mas wielrenner tour 2022

Thymen Arensman has been that far-from-rare rider, the leader in waiting, the ‘next big thing from [insert nation here]’ since he turned pro half way through 2020 and promptly took two top-10 finishes at the Vuelta a España in the same season. Two years later, the 22-year-old took his first Grand Tour victory on the queen stage of the 2022 Vuelta after leaving his breakaway companions behind, vaulting back into the top 10 overall.

“It’s still really hard to believe, it really has to sink in,” Arensman said at the finish. “I can’t believe it – the queen stage of the Vuelta, Sierra Nevada at altitude, everyone was talking about this stage. To be honest, I didn’t feel super good on the stage but apparently the others felt their legs even more. When I was alone, I had the coach Matt Winston on the radio. I was only thinking I’ve got to push 400 watts and it was enough and it’s unbelievable.”

The DSM man was one of the 29 riders who forged a gap after a furious start to stage 15, and sitting 11th overall, he was a threat to the peloton and breakaway alike.

He’d tried to get in a move earlier in the race but was called back into the peloton, then a jour sans in the stage 10 time trial saw him ship time, paving the way to another attack deeper in the race.

Arensman has proved before that he has the staying power for a three-week race, but the altitude finish at Sierra Nevada did not seem to align with the Dutchman’s attributes – born at sea level, after all – at least compared with some of his rivals in the breakaway like Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) and Rigoberto Urán (EF Education-EasyPost). Add to that the fact that Ben O’Connor’s AG2R-Citroën teammates had been sent forward to protect their leader’s position on GC, and Arensman really had to take the race into his own hands and do a lot of work on the climb to Sierra Nevada.

With Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) still half a minute up the road having attacked at the bottom of the climb, Arensman dispatched his remaining breakaway companions eight kilometres from the summit and ate hungrily into the gap, joining the fading Spaniard within a kilometre. The DSM rider then went solo just inside the last seven kilometres and stayed away to take his first road win and a second pro victory in as many months.

“It looked like [Soler] was waiting for me,” Arensman said. “I thought that Marc Soler is such a great rider and I don’t know if I can take him on but then I accelerated on the steeper parts and he cracked and I thought everybody is really on the limit and I maybe have something left so unbelievable.”

The first and only high-altitude finish of the 2022 Vuelta was expected to set the stage for a significant reshuffle of the GC, or perhaps a consolidation. Neither really happened.

Despite the best efforts of Jumbo-Visma, which put two riders into the breakaway (as did Quick-Step) before causing chaos at the foot of the final ‘special category’ climb, Remco Evenepoel looked more than up to the task, all the way until the last kilometre. In fact, Primož Roglič was the one who looked under pressure in the first half of the ascent, dropping to the back of the five-man GC group after his pace setting failed to trouble the red jersey, who gained a teammate from the breakaway when Roglič had spent all his chips.

Third overall Enric Mas (Movistar) and Miguel Ángel López (Astana-Qazaqstan), who won here in 2017, attacked Evenepoel, Roglič and O’Connor with more than 10 km to go and the pair gained 42 and 38 seconds each, Mas consolidating his podium position almost three minutes clear of fourth-place Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates).

Roglič left his own attack for the eleventh hour, riding away from Evenepoel with the flamme rouge in sight, and gained a morale-boosting 15 seconds to repay his team for a hard day’s work. This brings Evenepoel’s cushion down to 1:34 with six stages to go.

Further down the top 10, Arensman’s stage-winning effort saw him move up to eighth overall, while Ayuso and Carlos Rodríguez swapped places after a tough day for the latter. The Spanish national champion was not the only Ineos Grenadier to suffer. After a curiously timed attack on the way to the final climb, Tao Geoghegan Hart plummeted from ninth to 18th, losing over 20 minutes to the red jersey.

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Who Won the 2022 Tour de France?

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

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.

Results From Every Stage Full Leaderboard

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

Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) defended his place atop the general classification of the 2022 Tour de France , finishing Stage 14 alongside his biggest rival, Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the Tour’s two-time defending champion. The two remain first- and second-overall, separated by 2:22. Great Britain’s Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers) held onto his third-place position, despite losing 17 seconds to Vingegaard and Pogačar at the end of the stage.

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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‘I didn’t want Van der Poel to surprise me’ – Mads Pedersen holds nerve to win Gent-Wevelgem duel

Dane on managing a head-to-head contest with the world champion on the Kemmelberg

The idea was to outflank and outnumber Mathieu van der Poel, but in the finale of Gent-Wevelgem , Mads Pedersen still faced something akin to a modern labour of Hercules, namely a head-to-head contest with the world champion.

