, what was maybe most notable was that Vingegaard was part of the small first group over the climb, while teammate and co-leader Primož Roglič wasn’t.

Maybe Roglič (correctly) bet the race would come back together and it wasn’t a wise use of strength. But after he seemed slightly less fit on climbs than Vingegaard at June’s Criterium du Dauphiné, the fact that he wasn’t present at a crucial moment will do little to settle the debate about which rider is the team’s best shot at yellow. Elsewhere, Ineos was clearly the most watchful of the GC teams, with Yates, Geraint Thomas, and Dani Martinez attentive at the front. There’s a lot of race left in the Tour but we may look back on today’s events as a predictor of what was to come.

Stage 3 Winner - Dylan Groenewegen

Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) remained the new overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France after finishing second on Stage 3 in Sønderborg. The 27-year-old actually extended his lead by earning a 6-second time bonus on the finish line. The Netherland’s Dylan Groenewegen (Team BikeExchange-Jayco) won the stage, his first Tour stage win since 2019.

The Tour now takes a day off to travel back to France, with van Aert leading the Tour’s General Classification by 7 seconds over Belgium’s Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) and 14 seconds over Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates). The next three stages suit the Belgian’s talents, so there’s a good chance that he’ll hold the Tour’s yellow jersey for a few more days.

Who’s really winning the Tour?

A relatively peaceful stage was interrupted by a large crash with about 10km to-go, emphasizing how important it is to stay as close to the front as possible at the end of these early stages.

Luckily, most of the Tour’s GC contenders managed to avoid losing time, with the exception of Colombia’s Rigoberto Uran (EF Education-EasyPost), who was held up by a crash for the second day in row and this time was unable to rejoin the leaders. The 35-year-old lost 39 seconds by the finish, a tough blow to his chances of scoring a high finish in Paris.

Stage 2 Winner - Fabio Jakobsen

Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) is the new overall leader of the 2022 Tour de France. The 27-year-old finished on Stage 2 in Nyborg and earned a 6-second time bonus for his efforts, enough to take the yellow jersey from his compatriot Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), who entered the day in yellow after winning Stage 1. Van Aert will start Sunday’s Stage 3 with a 1-second lead over Lampaert, and an 8-second lead over Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates).

But all was not lost for Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl as Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen won the stage. Riding his first Tour de France, the 25-year-old rewarded the faith his team displayed by bringing him to the Tour over Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish, who won four stages last year and remains one win away from becoming the winningest rider in Tour history. (He currently shares the honor with Belgian legend Eddy Merckx.)

A lot of bullets were dodged on Stage 2 as the strong winds that were expected to blow apart the race had little impact, most likely because the Great Belt Bridge was so wide that the peloton could spread itself across the road, offering shelter to everyone who needed it.

There were crashes, though. EF Education-EasyPost’s Rigoberto Urán went down just before the peloton turned onto the Great Belt Bridge, but thanks to a little help from his teammates, the Colombian was able to rejoin the peloton. Lampaert was brought down by a crash as well, but the peloton seemed to slow a bit, perhaps out of deference to the Belgian’s yellow crash.

A larger crash cut-off about two thirds of the peloton as it raced toward the finish line, but it happened inside the final 3km, which meant no one lost time on the Tour’s General Classification. That’s why Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), who finished the stage almost three minutes after Jakobsen, still sits third overall.

So in the end, while the yellow jersey changed hands, the race to win the Tour was unaffected. And considering how crazy the opening stages of the Tour de France can be, that’s a win for everyone.

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The Countries Dominating the Tour de France

The 2023 Tour de France stopped rolling yesterday, with Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard once again taking the prestigious lion on the Champs Elysees. At 26, Vingegaard, who also won last year, has given Denmark its third Tour victory.

As this infographic shows, French participants are the cyclists to have won the Tour de France the most times since its inception in 1903, with 36 overall victories. It is worth mentioning that, naturally, most of the participants were French during the first years of the competition.

Belgium, with 18 final victories occupies the second position in the ranking. Spain and Italy are the only other countries to register wins in the double figures. When it comes to individual cyclists , four are tied on the most general classification wins: two of which are French, one Spanish and one Belgian.

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This chart shows the Tour de France winners from 1903 to 2023, by cyclist nationality.

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Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard wins the Tour de France for 2nd straight year

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Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard won the Tour de France for a second straight year as cycling’s most storied race finished Sunday on the Champs-Élysées.

With a huge lead built up over main rival Tadej Pogačar, the 2020 and 2021 winner, Vingegaard knew the victory was effectively his again before the largely ceremonial stage at the end of the 110th edition of the Tour.

The 26-year-old Vingegaard drank champagne with his Jumbo-Visma teammates as they lined up together and posed for photos on the way to Paris.

“It’s been a long journey, yet it went by so fast,” Vingegaard said. “Day after day, it was a super hard race with a super nice fight between me and Tadej. I’ve enjoyed every day. I hope to come back next year and see if I can take a third win.”

It had been a three-week slog over 3,405 kilometers (2,116 miles) with eight mountain stages across five mountain ranges. Vingegaard seized control of the race over two stages in the Alps.

Little had separated the two rivals until Vingegaard finished a time trial 1 minute, 38 seconds ahead of Pogačar on Tuesday, then followed up the next day by finishing the toughest mountain stage of the race almost 6 minutes ahead of his exhausted rival.

“I’m dead,” Pogačar said.

The Slovenian rider responded by winning the penultimate stage on Saturday, but Vingegaard still had an insurmountable lead of 7 minutes, 29 seconds going into the final stage – a mostly ceremonial stage which is contested at the end by the sprinters.

