Featured image courtesy of STEPHANE MAHE / Reuters
Roll up, roll up, welcome to the biggest sporting circus on the planet!
It’s July and that means the most famous bike race is in town. For three solid weeks via two time trials, sprints, hills, Alps and Pyrenees, let the madness and majesty of the Tour de France begin.
From Friday 1st to Sunday 24th July, the 109th edition of the Tour will feature some of the iconic roads in all of cycling, as well as the most popular world-class talent both young and old across many a nation.
Starting in Denmark and finishing with its usual procession in Paris, this year’s Tour could well be the most entertaining in recent memory, but to be fair cycling fans say this every year!
In 2021 we saw the unbelievable comeback of Britain’s Mark Cavendish to equal the all-time Tour de France stage record set by Eddy Merckx, a talented multi-discipline performance by Belgium’s Wout Van Aert and in the general classification, nobody could fight the resplendent grace of Tadej Pogačar in yellow.
It’s important to stress that in all the build-up to this Tour, at both the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse, COVID-19 has still played its unfortunate part in effecting the outcome of races. There continues to be the sad reality that this virus may cause an early finish for some riders, which we hope won’t become the case over the 21 unfolding stages.
Putting aside COVID-19, there are plenty of names who can win the 2022 Tour, which as ever, is a total lottery to predict who will win, but below are some key questions, narratives and talking points which we will discover offer the next three weeks.
Who are the contenders to win the famous maillot jaune?
To answer this question, it is clear that any contender will have to beat the red hot favourite Tadej Pogačar. He is the man to beat, but others such as his fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič, last year’s runner-up Jonas Vingegaard and Britain’s Geraint Thomas could well be seen as potential champions when we reach Paris.
As every Tour de France comes and goes, the narrative and drama of this race continues to shock and surprise, so what will happen this year?
Three Tour de France titles in a row? Pogačar is on course to make history…again
Winner of the the last two editions, it is unquestionable that the 23-year-old Slovenian phenomenon in world cycling right now is Tadej Pogačar. It is also unarguable that he will probably win this Tour for the third successive year and here’s how.
Best rider on the planet going into this Tour? Yes, Talented and in the best form of his life? Winning all three of the stage race he has completed at UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour of Slovenia, it’s right to say so. Terrific climber? Yes. Time trialist? Yes.
It’s been a secure checklist of ticks ever since he won on debut in 2020, when Jumbo-Visma held onto yellow with Primož Roglič right until the point where he cracked on the final La Planche des Belles Filles time trial. A surprise for Pogačar first time around, but last year he coped incredibly well with all the pressure that comes with being labelled as defending champion.
The hammer blow on Stage 8 to Le Grand-Bornand to put more than four minutes into his rivals, the time trial dominance and of course two glorious stage wins atop the Col de Portet and Luz-Ardiden in the Pyrenees – there was nobody to stop him. Yes Roglič was out of contention last year due to an early crash and the INEOS Grenadiers were nowhere near strong enough, but still, the dominance of Tadej Pogačar’s performance was staggering.
Let’s not forget what his rivals are up against. One of the youngest riders to win the Tour de France in 112 years, first Slovenian to win it and also a two-times Monument winner at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia. In his favour also is a strengthend UAE-Team Emirates. Pogačar’s main wingman at the Tour last year was Poland’s Rafał Majka and now with strong lieutenants in American Brandon McNulty plus the added wealth of experience Kiwi George Bennett will bring from Jumbo-Visma – it’s simple to suggest that the two-times defending champion has an unbreakable team.
If he rides to the best of his ability and stays out of trouble in week one, a third-straight Tour title is Pogačar’s for the taking and it’ll be another statistic broken for this historic race. Can he become only the fourth man to at least claim three yellow jersey’s after Phillippe Thys, Louison Bobet and Greg LeMond?
Roglič and Vingegaard – double attack or internal competition?
Jumbo-Visma are arguably the best team to destroy Tadej Pogačar’s dominance, and they’ll do this with two huge threats to the GC – former runner-up and three-times Vuelta champion Primož Roglič, as well as last year’s Tour runner-up Jonas Vingegaard.
