tour de france sprint record

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The tour de france’s greatest ever sprinters, from pelissier to cavendish, the fast men forever etched into tour de france history.

Mark Cavendish started the Tour de France for the tenth time this year, and with four stage wins reminded everyone of just how good a sprinter he is.

Cavendish was named the Tour’s greatest ever sprinter by L’Equipe in 2012 with no other sprinter winning as many stages of the race as the Manxman – in fact, following his stage six victory in Montauban, the only man with more Tour stage wins than him is the great Eddy Merckx with 34.

Add to that his points classification win in 2011, and the yellow jersey he finally pulled on after stage one of this year’s race, and you can see why L’Equipe afforded Britain’s most successful male professional cyclist such an honour.

But if Cavendish is the greatest ever, how do all the other great sprinters to have raced the Tour de France in its 103 editions compare?

We’ve picked out nine of the greatest fast men ever to take on the Tour. Are there any you would add to the list?

Mark Cavendish (GBR) – 2007 to present

Mark Cavendish made his Tour de France debut in 2007, during which he suffered two crashes and abandoned as the race headed into the mountains. It was an inconspicuous start given what was to follow.

Despite only riding the first 13 stages of the following year’s Tour – due to training for the 2008 Beijing Olympics – Cavendish picked up his first four stage wins in the race before bagging six in 2009 and five apiece in 2010 and 2011.

Riding for the HTC-HighRoad team, he and his lead-out train were simply untouchable at their best as Cavendish bagged the green jersey in 2011, crowning his win with a victory on the Champs-Elysees.

His era of dominance ended thereafter, but – in the jersey of world road race champion – he won three times in his solitary season with Team Sky, twice in his debut year with Omega Pharma-QuickStep and last year went clear into third place on the list of all-time wins thanks to his 26 th career triumph.

And just as he was being written off in some quarters, the Manx Missile  added four more wins to his  palmares in 2016, to go second in that list behind Merckx and pull on the yellow jersey for the first time.

Tour de France stage wins: 30* Tour de France points classification wins: one (2011)

Andre Darrigade (FRA) – 1952 to 1966

Frenchman Andre Darrigade has been dubbed the greatest French sprinter of all time by Raphael Geminiani with his phenomenal speed (and stamina) earning him 22 stage wins in his illustrious career.

Darrigade’s sprinting style meant he could win sprints from far back, often opting to lead out bunch finishes and ‘challenging others to pass him’, according to journalist Rene de Latour.

Darrigade’s sprinting ability didn’t just earn him stage wins either, with him wearing the yellow jersey 16 times in all too – winning the opening stage of the Tour in four consecutive years between 1956 and 1959, and again in 1961.

The Frenchman also twice won the points classification, in 1959 and 1961, and remains one of only six riders to have bagged 20 or more stage wins at the Tour.

Tour de France stage wins: 22 Tour de France points classification wins: two (1959, 1961)

Mario Cipollini (ITA) – 1993 to 1999

Exuberant Italian Mario Cipollini’s sensational sprinting exploits may have been more centred on the Giro d’Italia, but he still found time to win 12 Tour de France stages and spend time in the yellow jersey.

Cipo ’s well-publicised dislike of the mountains meant he never contested the green jersey, and his teams not being invited from 2000 to 2003 – despite him being world champion at the time of the latter race – also didn’t help.

He sits in the Tour record books, however, having won the race’s fastest ever stage in 1999 as part of his post-war record four consecutive stage wins.

But regardless of the bare statistics, few can doubt Cipollini was one of cycling’s greatest ever sprinters, not just at the Tour.

His 42 Giro d’Italia stage wins remain a record, and with his Tour and Vuelta a tally added to that, his career tally stands at 57 Grand Tour stage wins.

Tour de France stage wins: 12 Tour de France points classification wins: none

Erik Zabel (GER) – 1995 to 2008

Where Cipollini opted not to contest the green jersey at the Tour de France, Erik Zabel monopolised the points classification at the turn of the millennium.

The German won the green jersey six years in a row, from 1996 to 2001, and also celebrated 12 wins in all – picking up two on debut in 1995 and collecting his final victory in 2002.

Like Peter Sagan today, Zabel picked up points with a serious of consistent finishes on the sprint stages and could climb better than his fellow sprinters too.

But where Sagan has struggled to win stages, Zabel had no such problems – no German rider has won more stages, despite Andre Greipel and Marcel Kittel closing in fast.