“We have to be careful not to do anything stupid,” Vingegaard warned Saturday, “but yeah, it’s amazing to take my second victory in the Tour de France.”

Vingegaard kept that lead and was able to celebrate early Sunday as organizers decided to take the times one lap before the finish when it started raining on the cobblestones of the Champs-Élysées. The decision invited the sprinters to fight for the stage victory – the only remaining uncertainty.

Belgian cyclist Jordi Meeus prevailed in a photo finish between four riders on the line, just ahead of Jasper Philipsen, Dylan Groenewegen and Mads Pedersen.

“It was my first Tour. It was a super nice experience already so far, and to take the win today is an indescribable feeling,” said Meeus, who clocked a top speed of 68.8 kph (42.8 mph) on the last kilometer.

Pogačar, who attacked after just one lap of eight altogether on the Champs-Élysées, was wearing the white jersey as the best young rider for the 75th day – extending a career Tour record. The 24-year-old Slovenian rider has won the best young rider classification every year since 2020.

But Pogačar had to be content with second place in the general classification again.

British rider Adam Yates, Pogačar’s teammate, finished third overall, ahead of his twin brother Simon.

Colombian rider Egan Bernal, the 2019 Tour winner, completed the race as he made his impressive comeback from a life-threatening crash. The 26-year-old Bernal said he narrowly avoided becoming paralyzed after an accident with a bus while training in Colombia in January 2022.

“It’s difficult to compare with the year I won but it’s almost the same feeling because for me it’s a great victory,” Bernal said. “Yesterday, in the last climb, I was so lucky I was alone and could enjoy the last kilometers. I was so emotional.”

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Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour de France defence in doubt after Basque crash

• 2022 and 2023 winner fractures collarbone and scapula
• Twelve riders crash on fourth stage of Basque tour

The Tour de France champion, Jonas Vingegaard, was taken to hospital with a broken collarbone after a serious crash on stage four of the Itzulia Basque Country.

Vingegaard also suffered several broken ribs from the high-speed accident that also included Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic among a group of 12 affected riders. “It was a nasty crash, but fortunately he is stable and conscious. He remains in hospital as a precaution. Thank you for all your messages,” Vingegaard’s team Visma-Lease a Bike said in a statement.

Six riders went to hospital after the incident, including the Australian Jay Vine, who was diagnosed with a fractured cervical vertebra and two fractures in his thoracic spine. “Fortunately, there were no neurological problems and there are no other serious injuries or skull injuries,” Vine’s UAE Team Emirates said in a statement.

Evenepoel’s team Soudal-QuickStep revealed the Belgian must undergo surgery on a fractured collarbone and fractured scapula. Roglic was the least affected of the big-name trio involved and he headed for the team car having received medical attention. The incident took place when the peloton was descending around a tight right-hand bend with less than 40km of the stage to go, one riding sliding out of the road and on to the bank, sparking a chain reaction as more followed.

The race was then neutralised until the finish, with only the six riders who had been at the front being allowed to sprint for the finish to try to win the stage, victory eventually going to the underwhelmed South African Louis Meintjes, who admitted it was a hollow triumph.

“It’s a sad day. I wish all the guys who crashed all the best and wish them a fast recovery,” Mattias Skjelmose, who took the overall race lead from Roglic, said at the finish. “My mind is with the guys who crashed, and right now I am not thinking about the leader’s jersey.”

Vingegaard won the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023 but with this year’s event starting on 29 June, doubt now hangs over his ability to defend his crown.

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Tadej pogacar wins 2021 tour de france as van aert takes final stage.

Tour de France stage 21 - As  it happened

Wout van Aert ( Jumbo-Visma ) sprinted to the prestigious stage 21 victory in Paris to win the final stage of the 2021 Tour de France . The finish straight on the Champs-Élysées was 700 metres in length, 400 metres longer than in previous years, but that did not afford chasers enough real estate to catch Van Aert, who surged to the front of the peloton with under 250 metres remaining and took his third stage win of the three-week Grand Tour.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) finished second, less than a wheel length from the line, to get his third second-place finish at the Tour. Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) finished third, but held on to the green jersey as the overall points classification victor, beating Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) by 56 points.

UAE Team Emirates rode into Paris with Tadej Pogačar wearing the maillot jaune and safely escorted him to the final podium to claim three classifications – overall, mountains and best young rider.

For the first time since 2012, only two riders finished within 10 minutes of the yellow jersey - Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) finished second, 5:20 off the winning mark, and Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) placed third, another 1:43 back.

Bahrain Victorious won the team competition by 19 minutes ahead of EF Education-Nippo, and Franck Bonnamour (B&B Hotels p/b KTM) claimed the super-combativity award after an aggressive three weeks of racing.

Stage 21 started in Chatou with a gentle pace set by UAE Team Emirates, sporting new jerseys emblazoned with yellow bands to celebrate Pogačar’s second consecutive Tour win. The final 52km of the stage took place over the eight laps of the Champs Élysées, and while sprinters looked for glory in the stage win, Pogačar and his teammates eased across the finish to celebrate a job well done.

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• Chris Froome will start stage 2 despite crash injuries
• Tour de France organisers aim to sue spectator who caused mass stage 1 crash
• Tour de France crashes make an immediate impact on Ineos Grenadiers leadership strategy
• Rough Tour de France start for Movistar as Soler abandons, López loses time
• 21 riders injured in Tour de France opening stage crashes
• Concern for teammates overshadows Tadej Pogacar's start at Tour de France
• Matthews outshines Tour de France sprint rivals with second behind Alaphilippe
• Alaphilippe 'raced like there was no tomorrow' for Tour de France lead
• Tour de France: Jumbo-Visma left counting the cost after devastating crash on stage 1
• Which GC riders lost time on stage 1 of the 2021 Tour de France
• Chris Froome crashes on stage 1 of Tour de France
• Tour de France: Spectator causes mass crash on stage 1 with Roglic taken down

The build-up

Here at Cyclingnews we've been counting down the days until the 2021 Tour de France, with a series of special features to build up to the Grand Départ on Saturday June 26. 