It is fair to say that Primož Roglič is the more experienced man to defeat his fellow Slovenian counterpart, because he has won the Vuelta three times, worn the yellow jersey, has more Tour stages to his name and has won more stage races.
At Paris-Nice Roglič was dominant and at the Dauphiné, Jumbo-Visma barely put a foot wrong with Jonas Vingegaard acting as the perfect domestique, the image of the pair of them crossing the line arm in arm atop the Plateau de Salaison was a message of strength.
Jumbo-Visma have a plan and it is two-fold. They have backup in Vingegaard if Roglič can’t compete, but what will be intriguing to watch is how the team race. A strong support will be offered by Steven Kruijswijk and Sepp Kuss as well as guidance on the cobbles from Wout Van Aert, but could internal leadership ambitions cause friction? Easy to dismiss but if Vingegaard feels better than Roglič on one mountain stage, it only takes a small sign of struggle to leave fans questioning who is the strongest between them.
Four long years since Primož Roglič came very close to making his first Tour de France podium, this is the project Jumbo-Visma are desperate to complete. Three Vuelta titles in the bag is no mean feat but to win a yellow jersey is the biggest prize the Dutch team have yet to master. They came close in 2020, Primož Roglič came close before blowing up right at last, could this finally be his year?
Rejuvenation of the old INEOS machine?
It is clear that UAE Team Emirates and Jumbo-Visma are the two main teams who are gunning for yellow, but what about the INEOS Grenadiers?
For the past two editions, the British team have waned. The fearsome Sky/INEOS train has slowly come to a shuddering halt, where seven Tour victories with Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Egan Bernal and Sir Bradley Wiggins combined, now looks a distant memory. A two year drought, the team have been brought down a peg or two, also left reeling from Richard Carapaz’s recent last gasp defeat of the pink jersey at the Giro d’Italia.
Can they make a comeback and beat the two Slovenians who we think will have their own head-to-head showdown?
Three potential GC leaders begin this year’s Tour in former winner from 2018 Geraint Thomas, Colombian Dani Martínez and former white jersey winner Adam Yates.
Thomas comes into this Tour with some form behind him, overall victory at the Tour de Suisse, a good indicator of where the Welshman is at. The only problem he has is bad luck, the rider who always crashes, finds himself on the floor and left wondering what could have been.
You’d imagine that Colombian Martínez, who has won Itzulia Basque Country earlier this season, and in his three other stage races he finished third, third, and eighth, would be the better hope for a GC challenge. He was also top five at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Flèche Wallonne plus eighth at Tour de Suisse – best season of his career so far? Yes and more, because the way Martínez helped Egan Bernal to GC victory at the Giro last year just proved how reliable the climber is.
Adam Yates arrives at this Tour winless throughout 2022 and slightly disappointed after having leave the Tour de Suisse due to COVID. Two GC top-10s before at the Tour, Yates cannot be written off and neither can the team. INEOS are a strong team and just like Jumbo-Visma, it will be fascinating to see how they approach to race to try and beat Pogačar.
UAE-Team Emirates, Jumbo-Visma and the INEOS Greandiers. Each team sent their Tour de France GC leaders to different races for the big build-up at the Dauphiné, Tour de Suisse and Tour of Slovenia. Now comes the huge meet-up to determine who will be crowned champion in yellow.
Are there any other genuine contenders to look out for?
There are three main names, who should find themselves in contention for a top-five come Paris.
BORA-Hansgrohe’s Aleksandr Vlasov was looking good to win the Tour de Suisse until COVID took hold. He had to abandon the race but before that in another Swiss stage race, the Tour de Romandie, Vlasov took a stage win. Third overall at Itzulia was also a decent result.
If we assume Aleksandr Vlasov has recovered well from COVID then he should be climbing high with the very best in the mountains. A top five in the GC is a strong possibility, a podium place may not be out of his reach either.
Romain Bardet is back at the Tour de France after a year’s absence. A flourishing career to gain stages and podium places at this race, Bardet might fancy his chances after he sat fourth in the recent Giro d’Italia before having to abandon due to illness. Will the Frenchman go for yellow on his home Grand Tour? Top five is realistic but stage wins and possibly a second polka-dot jersey as King of the Mountains should be a target.