Tour de France stage wins: 12 Tour de France points classification wins: six (1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001)

Freddy Maertens (BEL) – 1972 to 1981

With Eddy Merckx and Roger de Vlaeminck dominating the Belgian cycling scene, it was going to take somebody pretty special to steal the limelight.

And while Merckx’s achievements on the road remain unparalleled, Maertens at least gave the Belgian faithful a new hero to celebrate – when he was not feuding with the more popular Cannibal at least.

Maertens was primarily a sprinter, but versatile enough to win the 1977 Vuelta a Espana – where he won 13 stages – and his Tour de France record stacks up well too,

Three times he claimed the green jersey, with his 1976 victory arriving courtesy of a record-equalling eight stage wins – five of which were from sprints and three against the clock.

Tour de France stage wins: 16 Tour de France points classification wins: three (1976, 1978, 1981)

René Le Grevès (FRA) – 1933 to 1939

René Le Grevès’ 16 Tour de France stage wins are all the more remarkable when you consider how short his professional career proved to be.

Journalist Jean-Paul Ollivier has dubbed him the Tour’s greatest sprinter, and he was certainly the greatest of the later interwar years – not least between 1934 and 1936 when he collected 14 of those 16 victories.

He was also crowned French champion in 1936, his annus mirabilis as he won six times at that year’s Tour before his star began to wane a little.

Le Grevès’ final stage win came in 1939 before the Tour was cancelled due to the war. The Parisian-born sprinter survived the war but died in 1946 in a skiing accident.

Tour de France stage wins: 16 Tour de France points classification wins: N/A (not run until 1953)

Robbie McEwen (AUS) – 1997 to 2010

Australian fast man Robbie McEwen was the first of his countrymen to win the points classification – something he achieved three times in his career.

McEwen relied on tactical nous and all-out pace rather than a sprint train as such, but that didn’t stop him clocking 12 Tour de France stage wins in all.

His first arrived on the Champs-Elysees in 1999, while his victory in Paris again in 2002 was enough to see him usurp six-time points back-to-back points classification winner Zabel.

He also wore the yellow jersey for a single day in 2004, before recovering from two bad crashes to win a stage and bag his second green jersey.

McEwen’s final stage win in 2007 was all the more remarkable because he recovered from a late crash to return to the bunch and win the kick to the line – proving not only his resilience but his sprinting speed.

Tour de France stage wins: 12 Tour de France points classification wins: 2002, 2004, 2006

Djamolidine Abdoujaparov (UZB) – 1990 to 1997

Uzbekistani sprinting legend Djamolidine Abdoujaparov did not earn the nickname “The Tashkent Terror” for nothing.

Abdoujaparov’s sprinting style was unorthodox to say the least – at worst, it was erratic and dangerous – but it was also clearly effective as he clocked nine stage wins.

Winner of the points classification three times, in 1991, 1993 and 1994, Abdoujaparov claimed the green jersey on the first of those occasions despite a now infamous, high-speed crash during which he hit the barriers on the Champs-Elysees and had to beat the pain barrier to win the stage unaided.

Not all of Abdoujaparov’s victories came from sprints – in fact his last at the Tour, in 1996, was a breakaway in the mountains – but there was no doubting where is best ability lay until his 1997 retirement.

Tour de France stage wins: nine Tour de France points classification wins: 1991, 1993, 1994

Charles Pelissier (FRA) – 1922 to 1939

Former French ‘cross champion turned sprinting extraordinaire Charles Pelissier reached his zenith in the 1930 Tour de France, one year on from his first Tour stage win.

Now, some 86 years on from that 1930 race, there is still no rider who has bettered his eight stage wins – despite Merckx and Maertens both matching it.

Pelissier’s record is all the more incredible when you consider he also finished second on seven occasions that year – there was no green jersey at the time, but you can guarantee the Frenchman would have won by a country mile had there been.

The following year he ‘only’ won five – wearing the yellow jersey for the second time in consecutive years early in the race.

Pelissier won twice more, at the 1935 Tour de France, before at the age of 36 the war curtailed his professional career.

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Tour de France: Winners and records

The Tour de France has 4 jerseys on offer for the various competitions that take place within the race. The most prestigious jersey is the yellow jersey of the GC leader, which unfortunately has been tainted on a few occasions since the turn of the century (see table below). The green jersey is the points classification sought after by sprinters and classics men. The polka dot jersey recognizes the rider who obtains the most mountain points, while the white jersey is a GC for riders under 26.

* Initially Alberto Contador was the winner. He had to give back his title after charges of doping.