• Tour de France 2021: The essential race guide
• Tour de France bikes: who's riding what in 2021
• Form ranking: Tour de France 2021 contenders, pre-race
• Philippa York: I struggle to see Chris Froome as a Tour de France road captain
• Tour de France snubs: The 9 most controversial rider non-selections
• Out of Pinot's shadow and into the glare: David Gaudu takes aim at the Tour de France
• Tadej Pogacar: A life-changing moment captured in a photograph
• Analysing Ineos Grenadiers' 2021 Tour de France team
• Analysing Jumbo-Visma's 2021 Tour de France squad
• Tour de France 2021: 5 key stages
• Brandon McNulty: The Tour de France call-up
• Alberto Contador: Blowing the Tour de France apart

The 2021 Tour de France will start in Brest in Brittany , on Saturday, June 26 having originally been scheduled for a Grand Départ in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The opening two stages to Landerneau and Mûr-de-Bretagne will provide a chance for the puncheurs, versatile sprinters and climbers to take the maillot jaune early on before the sprinters get two chances to win as the race heads east across the centre of France.

An early GC showdown will come on stage 5 with the 27.2-kilometre time trial from Changé to Laval Espace Mayenne before the road racing resumes with two stages that take the peloton to the Alps.

Stage 8 to Le Grand Bornard will see the first major climbing of the Tour, with three first-category climbs – including the Col de la Colombière – in the second part of the 150.8-kilometre stage. The following day to the 21-kilometre long summit finish at Tignes is just as tough, revisiting the Critérium du Dauphiné one-two of the Col du Pré and Cormet de Roselend.

Tignes also hosts the first rest day on July 5, ahead of a sprint stage in Valence and stage 11's visit to Mont Ventoux, which will be tackled twice before a descent straight to the finish in Malaucène.

Nîmes and Carcassonne offer up two more sprint chances on the following days before a nailed-on breakaway stage in the hills to Quillan take the peloton to the Pyrenees.

There, stage 15 to Andorra brings with it three first-category tests, including the Souvenir Henri Desgrange as the race hits 2,408 metres at Port d'Envalira. A rest day in the microstate. A tough stage to Saint-Gaudens follows but all minds will be on the final two mountain stages.

Stage 17 takes the riders over the Col de Peyresourde and Col de Val Louron-Azet before the HC-rated summit finish at 2,215 metres at the Col du Portet. Stage 18 provides two more HC tests in the Col du Tourmalet and the summit finish at Luz Ardiden, the last chance for climbers to make their mark.

A penultimate sprint stage follows, taking the peloton to Libourne, where stage 20 brings the GC finale in the shape of a 30.8-kilometre time trial to Saint-Emilion. If the Tour hasn't already been decided, then it certainly will be here.

As ever, the grand finale and the crowning of the Tour de France champion comes in Paris on the Champs-Élysées following a 108.4-kilometre ride from Chatou on July 18.

Check out the full details of the 2021 Tour de France route here.

The contenders

Once again, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) will be the main favourites for the title. The two are among the strongest climbers in the peloton and are also world-leading time trialists, which could prove decisive with two tests against the clock lying in wait for the riders.

The pair have enjoyed stellar starts to 2020, with Pogačar taking wins at the UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, while Roglič took three wins at PAris-Nice and the overall at Itzulia Basque Country.

The main challenge to the Slovenian duo should come from Ineos Grenadiers, who are led by 2018 winner Geraint Thomas and 2019 Giro d'Italia champion Richard Carapaz . The Welshman recently finished third at the Critérium du Dauphiné and looks best placed to challenge in both the mountains and time trials, while Carapaz is arguably the stronger climber.

Movistar's triumvirate will this year be headed up by new signing Miguel Ángel López , alongside Enric Mas and Alejandro Valverde. The Colombian looked in dominant form at the Mont Ventoux Dénivéle Challenge in June and will hope to improve on his sixth place in 2020.

His compatriot Nairo Quintana is a three-time podium finisher at the Tour and once again leads out Arkéa-Samsic. He won the Vuelta Asturias earlier this year but was off form at the Dauphiné.

Another Colombian to watch is EF Education-Nippo's Rigoberto Urán , who finished second in 2017 and has taken two top 10s since. His teammate and countryman Sergio Higuita could end up the team leader this year.

Elsewhere, look out for Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën), David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ), Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation), Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious), Wilco Kelderman (Bora-Hansgrohe), Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep), Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), and Simon Yates (Team BikeExchange). They're all likely to be in the top 10 GC battle, though fighting for the very top spots looks a little tougher.

Finally, the battle for sprint victories and the green jersey looks wide open, with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) facing challenges from Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal), Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious), Tim Merlier and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix), Elia Viviani (Cofidis), Giacomo Nizzolo (Qhubeka Assos), Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ), Cees Bol (Team DSM), Alexander Kristoff (UAE Team Emirates), and more.

Bikes and tech

As the world's biggest bike race, the publicity and global reach that the Tour de France achieves is a sponsor's dream. As a result, the Tour de France is always a hotbed of tech, with new releases and custom colourways unveiled almost daily as brands work to capture the attention of onlookers. 