After Jai Hindley won the Giro d’Italia, could Australia claim another Grand Tour this calendar year? It’s unlikely, but since Ben O’Connor took fourth overall last year and claimed a beautiful stage win at Tignes, he looks a completely different rider.
Top-seven finishes at the Ruta del Sol, Volta a Catalunya, Tour de Romandie and most recently the Dauphiné where he came third. Going stage hunting is also firmly within O’Connor’s capabilities.
Elsewhere, the hunt for stages if your GC ambitions go array may not necessarily apply to this Tour. There are plenty of names who will make the top-ten but will go for stages more than anything. Keep an eye out for:
- Nairo Quintana (Arkéa Samsic), clearly still doing something special at the age of 32. A former winner of the Giro in 2014 and Vuelta in 2016, he’s won at the Tour de la Provence and the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes so far this year, and the Colombian also claimed fifth at Paris-Nice, fourth at Catalunya and seventh at the recent Route d’Occitanie. Six long years since he last made the Tour de France podium and now nine years since his breakthrough Tour, Quintana could add to his current tally of three stage wins.
- Another Australia to keep tabs on would be Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious). Similar to Ben O’Connor, Haig has produced some notable stage-race results including sixth at Paris-Nice and fifth at the Dauphiné. Third overall at the Vuelta last year too so there is a case of unfinished business at this Tour for Jack Haig.
- Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) is back at the Tour after missing out last year. In 2020 it was a disaster after crashing on day one and then falling away as soon as the Pyrennes hit home, and the year previously it looked so good, winning atop the Tourmalet before abandoning due to injury on Stage 19. Stage hunting has worked well for him this season, with stage wins at the Tour de Suisse and the Tour of the Alps. His GC ambitions might be a stretch, but his Groupama-FDJ fellow Frenchman David Gaudu instead could fancy his chances.
- There are plenty of Spanish names at this Tour who can easily claim a stage, but for the GC fight you’d expect Enric Mas (Movistar) to have a go. Fourth overall at the Volta a la Valenciana has been his best result in 2022, which isn’t great form going into a Grand Tour. Fifth and sixth on GC at the Tour before, Mas hasn’t fulfilled all the positive omens he has been attached to since his breakthrough second place at La Vuelta in 2018. Abandoning the recent Dauphiné due to a crash, let’s hope the Movistar man has recovered well.
- We have a luxury of choice of French riders to contest mountain stages, maybe the GC but also the King of the Mountains classification. Who can accumulate the most points and pull on the polka-dot jersey?All signs point to a potential French showdown and Guillaume Martin (Cofidis) like Pinot should be involved. Eighth overall last year, Martin is capable of claiming a top-ten but instead hunting for stages and making the podium as KOM might be better.
Other riders to note include Dutchman Bauke Mollema and his Trek-Segafredo teammate Giulio Ciccone, the Italian who has worn the yellow jersey before even if only for two days in 2019. Both could work together to try and win stages but also take control of the polka-dot jersey fight. Mollema has won stages before, including last year on Stage 14 to Quillan, whereas Ciccone hasn’t. Expect one of them to take some glory home for Trek come Paris.
Milan-San Remo winner Matej Mohorič for Bahrain-Victorious won two stages last year, both solo from the breakaway, and the Slovenian always rides for opportunities.
Can the Danes make it a dream Grand Départ by seeing a home boy win the opening Copenhagen time trial? Quick Step Alpha Vinyl’s Kasper Asgreen is a hot favourite to pull on the first yellow jersey but he’ll face stiff opposition in the form of the current time trial world champion Filippo Ganna for the INEOS Grenadiers, the Italian’s Tour de France debut.
And finally, a word on Chris Froome riding nowadays for Israel-Premier Tech. The seven-times Grand Tour winner and champion at the Tour four times, is unlikely to win a fifth. To see Chris Froome ride competitively again would be a good sight at this Tour, although he will probably be riding to help Jakob Fuglsang, who took third overall at Suisse, and Canadian Michael Woods, the recent winner of the Route d’Occitanie.
It’s the 109th Tour de France, best cycling race of the year, the most historic, famous around the world. In all of sport, this is it. The contenders are ready, the route is ready – from Copenhagen to Paris, we’re in for a treat.
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