Pedersen’s Lidl-Trek squad had raced with aggression and cohesion all afternoon, placing three men in the front group of seven that formed after the first ascent of the Kemmelberg, but a plan can only bring a team so far at a race like this. Come the last hour or so of racing, Pedersen had to find his own way past a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.

If Pedersen was daunted by the task, he didn’t show it. On the final haul up the Kemmelberg, he opted to set the tempo himself, dialling up the pace to distance their last remaining breakaway companion Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ). Above all, Pedersen wanted to do just enough to dissuade Van der Poel from launching an acceleration of his own.

“I didn’t want to try to drop Mathieu,” Pedersen said when he took a seat in the media room afterwards.  “First of all, I don’t believe I would have been able to do that, and second, if I had managed to drop him, I’m pretty sure he would have sat up and waited for the peloton. Then they’d have been there chasing with the whole team, and that wouldn’t have made sense at all.

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“The last time on the Kemmel, I didn’t look back. I just wanted to make it hard enough so he wouldn’t attack. I remembered his attack from [the Tour of Flanders] last year, and it definitely put me on the limit, so I wanted to avoid that. I didn’t know if he was fully on the limit or not. I know I was on the limit, and I was just hoping he had a hard time there as well.”

Van der Poel would later reveal that he was struggling to hold Pedersen’s wheel at that point, and the Dutchman confessed that he already had a sinking feeling about his prospects in a two-up sprint 35km later. Pedersen wasn’t to know that at the time, of course, and the two struck a common accord over the other side of the Kemmel. Having rid themselves of the dangerous Pithie, they were now content to share the workload on the flat road to Wevelgem.

“We kind of asked each other if we were happy with the situation and if we would work together or start to attack each other,” Pedersen explained of the brief parley that was captured by the television cameras.

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“It would have been a bit too early to attack each other. We had already agreed to put Pithie on the limit so he would blow up, and we were hoping we could gain some time before the guys in the peloton could organise themselves. We wanted to ride together in the crosswind to make sure we would have enough time before we swung into the tailwind section. It worked out well enough.”

That was something of an understatement, though Pedersen still had plenty to do in the final kilometre. With a peloton containing his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Philipsen closing rapidly, Van der Poel parked himself on Pedersen’s rear wheel beneath the flamme rouge .

Although Pedersen didn’t realise the chasers were so close at hand, he was canny enough to keep the pace high, mindful of Van der Poel’s prodigious ability to accelerate from low speeds, the very trick that helped him outmanoeuvre Tadej Pogačar at the 2022 Tour of Flanders.

“I wanted to do one of my long sprints and not let him surprise me,” Pedersen explained. “That was the last thing I wanted today, to have him opening the sprint. I know I’m good at long sprints. I just had to trust that today and hope it would be enough.

This cobbled Classics campaign has been billed by most as a straight duel between Van der Poel and Wout van Aert – who didn't line up at Gent-Wevelgem – but Lidl-Trek ’s collective strength has been one of the most striking aspects of the Spring to date. They continued in a similar vein here.

They were well represented when the peloton first split in the crosswinds at De Moeren with 150km to go, and they were again to the fore when Van der Poel ran through his scales on the first ascent of the Kemmelberg, with Pedersen joined by teammates Jasper Stuyven and Jonathan Milan in the front group of seven.

The obvious tactic at that point was to attack Van der Poel in turn, with Milan the first of the Lidl-Trek men to go on the offensive. A most untimely puncture for Jasper Stuyven on the Plugstreets, however, forced them to revise their strategy on the hoof.

“It was a bit of a shit,” Pedersen smiled ruefully. “The puncture came in a really bad moment, because Jonny had put good pressure on, and we were ready to keep attacking.”

No matter, Pedersen’s eventual victory , his second at Gent-Wevelgem after his 2020 triumph, was a reward for their enterprising approach. The former world champion has made no secret of his ambition to add a Monument to his palmarès, and his disappointment was palpable after placing fourth at Milan-San Remo last weekend.

Victory here offers ample compensation, and it also places Pedersen firmly among the favourites for the Tour of Flanders. He placed second in the Ronde on his debut in 2018, after all, and he was third behind the unassailable Pogačar and Van der Poel a year ago.

“Yeah, but still pretty far from the win. A victory always gives confidence, but I also know Flanders is a different race, it’s really tough for me. Paris-Roubaix suits me better,” said Pedersen, who insisted his team’s collaborative approach to leadership would remain in place for the next two weekends.

“We are riding as a team, we don’t have one specific leader. With a strong group like ours, it wouldn’t make sense to have the meeting the day before and say, ‘We’re riding for this guy.’ So much can happen in a Classic and especially in Flanders. If the team tells me to put the pressure on for the other guys, I’ll do it. They pay my salary. I do whatever they tell me to do.”

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Barry Ryan is Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation , published by Gill Books.

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