What's more, with the hard-fought battle for the yellow jersey, teams will do everything within their power to eke out marginal gains with innovative inventions and mechanical hacks. Most of the time this comes directly from their contracted sponsors, but occasionally teams will look further afield, breaking contracts in the pursuit of free speed. 

Here are the tech talking points we've seen so far:

• Tour de France bikes : who's riding what in 2021
• Oakley launches 2021 Tour de France collection
• Lapierre launches new Xelius SL ahead of the Tour de France
• Trek-Segafredo bikes given all-new colour schemes ahead of the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia Donne
• Pinarello launches new Dogma F in preparation for the Tour de France
• Michael Matthews gets a custom Bianchi Oltre XR4 for Tour de France
• Why are Jumbo Visma using blue tyres at the Tour de France?
• Ineos Grenadiers switch to sponsor-incorrect Princeton Carbonworks wheels at Tour de France
• Tour de France tech: All the tech and trends from the 2021 race
• Is Canyon's broken Aeroad handlebar now fixed? Van der Poel's Tour de France bike suggests it is
• Tour de France winning bikes : Which brand has won the most Tours in history?
• Julian Alaphilippe's S-Works Tarmac SL7 at the Tour de France
• Radical new sunglasses for Tadej Pogacar at the Tour de France
• Tour de France gallery: 40 years of time trial technology
• Mark Cavendish's Tour de France stage-winning S-Works Tarmac SL7
• 10-hour journey delivers sponsor-incorrect wheels for Van der Poel's Tour de France time trial
• Alpecin-Fenix go all-in with sponsor-incorrect tech as Van der Poel fights to keep yellow
• Kasper Asgreen to ride the Specialized Aethos in Tour de France mountain stages
• Tour de France helmets : Who's wearing what?
• Tour de France power analysis: Ben O'Connor's Stage 9 win in Tignes
• Spotted: Jumbo Visma on yet more non-sponsor wheels at the Tour de France

Race history

Pogačar is the reigning champion, having overhauled his Slovenian compatriot Roglič in the final time trial at last year's race. The 21-year-old became the race's second-youngest winner after Firmin Labot back in 1904.

Pogačar broke a Ineos/Sky stranglehold on the race, with the British team having won seven of the previous eight Tours de France with Egan Bernal, Geraint Thomas, Bradley Wiggins and four-time winner Chris Froome. Vincenzo Nibali, then riding for Astana, was the other man to break the British squad's dominance with a win in 2014.

The Tour wins record is currently held by four men, with Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain all on five titles.

2020 was also the year which saw the rare occasion of Sagan getting beaten in the battle for the green jersey. He lost out to Bennett after a race-long battle, but still holds the all-time green jersey rankings with seven wins in nine participations. Erik Zabel's six jerseys lie second, ahead of Sean Kelly's four.

Pogačar is the reigning mountain classification champion, too, having won the yellow, polka dot and white jerseys in 2020. He broke a three-year French stranglehold on the jersey after wins for Romain Bardet, Julian Alaphilippe and Warren Barguil.

Richard Virenque holds the record for polka dot jersey wins at seven, and it won't be beaten anytime soon as Rafał Majka is the only current rider to have won more than one king of the mountains title, with two.

Read on for a list of the riders with the most wins of the Tour de France, the most stage wins, as well as the major jerseys (active riders in bold ).

Most Tour de France wins

• 5 – Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain
• 4 –  Chris Froome
• 3 – Phiilippe Thys, Louison Bobet, Greg LeMond
• 2 – Lucien Petit-Breton, Firmin Lambot, Ottavio Bottecchia, Nicolas Frantz, André Leducq, Antonin Magne, Sylvère Maes, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, Bernard Thévenet, Laurent Fignon, Alberto Contador
• 1 – Vincenzo Nibali , Geraint Thomas , Egan Bernal , Tadej Pogačar

Most Tour de France stage wins

• 34 – Eddy Merckx
• 30 – Mark Cavendish
• 28 – Bernard Hinault
• 25 – André Leducq
• 22 – André Darrigade
• 20 – Nicolas Frantz
• 19 – François Faber
• 17 – Jean Alavoine
• 16 – Jacques Anquetiil, René Le Grevès, Charles Pélissiier –
• 12 – Peter Sagan
• 11 – André Greipel
• 7 – Chris Froome
• 6 – Vincenzo Nibali

Most Tour de France green jersey wins

• 7 –  Peter Sagan
• 6 – Erik Zabel
• 4 – Sean Kelly
• 3 – Jan Janssen, Eddy Merckx, Freddy Maertens, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Robbie McEwen
• 2 – Stan Ockers, Jean Graczyk, André Darrigade, Laurent Jalabert, Thor Hushovd
• 1 – Mark Cavendish , Michael Matthews , Sam Bennett

Most Tour de France polka dot jersey wins

• 7 – Richard Virenque
• 6 – Federico Bahamontes, Lucien Van Impe
• 3 – Julio Jiménez
• 2 – Felicien Vervaecke, Gino Bartali, Fausto Coppi, Charly Gaul, Imerio Massignan, Eddy Merckx, Luis Herrera, Claudio Chiappucci, Laurent Jalabert, Michael Rasmussen, Rafał Majka
• 1 – Nairo Quintana , Chris Froome , Warren Barguil , Julian Alaphilippe , Romain Bardet , Tadej Pogačar

• Tour de France 2021 map
• Tour de France 2021: The Essential Race Guide
• Tour de France past winners

• Rest Day 1 2021-07-05

• Rest Day 2 2021-07-12

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Tour de France champ Vingegaard has collapsed lung after crash

Danish rider may not be able to defend his title.