** Lance Armstrong’s victories (1999 t/m 2005) have been taken from him due to the use of doping. No new winner was declared.

Tour de France Records

Four riders remain in the record books for having won the Tour de France five times: Eddy Merckx, Bernhard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and Jacques Anquetil .

Anquetil pulled off the unthinkable in 1961 when he held the yellow jersey from the first day of the race right up until the end.

Peter Sagan holds the record for green jersey wins with seven.

Richard Virenque is the King of the Mountains in the Tour de France. He won the polka dot jersey 4 times in a row from 1994-1997, and added a further three jerseys in 1999, 2003 and 2004.

Tadej Pogacar took home the white jersey four times, while Andy Schleck and Jan Ullrich both won the young riders classification three times.

In 1969, Eddy Merckx won the yellow jersey, the green jersey and the polka dot jersey, the only man ever to do so in a single Tour de France. He also was the record holder in terms of stage wins for a a long time, but Mark Cavendish took it from him on Wednesday 3 July 2024. The ManX Missile won 35 Tour de France stages.

Three riders won eight stages in a single Tour de France: Freddy Maertens (1976), Eddy Merckx (1970, 1974), and Charles Pélissier (1930).

The youngest winner ever was Henri Cornet, winning the 1904 Tour at 19 years of age. The oldest winner is Firmin Lambot, who was 36 years when he won in 1922.

Cadel Evans is the oldest winner post WWII – in 2011 he was 34 when he finally won his yellow jersey after years of trying.

Tadej Pogacar is the youngest post-WW2 Tour de France winner. He turned 22 the day after he won the 2020 edition.

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Sir Mark Cavendish makes cycling history at Tour de France with record-breaking 35th stage win

Mark Cavendish crushed the field in a masterful bunch sprint to claim a record-breaking 35th victory on the Tour de France when he prevailed in the fifth stage; Cavendish breaks the record previously held jointly with Eddy Merckx

Thursday 4 July 2024 07:15, UK

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Sir Mark Cavendish has claimed a record-breaking 35th career Tour de France stage win with victory on stage five in Saint-Vulbas.

Three years after matching Eddy Merckx on 34 during the 2021 Tour, Cavendish moved clear of the Belgian to stand alone in Tour history.

The 39-year-old came off the wheel of Fabio Jakobsen in the finale and had the power to hold off Jasper Philipsen.

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🏆 HE’S DONE IT!!! @MarkCavendish 35th win in the Tour de France!!! 🏆 IL L’A FAIT !!! @MarkCavendish remporte sa 35ème victoire sur le Tour de France !!! #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/Ad1cy9dWXQ — Tour de France™ (@LeTour) July 3, 2024

Cavendish's Astana-Qazaqstan bossed the front of the peloton for much of the final 30km of the 177km stage from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne but in the finale the Manxman used his years of experience to surf the wheels before powering clear of his rivals.

He left behind his lead-out man Michael Morkov and moved behind Philipsen and then Jakobsen, before spying space on the left-hand side of the road and bursting clear.

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"I'm in a little bit of disbelief," Cavendish said. "I put a big gamble on this year to make sure we were here, at the Tour de France. It's a big gamble for my boss [Astana Qazaqstan team manager Alexander Vinokourov] and the team to do. You have to go all-in. And we've done it.

"How we built the team, what we've done with equipment, every little detail has been put towards specifically today. We didn't nail it as a team as we wanted to do. But the boys improvised and got me in the best position and I was able to win."

Tour de France 2024: Stage reports

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The sprint finish meant no change to the overall standings, in which Tadej Pogacar leads Remco Evenepoel by 45 seconds, with defending champion Jonas Vingegaard in third, a further five seconds back.

How Cavendish bounced back to make history

Cavendish postponed his planned retirement after crashing out of last year's Tour, with his Astana-Qazaqstan team going all-in on 'Project 35' ahead of this year's race.

His victory comes just four days after Cavendish struggled mightily in the heat of a punishing opening stage out of Florence, vomiting on the bike in concerning scenes, and two days after he missed the opportunity to contest stage three after being caught behind a late crash in Turin.

Absolute scenes at #TDF2024 🤩 Our riders get home safely on a memorable stage five. @GeraintThomas86 paid tribute to a record-breaking achievement from Mark Cavendish 🫶 pic.twitter.com/O6v5qoRleo — INEOS Grenadiers (@INEOSGrenadiers) July 3, 2024

Cavendish's four stage wins in 2021 counted as one of sport's great comeback stories, his first victories at the Tour in five years after a period of time marked by illness and injury which contributed to a diagnosis of depression.