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Two-time defending Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard remained hospitalized in Spain a day after he broke his collarbone and several ribs in a bad crash with other top riders during the Tour of Basque Country.

The Danish rider's Visma-Lease A Bike team said Friday that further tests revealed the Vingegaard also suffered a collapsed lung and a pulmonary contusion. The team said that cycling's leading star was "stable and had a good night" but remains in a hospital in the northern Spanish city of Vitoria.

The accident comes less than three months before the start of the Tour on June 29 when Vingegaard is scheduled to to again face off against top rival Tadej Pogačar. That highly anticipated rematch is now in doubt.

• 'It's been a long journey': Vingegaard wins Tour de France for 2nd consecutive year
• More cycling coverage

Vingegaard was hardly moving as he was put in an ambulance wearing an oxygen mask and neck brace after the crash occurred on Thursday with less than 30 kilometres left in the race's fourth stage.

The pileup also took out cycling stars Primož Roglič and Remco Evenepoel.

Evenepoel, considered one of the favourites for the road race at the Paris Games, broke a collarbone and his right shoulder blade and was set to undergo surgery when he returns to Belgium on Friday, his Soudal Quick-Step team said.

The accident happened as riders were making what looked to be a conventional right-hand turn going downhill when one rider's front tire appeared to slip out and send other cyclists off the road. There were some large rocks and trees in the area, though it wasn't clear if any of the riders hit them. There was also a concrete drainage ditch place on the edge of the curve.

Roglič, a three-time Spanish Vuelta winner, emerged with just scratches but he did have to abandon the race he was leading.

Vingegaard was trying to defend the tittle he won last year at the six-day Tour of Basque Country.

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Tour de France in doubt for Jonas Vingegaard and Jay Vine after horrific crash during the Itzulia Basque Country race in Spain

Sport Tour de France in doubt for Jonas Vingegaard and Jay Vine after horrific crash during the Itzulia Basque Country race in Spain

Jonas Vingegaard has been taken to hospital along with leading Australian rider Jay Vine after some of the world's best cyclists suffered injuries in a mass crash at high speed in the Itzulia Basque Country race in Spain. 

The reigning double Tour de France champion Vingegaard was reported to have suffered a broken collarbone and several broken ribs but was "conscious" after the alarming crash that threatens his hopes of a famous treble in July.

Vine, last year's Tour Down Under winner, also ended up crashing heavily in a concrete ditch and was taken away by ambulance.

The 28-year-old was later diagnosed with a fractured cervical vertebra and two fractures in his thoracic spine, with no other major injuries or head trauma. 

It was a disastrous day for another modern-day great too, with Remco Evenepoel, the 2022 world champion, managing to walk away from the crash despite suffering what his Soudal-Quick Step later confirmed was a fracture to his right collarbone and to his right shoulder blade.

He will need surgery on Friday in Belgium.

Giro d'Italia champ Primoz Roglic, who had been the overnight leader, also abandoned the race after giving a thumbs-up to cameras from the team car to show he was OK.

In all, 12 riders near the front of the peloton were involved in the crash, which happened with about 35 kilometres left of the fourth stage between Etxarri Aranatz and Legutio, in northern Spain.

The leaders were making a sweeping right-hand turn on a slight but swift descent, with some sliding off, sending others off the road into the ditch.

Denmark's Vingegaard, who has been in spectacular form and was favourite for the 2024 Tour de France, had to be carried to the ambulance in a neck brace and needed oxygen after treatment at roadside by doctors.

The race was then neutralised until the finish, with only the six riders who had been at the front being allowed to sprint for the finish to try to win the stage, with victory eventually going to the underwhelmed South African Louis Meintjes, who admitted it was a hollow triumph.

"It's a sad day. I wish all the guys who crashed all the best and wish them a fast recovery," Mattias Skjelmose, who took the overall race lead from Roglic, said at the finish.

"My mind is with the guys who crashed, and right now I am not thinking about the leader's jersey."

The crash, which featured three of the world's most outstanding riders in Vingegaard, Evenepoel and Roglic, was also a huge blow for 25-year-old Vine, who has graduated from riding a turbo trainer in his living room to being a peloton star.

He had begun the week-long race on Monday with an exceptional time trial that had left him second behind only Roglic at that stage and revealed afterwards that the Itzulia had been only a late addition to his schedule.

Earlier on Thursday, Roglic's teammate at BORA-Hansgrohe, Lennard Kamna, was reported to be in a "stable condition" in intensive care after he had collided with a car during a training ride in Tenerife.

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Stephan Jaeger wins maiden PGA TOUR title in late father’s honor

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HOUSTON — Stephan Jaeger carries three ball markers in his bag. One is for his son Fritz, another for his dog Phil, and a third for his late dad Klaus, who passed away two years ago this month.

Jaeger reached into his bag Sunday morning, as part of a five-way co-lead at the Texas Children’s Houston Open, and pulled out the ball marker for his “Papa Klaus.” It made him smile. It was an extra push to play hard for his dad – who helped introduce him to the game in Germany as an elementary schooler, riding in the cart as his parents and sister played – against a tightly packed leaderboard that included young phenoms Nick Dunlap and Akshay Bhatia, several pros seeking their first TOUR title, and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler – the oddsmakers’ overwhelming favorite into the final round at Memorial Park Golf Course.

Scheffler is nearly impossible to beat over a season-long race, Jaeger admitted earlier this week. But anything is possible over 72 holes on the PGA TOUR, especially for a seasoned competitor like Jaeger, a six-time Korn Ferry Tour winner who has focused on becoming a better person in recent years, on and off the golf course. That motivation was sparked in 2022 when his dad passed on March 11, and his son Fritz was conceived that same week. “You lose a life and you gain a life,” Jaeger said Sunday.