Even since those wins three years ago, Cavendish has endured more difficulty, only signing a last-minute deal with Astana-Qazaqstan ahead of the 2023 season after the collapse of another move, then seeing last year's Tour end abruptly on stage eight.

Cavendish's wife Peta and their children were waiting at the team bus and joined in exuberant celebrations.

His first Tour stage win came in 2008 on stage five, Cholet to Chateauroux and was quickly followed by three more wins in that year's edition. Since then, Cavendish has continued to rack up wins over a total of 10 Tour de Frances.

Cavendish 'one of our greatest sportsmen'

Great Britain Cycling Team Performance Director Stephen Park CBE said: "On behalf of British Cycling I would like to congratulate Sir Mark on a truly outstanding achievement.

"It goes without saying that Mark is one of the greatest British riders of all time, and to cap off his final season of racing with another victory at the sport's biggest race is a fitting final chapter in a glittering career.

THIRTY FIVE! 🚀 Sir Mark Cavendish. Cycling's greatest ever sprinter. #TDF2024 pic.twitter.com/vqzOF2nIsP — British Cycling (@BritishCycling) July 3, 2024

"We have been proud to support Mark from his early days on the Great Britain Cycling Team academy to his final Tour de France, and this is an incredibly special day for the coaches, support staff, fellow riders and fans who have all played a role in his journey.

"Mark's long and storied career, his passion for the sport and his tenacious pursuit for excellence make him a real inspiration for the next generation of bike riders looking to follow in his footsteps.

"He is one of our country's truly great sportsmen and sporting personalities, and it has been a privilege to have watched him reign supreme for all these years."

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Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift

Tour de pologne, tour of denmark, la vuelta a espana, tour de l'avenir, uci mtb eliminator world cup - sao paulo, deutschland tour, gp de plouay-lorient-agglomeration, bretagne classic - ouest-france, benelux tour (renewi tour), uci mountain bike world championships, tour of britain (men), tour de romandie women, gp de fourmies (coupe de france), gp industria & artigianato, every tour de france green jersey sprint classification winner, year-by-year breakdown of every rider to win the tour de france green jersey points classification since 1953..

Year-by-year breakdown of every rider to win the Tour de France green jersey points classification since its addition to the race in 1953. Peter Sagan holds the record with seven victories in the green jersey competition while Belgium (19) and France (9) lead the way for countries with the most wins.

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HISTORY OF THE TOUR DE FRANCE HOMEPAGE

• Mark Cavendish
• Peter Sagan
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Tour de France Stage 5 results, standings: Mark Cavendish makes history

British sprinter Mark Cavendish broke the record for the most Tour de France stage wins in history with his sprint finish victory during Stage 5 of what is set to be his last ride in the prestigious race. 

Cavendish, 39, has now won a record-setting 35 Tour de France stages, cementing his status as the best sprinter in the history of the competition's 111 editions. He previously jointly held the record of 34 stage victories with Belgian cycling legend Eddy Merckx. 

After his record-breaking triumph in Saint Vulbas on Wednesday, Cavendish said his and his team’s goal for the 2024 Tour de France was to win at least one stage, even though doing so would be “a big gamble.”

“You have to go all in and we’ve done it,” Cavendish said . “We worked exactly what we wanted to do.” 

Cavendish won the first of his Tour stages in 2008 but has struggled since 2021 to add to his impressive tally — until today. 

This victory served as the ultimate last-chance comeback for Cavendish following a slew of disappointing circumstances surrounding the Tour. The Brit was set to retire at the end of last season but returned for a final Tour de France after he crashed out of last year’s race during its eighth stage. This year, Cavendish got off to a rocky start as he appeared to struggle with heat-related issues in the early stages of the race. 

The top 10 contenders for the yellow jersey remain unchanged after Stage 5 with Slovenian Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates still occupying the top spot after his dominant Stage 4 win on Tuesday.  

Biniam Girmay, who made history as the first Eritrean and Black rider to win a Tour de France stage on Monday, has moved up to the top spot in the contest for the green jersey (points classification) as he successfully rocked up sprinting points along today's flat 110-mile route.

Here's a full look at the 2024 Tour de France standings after five days of riding.

Tour de France Stage 5 results

TOUR DE FRANCE: Recap, results and standings after Stage 4

Tour de France general classification standings after Stage 5

Tour de france jersey standings after stage 5.