Stephan Jaeger’s interview after winning the Texas Children's

With his win in Houston, Jaeger’s career takes on a new life as well. He’s fully exempt on TOUR through 2026 and will compete in his first Masters next month. He’ll forever be known as a PGA TOUR winner.

“I couldn't have thought, dreamed up a better week to do it,” Jaeger said Sunday. “Obviously playing (with) Scottie last couple days, he's been on a tear, so to kind of slay the dragon a little bit this week was amazing. He's such a good dude, such a good player; I was just happy to play with him a couple days.”

Jaeger’s career evolution is part physical – he has been diligent in speed training, ranking No. 24 this season in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (he ranked No. 184 in 2022). It allows him to attack longer holes with more freedom and safeguard against disaster on certain shots like the par-4 17th Sunday – which played 329 yards from the forward tee, water down the entire right side. He hit a “spinny heeler” off the tee that easily cleared the hazard, leading to an easy par (his eighth of nine straight closing pars on a windy Sunday).

His evolution is also very much mental. A previous version of Jaeger, who twice lost his TOUR card before earning 2021 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year honors and not looking back, was too quick to take a bad round home with him. Struggles would compound into missed cuts, and he found himself in mini-ruts that were difficult to escape.

“If he had bad rounds, he was just so down, so down,” Shelby Jaeger said Sunday. “I call it a golf hangover, and he would have those.”

Stephan Jaeger’s Round 4 winning highlights from the Texas Children's

“There are grumpy golfers out there, and he did, he took it very hard,” added Jaeger’s longtime friend Joel Dahmen (each January, the Jaegers spend a week with the Dahmens in Scottsdale, Arizona, before opening the TOUR season in Hawaii.)

“He took it almost personal when he played bad.”

Jaeger’s fiery competitiveness brought plenty of good, including six Korn Ferry Tour titles (in just 118 starts), one off Jason Gore’s record seven.

“When (Jaeger) just gets a whiff of the lead no way can (anybody) catch him.... end of story. I’m not sure the right way to describe it other than having the heart of a champion. 4 (Korn Ferry Tour) wins in under 2 years. That’s crazy good,” posted Keith Mitchell on X, formerly Twitter, in 2018.

Mitchell and Jaeger were high school teammates at the Baylor School in Tennessee (along with Harris English), and Jaeger’s talent was on display from the first day, literally. As the story goes, Jaeger showed up in Chattanooga – jet-lagged, speaking minimal English – and beat his Baylor School teammates across 36 holes at The Honors Course. “It was our first tournament of the year, and I had played that golf course hundreds of times growing up in Chattanooga,” remembered Mitchell. “I think I shot 78-81, maybe even worse. We didn’t know if he was going to shoot 110 or what … and shot 74, and the next round was 68.”

Stephan Jaeger’s news conference after winning the Texas Children's

Jaeger traveled from Germany to Tennessee as an exchange student for his junior year of high school. He never really left, staying for his senior year and then playing college golf at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga. The Jaegers reside in Chattanooga to this day; they even moved into a new house last week, occupying a large part of their time. After a missed cut at THE PLAYERS Championship two weeks ago, the clubs stayed packed up in the travel case for nine days, until last Sunday.

A previous version of Jaeger might’ve allowed THE PLAYERS missed cut to fester – on the heels of back-to-back closing 76s at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, no less. Not the case this week, as a mentally sharpened Jaeger outlasted a contingent of worthy competitors with rounds of 69-66-66-67 at Houston’s beloved public municipal golf venue.

“He’s rock-solid in what he’s doing, he believes in what he’s doing, and it shows off out there,” said Dahmen, who congratulated Jaeger greenside at No. 18 Sunday, as did fellow TOUR pros Mark Hubbard and Nate Lashley.

“If you win on the Korn Ferry Tour, you can win on the PGA TOUR, and to do it six times, it’s not an accident,” continued Dahmen. “That means that when you get in that position, you know how to win. You’re not afraid of it. He’s not afraid of it, and he showed that today. The drive he hit on 17, over the water and sent it right at it, that’s just what he does now.”

Jaeger had been building toward this moment, and he relished the challenge of playing alongside world No. 1 Scheffler for the final 36 holes at Memorial Park. Scheffler hung tough down the stretch – making birdie at 16 to pull within one, then narrowly missing birdies from 12 and 5 feet on the final two holes. Jaeger’s bogey-free back nine, though, delivered his first TOUR title in his 135th start – a memory he’ll cherish forever.

By refusing to bring the result home with him, he earned the ideal result.

“It was tough, and it made him realize golf wasn’t everything,” Shelby Jaeger said of Klaus’ passing. “That was the start of him not taking this so seriously … He’s so much more patient … in all aspects of life. He doesn’t always look like it on the golf course because he’s very fast, but he doesn’t get mad if he has a bad round or a bad day. I think he just knew this was coming eventually, and he was so patient, so patient.

“Something switched after (Klaus’ passing), and it was just like, there is so much more to life.”

Klaus Jaeger would be “rolling over right now happy,” his son said Sunday. In the name of a PGA TOUR title, and of the Jaeger name doing good – this week, and perhaps for generations to come.

“This is wild,” Shelby Jaeger said. “We have a son, and I’m just so happy. He has no clue what’s going on, but one day he’s going to know his dad’s awesome.”