• Yellow ( general classification ) : Tadej Pogacar
• Green ( points classification ):  Biniam Girmay
• Polka dot ( mountains classification ):  Jonas Abrahamsen
• White (young rider classification ):  Remco Evenepoel
• Yellow numbers ( teams classification) :  UAE Team Emirates
• Golden numbers ( combativity award ):  Clément Russo

Tour de France Stage 6: How to watch, schedule, distance

Date : Thursday, July 4, 2024

Location : Mâcon to Dijon (France)

Distance : 101.6 miles (163.5 kilometers)

Type : Flat stage

Streaming: Peacock, FuboTV

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Mark Cavendish claims record-breaking 35th career Tour de France stage win

SAINT-VULBAS, France — Mark Cavendish wrote a new chapter of Tour de France history in what is expected to be his last appearance at cycling’s biggest race.

The veteran Isle of Man sprinter broke Eddy Merckx’s long-standing record for most career  Tour de France  stage wins with his 35th victory on Wednesday.

The 39-year-old Cavendish sprinted for the win in the fifth stage of the Tour, pulling away some 100 meters from the line despite being bunched in. He crossed the line ahead of Jasper Philipsen and then celebrated with teammates.

Norwegian rider Alexander Kristoff, who had crashed earlier, finished third. They were given the same time of 4 hours, 8 minutes, 46 seconds.

Sixteen years after his first Tour stage win, Cavendish spoke of his constant hunger for victory.

“I always needed to win one more,” said Cavendish, who was joined by his children on the podium. “It takes a lot to get there every year. I’ve got incredible people around me.”

Two-time champion  Tadej Pogacar  narrowly avoided a crash and finished nestled in the main pack in 35th place. While Pogacar retained the race leader’s yellow jersey, the day belonged to Cavendish.

He  equaled Merckx’s mark  of 34 wins during the 2021 Tour and went close to No. 35 in the seventh stage last year when he was narrowly beaten by Philipsen. He crashed a day later and broke his right collarbone.

Merckx, the Belgian considered the most dominant rider in cycling history, won his 34 individual stages at the Tour from 1969-75.

Cavendish’s decision to give it one more shot paid off.

“I just wanted to get the run-in to do it. I’m a little bit in disbelief. Astana put a big gamble on this year to make sure we’re good at the Tour de France,” Cavendish said. “We’ve done it.”

With his 2023 race ending early, Cavendish decided to put off retirement by a year and came back to try again.

Finally, Cavendish made cycling history, after winning his first Tour stage back in 2008.

Other riders were happy for Cavendish, with several stopping to speak with or hug him after the 177.4-kilometer (110-mile) leg from Saint-Jean-De-Maurienne to Saint-Vulbas

Merckx amassed his wins in an era during which his domination was such that he earned the nickname “The Cannibal.” Unlike Merckx, one of four riders to win the Tour five times, Cavendish has never won the overall title, or come close.

But Cavendish’s longevity among his fellow Tour sprinters has no equal.

He won the Tour de France best sprinter’s green jersey twice. He also won stages at all three Grand Tours — the others are the Giro d’Italia and Spanish Vuelta — and became a world champion in 2011.

Cavendish joined Astana after his contract with Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl expired and he was overlooked for the 2022 Tour.

Cavendish had faced a difficult start to this Tour. During the first stage, he appeared to struggle with stomach and heat issues.

“I know how it works, my trainer and everyone around me knows how it is,” Cavendish said. “I’ve done 15 Tours de France. I don’t like to have bad days, I don’t like to suffer but I know it’s just in the head and to push through it.”

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Meanwhile, Pogacar has another flat stage to get through safely Thursday, having  reclaimed the leader’s jersey  Tuesday with a brilliant attack near the top of the race’s first big mountain pass.

On Wednesday, he was simply relieved to avoid crashing.

“We were in the bunch and then suddenly something came up in the middle from nowhere. The guys in front of me braked and we touched wheels a little bit, but luckily I escaped,” he said. “I reacted on instinct and was very lucky.”

The 25-year-old Slovenian  leads overall by 45 seconds  from Tour debutant Remco Evenepoel, the Vuelta and world champion in 2022. Pogacar is 50 seconds ahead of two-time defending champion  Jonas Vingegaard  — the Danish rider who was badly injured in  a high-speed crash  at the Tour of Basque Country in early April.

Pogacar is aiming for the rare Giro-Tour double, and for his third Tour title after wins in 2020 and 2021. The last rider to win the Giro and the Tour the same year was the late Marco Pantani in 1998.

Wednesday’s stage saw Clement Russo and Matteo Vercher forming a breakaway after 35 kilometers (22 miles).

Given that French riders won the first two stages through  Romain Bardet  and  Kevin Vauquelin , this may have motivated them. With rain falling, Russo and Vercher were caught with 36 kilometers (22 miles) left.

Stage 6 on Thursday is again suited for sprinters, going through vineyards to Dijon on a mainly flat trek of around 100 miles. The first individual time trial is on Friday.

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Mark Cavendish makes history with record-breaking stage win at Tour de France

Cavendish surpassed eddy merckx by sprinting to victory on stage 5 in saint-vulbas, article bookmarked.

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Mark Cavendish made history with a record-breaking 35th stage win at the Tour de France , sprinting to victory in Saint-Vulbas.

Having missed out on the chance to contest the sprint finish on Stage 3 after being caught up in a crash , Cavendish surged to victory on Stage 5, surviving a chaotic dash to the line by showing all of his veteran nous.

Cavendish surpassed the great Eddy Merckx as the outright record-holder at the French Grand Tour having drawn alongside the Belgian in 2021.

The 39-year-old narrowly missed out on a historic victory in the colours of Astana Qazaqstan last year before crashing out of the race.

But having reversed a planned retirement at the end of 2023, Cavendish delivered to seize number victory number 35 at the race.

The Manx man, knighted earlier this year, won his first Tour stage in 2008 and produced a masterclass in sprinting 16 years on.

“I’m in a bit of disbelief,” a beaming Cavendish said after making history. “Astana took a big gamble on me this year to come here to try and win at least one stage. You know you have to go all in, and we’ve done it.

“We knew what we wanted to do, how we’ve built the team, the equipment. Every little detail we put towards specifically today.

“The Tour de France is bigger than cycling. It normally takes me days to get into it. I’ve done 15 Tours de France now, and I don’t like to have bad days, but I know that if you can get through it you are going to have an opportunity.

“We didn’t nail it as a team like we wanted to do, but the boys improvised and got me there in the best position. It’s definitely beneficial to be able to use your head a bit more.”

After his Astana colleagues had controlled the run-in on a relatively sedate stage, a messy sprint saw the veteran abandon his leadout train and instead weave between the wheels of his rivals, picking his moment to put the power down on his pedals.

Cavendish hit the front with line in sight and held off Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen, with the Belgian unable to close the gap.

Out Cavendish’s arms spread in familiar fashion, with long-time foe Alexander Kristoff seen celebrating behind and young gun Arnaud De Lie also providing a congratulatory slap of the back.

Slovenian Tadej Pogacar retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey after stage five, avoiding crashing into a central reservation 57km from the finish with several riders just behind him hitting the deck.

Embracing long-time leadout man Mark Renshaw, who guided him to so many stage wins early in his career and is now a directeur sportif at Astana, Cavendish soaked up the emotion of the day before being mobbed by his family.

“It’s unbelievable,” former colleague and close friend Geraint Thomas told ITV. “I’m super happy for him. To continue to do what he does at his age — everyone says you get slower as you get older but he has proved that wrong.

“I thought he could. I called it on my podcast! He always has a bad day in the mountains but I knew he could get through it. He just has to be there and when he sees the finish line, he’s got a shout. Chapeau!”

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Results and Highlights From the 2023 Tour de France

Stage-by-stage updates, results, and highlights from this year’s race.

Read below for stage-by-stage updates, results, and highlights from each stage of the 2023 Tour de France

Stage Winner : Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe)

Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe) was a surprise winner of Stage 21 of the 2023 Tour de France. Meeus won a sprint finish on the Champs-Élysées over the Tour’s top sprinters, Jasper Philipsen, Dylan Groenewegen, and Mads Pedersen.

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) enjoyed some champagne on the ride in and was officially crowned winner of the Tour de France for a second year, winning by 7 minutes, 29 seconds over second place Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)—by the largest margin of victory since 2014.

Final General Classification Standings

• Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma): 82:05:42
• Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates): -7:29
• Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates): -10:56
• Simon Yates (Jayco–AlUla): -12:23
• Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers): -13:17

Stage Winner : Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) won Stage 20 of the 2023 Tour de France. Pogačar was able to outsprint Jonas Vingegaard and a few other strong riders at the on the flat drag at the top of the Col du Platzerwasel. The win was Pogačar’s second stage win of the this Tour and his 11th career Tour stage win. Vingegaard was third to Pogačar (Stage 17 winner Felix Gall was second), losing just a few bonus seconds, and maintaining his lead in the yellow jersey competition heading into the mostly ceremonial final Stage 21.