Kevin Prise is an associate editor for the PGA TOUR. He is on a lifelong quest to break 80 on a course that exceeds 6,000 yards and to see the Buffalo Bills win a Super Bowl. Follow Kevin Prise on Twitter .

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iHeartRadio Music Awards 2024: See the Complete List of Winners!

The iHeartRadio Music Awards are airing live from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on FOX

Kevin Winter/Getty; Kevin Mazur/Getty; Michael Buckner/Billboard via Getty

The 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards are underway!

The annual awards show, hosted by Ludacris, aired live from the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on FOX, and the winners poured in.

Taylor Swift led this year's nominations with nine total, followed by Jelly Roll ,  SZA  and  21 Savage with eight nods each and Olivia Rodrigo  at seven.

A few special honors were announced ahead of this year's iHeartRadio Music Awards, with Cher receiving the Icon Award, Beyoncé taking home the Innovator Award and both Green Day  and  TLC getting iHeartRadio Landmark Awards.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty; Mireya Acierto/Getty; Pascal Le Segretain/Getty

In an interview with PEOPLE ahead of the ceremony, Ludacris said he was most looking forward to the "variety" at this year's show, which will feature performances from the rapper himself as well as Justin Timberlake ,  Green Day ,  TLC ,  Jelly Roll ,  Lainey Wilson  and  Tate McRae .

"I love that you got Jelly Roll on here, you got Lainey Wilson, you got Justin Timberlake," said Ludacris, 46. "I just want to be a part of greatness. It's so much talent, so much energy and so much stuff to look forward to — and some surprises as well."

Check out all of PEOPLE's full iHeartRadio Music Awards coverage here .

See the complete list of 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards winners below, updating live throughout the show.

Song of the Year              

“Calm Down” - Rema and Selena Gomez                                   

“Creepin'” - Metro Boomin with The Weeknd and 21 Savage                  

“Cruel Summer” - Taylor Swift                                      

“Dance The Night” - Dua Lipa                                       

“Fast Car” - Luke Combs                                               

“Flowers”- Miley Cyrus                                                 

“Kill Bill” - SZA — WINNER                                                           

“Last Night” - Morgan Wallen                            

“Paint The Town Red” - Doja Cat                                              

“vampire” - Olivia Rodrigo            

Pop Album of the Year

Olivia Rodrigo - GUTS — WINNER

Pop Song of the Year

“Flowers” - Miley Cyrus — WINNER                                                 

“Kill Bill” - SZA                                                           

“vampire” - Olivia Rodrigo              

Pop Artist of the Year

Miley Cyrus

Olivia Rodrigo

Taylor Swift — WINNER

Artist of the Year

Morgan Wallen

Duo/Group of the Year

Dan + Shay

Fall Out Boy

Foo Fighters

Jonas Brothers

OneRepublic — WINNER

Best Collaboration

“All My Life” - Lil Durk ft. J. Cole                                             

“Barbie World (with Aqua)” - Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice                        

“Boy’s a liar Pt.2” - PinkPantheress and Ice Spice                       

“Calm Down”- Rema and Selena Gomez - WINNER                                    

“Good Good” – Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage

“Rich Flex” - Drake and 21 Savage                                

“Thank God” - Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown                         

“Tomorrow 2” – GloRilla with Cardi B                          

“TQG” - Karol G and Shakira      

Best New Artist (Pop)

David Kushner

Jelly Roll — WINNER

Stephen Sanchez

Country Song of the Year

“Heart Like a Truck” - Lainey Wilson — WINNER                                       

“Last Night” - Morgan Wallen                                       

“Rock and A Hard Place” - Bailey Zimmerman                           

“Thank God” - Kane Brown and Katelyn Brown          

Country Artist of the Year

Jason Aldean

Lainey Wilson

Morgan Wallen — WINNER

Best New Artist (Country)

Jackson Dean

Megan Moroney

Hip-Hop Album of the Year

Metro Boomin - Heroes & Villians — WINNER

Hip-Hop Song of the Year

“All My Life” - Lil Durk ft. J. Cole — WINNER                                             

“fukumean” - Gunna                                                      

“Just Wanna Rock” - Lil Uzi Vert                                              

“Tomorrow 2” - GloRilla with Cardi B        

Hip-Hop Artist of the Year

Drake — WINNER

Best New Artist (Hip-Hop)

Ice Spice — WINNER

Lola Brooke

R&B Album of the Year

SZA - SOS — WINNER

R&B Song of the Year

“Creepin'” - Metro Boomin with The Weeknd and 21 Savage                   

“CUFF IT” - Beyoncé                                        

“Good Good” – Usher, Summer Walker and 21 Savage   

“On My Mama” - Victoria Monét                                              

“Snooze” - SZA   — WINNER

R&B Artist of the Year

Brent Faiyaz

Chris Brown

SZA — WINNER

Best African Music Artist

Burna Boy - WINNER

Best New Artist (R&B)

October London

Victoria Monét — WINNER

Alternative Album of the Year

Boygenius - The Record — Winner

Alternative Song of the Year

“Lost” - Linkin Park                                          

“Love From The Other Side” - Fall Out Boy                                           

“One More Time” - Blink-182 - WINNER                                        

“Rescued” - Foo Fighters                                                

“This Is Why” - Paramore          

Alternative Artist of the Year

Fall Out Boy — WINNER

Best New Artist (Alt and Rock)

Noah Kahan - WINNER

Rock Album of the Year

Metallica - 72 Seasons — WINNER

Rock Song of the Year

“72 Seasons” - Metallica                                                

“Dead Don’t Die” - Shinedown                                       

“Lost” - Linkin Park - WINNER                                       

“Need A Favor” - Jelly Roll                                           

“Rescued” - Foo Fighters     

Rock Artist of the Year

Foo Fighters - WINNER

Samir Hussein/WireImage

Dance Song of the Year

“10:35” - Tiësto ft. Tate McRae

“Baby Don’t Hurt Me” - David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray                         