The Winner of the Day

He won’t win the yellow jersey in this year’s Tour de France, but Tadej Pogačar was able to go out with a bang on Saturday. Pogačar won a sprint to the finish on a mountain stage—something he’s done many times in the Tour de France. But this win comes only a few days after Pogačar cracked on Stage 17 and effectively lost the GC to Vingegaard. Pogačar never lost faith, securing his 11th TdF stage win and his fourth white jersey of his still very young career.

The Other Winner of the Day

Of course, we be remiss not to mention Jonas Vingegaard, who did exactly what he needed to do on the penultimate stage to win the 2023 Tour de France—barring a Sunday disaster. Stage 20, in fact, mirrored a lot of what Vingegaard was able to do during the middle portion of the Tour, prior to his big gains on the Stage 16 TT and the Stage 17 mountain stage. He hung right with Pogačar and never let his top rival’s advantage on a given stage swell too much. Vingegaard, of course, is a worthy champion that will enjoy some champagne on the Champs-Élysées.

And One More Winner of the Day

Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Lidl) earned maximum points on the first four categorized climbs of the stage, and with it, claimed the King of the Mountains classification at the 2023 Tour de France (as long as he crosses the finish on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday). Ciccone seized the polka dot jersey on Stage 15 and rode brilliantly to pick up points where he could throughout the Tour’s final week. Ciccone becomes the first rider to win the KOM and not win the GC in the same Tour since Romain Bardet in 2019. Sometimes it’s more fun when we spread the wealth.

Best Moment of the Day

It wasn’t a big surprise to see Thibaut Pinot get in the breakaway on the last mountain stage of his storied Tour de France career. And I guess it’s not much of a big surprise that Pinot launched a solo attack with over 30K to go in the stage. The three-time TdF stage winner put on a show for the home fans in France on Stage 20, and what a sight it was to see his supporters on his solo ride up the Petit Ballon. The dream wasn’t to be though, as the yellow jersey group caught Pinot up the Col du Platzerwasel. Merci, Thibaut. Merci.

Stage Winner : Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious)

It doesn’t get any closer than that! Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) took a sprint finish to win Stage 19 of the 2023 Tour de France. Mohorič got in a breakaway that included many of the top sprinters and classics riders. That breakaway included the likes of Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen, so Mohorič knew he had to make a move early and that’s exactly what he did, breaking free, along with Stage 18 winner Kasper Asgreen and Ben O’Connor, of that breakaway with 30K to go in the stage.

Despite a good effort by the chasers—including Philpsen, his Alpecin teammate Mathieu van der Poel, and Pederson—to try and bring back the three attackers, they ultimately couldn’t gain ground and seemed to lack full cooperation. But the pure strength of Mohorič, Asgreen, and O’Connor showed through. Down the final stretch, O’Connor, knowing his speed couldn’t match that of Mohorič or Asgreen, made his move, but that was quickly answered by the pair and it was a drag race between Mohorič and Asgreen, who gapped O’Connor and made their dash for the line. It was a photo finish, but Mohorič narrowly edged out Asgreen for the stage win.

Stage Winner : Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step)

Kasper Asgreen won Stage 18 of the Tour de France in dramatic fashion. Asgreen got in the original breakaway of the day at kilometer zero. On a stage that seemed destined for a sprint finish out of the peloton, Asgreen and the others in the break managed to fend off the hungry peloton. Asgreen outsprinted Pascal Eenkhoorn (Lotto-Dstny) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team) for the win at line.

The Biggest Winner of the Day

It’s no secret that it’s been a rough Tour de France for the Soudal Quick-Step team. The team’s top sprinter, Fabio Jakobsen, withdrew from the race after Stage 12. The squad’s top stage hunting threat, Julian Alaphilippe, has struggled to be a factor in any stage. But Asgreen got Soudal Quick-Step off the schneid Thursday, winning in the most unlikely of ways. Asgreen got himself in the early break and held out just long enough to claim the Stage 18 victory—the first grand tour stage win of his career.

The Biggest Loss of the Day

This goes to anyone from the peloton that was hoping to get the stage win today. The flat stage was tailor-made for the pure sprinters, but the peloton struggled to pull back the four-man breakaway. It seemed in the last 10K that a catch was inevitable, but the break stayed strong and held out just long enough. Alpecin-Deceuninck, which has already racked up four stage wins this Tour, is the team that loses the most on the day. Their top sprinter Jasper Philipsen—responsible for those four wins—was fourth on the stage and the top finisher from the peloton. It would have been his stage to win—if the peloton caught the break, that is.