“Padam Padam” - Kylie Minogue                                                           

“Praising You” - Rita Ora ft. Fatboy Slim                                               

“Strangers” - Kenya Grace — WINNER

Dance Artist of the Year

Anabel Englund

David Guetta

Kylie Minogue

Tiësto — WINNER 

Latin Pop / Urban Song of the Year

“La Bachata” - Manuel Turizo                                                   

“La Bebe (remix)” - Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma                                     

“Lala” - Myke Towers                                                    

“Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53” - Shakira and Bizarrap — WINNER                                       

“TQG” - Karol G and Shakira              

Latin Pop / Urban Artist of the Year

Karol G - WINNER

Manuel Turizo

Best New Artist (Latin Pop / Urban)

Young Miko — WINNER

Regional Mexican Album of the Year

Peso Pluma - Genesis — WINNER

Regional Mexican Song of the Year

“Bebe Dame” - Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera                      

“Ella Baila Sola” - Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma — WINNER                               

“Indispensable” - Carin León                                                     

“Qué Onda Perdida” - Grupo Firme ft. Gerardo Coronel                          

“Qué Vuelvas” - Carin León and Grupo Frontera      

Regional Mexican Artist of the Year

El Fantasma

Grupo Frontera

Peso Pluma — WINNER

Best New Artist (Regional Mexican)

Gabito Ballesteros

Gerardo Coronel

K-pop Album of the Year

Stray Kids - 5-Star — WINNER

Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty 

K-pop Artist of the Year

Jung Kook — WINNER

K-pop Song of the Year

“Bouncy (K-Hot Chilli Peppers)” - ATEEZ                                                                    

“Cupid (Twin Version)” - FIFTY FIFTY — WINNER                                                             

“S-Class” - Stray Kids                                                   

“Seven” - Jung Kook ft. Latto                                          

“Super Shy” - NewJeans              

Best New Artist (K-pop)

BOYNEXTDOOR

NewJeans - WINNER

ZEROBASEONE

Producer of the Year

Carter Lang 

Jack Antonoff — WINNER 

Kid Harpoon 

Songwriter of the Year

Ashley Gorley  — WINNER

Jack Antonoff 

Michael Ross Pollack 

Best Lyrics

“Dial Drunk” - Noah Kahan 

“Flowers” - Miley Cyrus 

“Greedy” - Tate McRae 

“Houdini” - Dua Lipa 

“Is It Over Now? (Taylor's Version)” - Taylor Swift  — WINNER 

“Last Night” - Morgan Wallen  

“Lovin On Me”- Jack Harlow 

“Nonsense” - Sabrina Carpenter 

“Paint The Town Red” - Doja Cat  

“vampire” - Olivia Rodrigo 

“Water” - Tyla 

“What Was I Made For?” - Billie Eilish 

Best Music Video

“3D” - Jung Kook ft. Jack Harlow  

“Dance The Night” - Dua Lipa 

“FLOWER” - JISOO  

“Flowers” - Miley Cyrus  

“I'm Good (Blue)” - Bebe Rexha and David Guetta 

“Kill Bill” - SZA 

“La Bebe (Remix)” - Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma  

“Seven” - Jung Kook ft. Latto — WINNER   

“TQG” - Karol G and Shakira  

 Best Fan Army

BTS Army — WINNER

Social Star Award

Alex Warren 

David Kushner 

Flyana Boss

Gracie Abrams — WINNER

Jessie Murph 

Megan Moroney 

Natalie Jane 

Noah Kahan 

Favorite Tour Photographer

Alfredo Flores - Sabrina Carpenter

Anna Lee - Coldplay

Carianne Older - Charlie Puth

Catherine Powell - Kelsea Ballerini

Cynthia Parkhurst - Jonas Brothers

David Lehr - Morgan Wallen

Joshua Halling - Louis Tomlinson — WINNER

Mason Poole - Beyoncé

Matty Vogel - Misterwives

Ravie B - Adele

Ryan Fleming – 5 Seconds of Summer

Sanjay Parikh - Shinedown

 TikTok Bop of the Year

“Boy’s a liar Pt. 2” - PinkPantheress and Ice Spice 

“Collide (Sped Up Remix)” - Justine Skye 

“Cruel Summer” - Taylor Swift — WINNER 

“Cupid (Twin Version)” - FIFTY FIFTY 

“Daylight” - David Kushner 

“Her Way (Sped Up)” - Party Next Door 

“If We Ever Broke Up” - Mae Stephens  

“Paint The Town Red” - Doja Cat 

“Water” - Tyla  

“What It Is (Solo Version)” - Doechii  

Favorite On Screen

j-hope IN THE BOX — WINNER

Love To Love You, Donna Summer

Louis Tomlinson: All of Those Voices

Prince: The Final Secret

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

Jelly Roll: Save Me

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

TLC Forever

Favorite Tour Style

Carrie Underwood

Harry Styles

Sabrina Carpenter

Shania Twain

Favorite Debut Album

GOLDEN  - Jung Kook

In Pieces  - Chlöe

Layover  - V — WINNER

Lucky  - Megan Moroney

Mirror  - Lauren Spencer Smith

My 21st Century Blues  - Raye

Religiously  - Bailey Zimmerman

Snow Angel  - Reneé Rapp 

Tyler Hubbard  - Tyler Hubbard

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