Stage Winner: Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën)

Felix Gall won Stage 17 of the Tour de France, a stage that ended up being the craziest of the 2023 Tour so far. Gall made his move from the breakaway and rode away from a talented group of riders to claim the first grand tour stage win of his career.

Meanwhile, there were plenty of fireworks behind Gall. Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) cracked on the stage losing well over five minutes to Jonas Vingegaard in the yellow jersey. Vingeagaard placed fourth on the stage and gained a significant amount of time that will likely carry him to Paris in the maillot jaune.

We’ll get to the stage winner shortly, but first we must acknowledge that Vingegaard won the 2023 Tour de France on Wednesday. First, Pogačar massively cracked on the Col de la Loze, then Vingagaard went on the offensive to deliver the dagger. Vingegaard finished fourth on the stage, 1:52 back of the stage winner Gall, but more importantly, he gained 5:45 on the man that was by his side for the first 15 stages of the Tour, Pogačar. With just four stages remaining, Vingegaard now leads by a whopping 7:35 over Pogačar. Assuming he stays upright, Vingegaard will win his second straight Tour de France on Sunday.

The Other Biggest Winner of the Day

Felix Gall has been one of the Tour’s revelations, and on Wednesday he confirmed that he’ll be a force to be reckoned with for the future in the WorldTour. The 25-year-old, who entered the day in 10th place in the GC, conquered the Col de la Loze and rode to the win on the stage that many have called “the hardest of the Tour.” Gall emerged on the radar after he took the polka dot jersey after Stage 5 of this year’s Tour. But now he earned his signature moment, winning on an absolutely brutal day in France. Gall moves up the eighth in the GC, but more importantly, he’s etched his name into TdF history forever.

After losing over a minute and a half to the yellow jersey on Tuesday, Pogačar effectively lost the 2023 Tour de France on Wednesday. Pogačar didn’t ride a bad individual time trial on Tuesday’s Stage 16, despite losing 1:38 to Vingegaard. But on Wednesday’s Stage 17, Pogačar had the worst day we’ve ever seen the 24-year-old have at the Tour de France. “I’m gone. I’m dead,” Pogačar said to his team over the radio during the stage after he cracked and lost over five minutes to Vingegaard ending what was a terrific GC battle through the first 16 stages of the Tour.

Other Notable Gains from a Wild Stage

Simon Yates (Jayco–AlUla) made the day’s biggest jump within the top 10 of the GC. While he was second on the stage for the second time this Tour (though this time it was to someone other than his twin brother), Yates moved from eighth to fifth. He’s 12:19 behind the yellow jersey, but just 18 seconds behind Carlos Rodriguez for fourth place in the GC. Simon’s twin brother Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates), meanwhile, was able to further solidify his spot on the podium. Adam Yates is in third place with a 1:16 advantage on Rodriguez, who lost time today.

Stage Winner : Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma)

Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) roared to the Stage 16 win in the 2023 Tour de France’s lone individual time trial. Vingegaard put down an incredible TT over 22.4km and he won the stage by 1:38 over second place Tadej Pogačar, who also happens to be his biggest rival in the GC battle. Vingegaard earned his Jumbo-Visma team its first stage win of the Tour, and more importantly, he made the most significant time gains of the Tour so far.

Jonas Vingegaard is the clear winner of the stage and quite likely the entire 2023 Tour de France after Tuesday. Vingegaard, the defending Tour champion, put down the individual time trial of his life on Tuesday—a day after the rest day—providing further evidence of the Magic of the Yellow Jersey. Vingegaard’s hold on the yellow jersey was just 10 seconds entering Stage 16, but it ballooned all the way to 1:48 after the time trial—a margin that will most likely prove decisive in the battle for the maillot jaune. After a lot of back and forth between Vingegaard and Pogačar in the mountains during the first 15 stages, Vingegaard dealt Pogačar the first major blow of this Tour.

Tadej Pogačar had the second best time of the day on Stage 16—a minute and 13 seconds ahead of Wout Van Aert!—but he may have lost the 2023 Tour de France Tuesday. Very little has separated Vingegaard and Pogačar during the first two weeks of the Tour, but Vingegaard tacking 1:38 in addition to his 10-second advantage on the individual time trial may prove to be decisive in the GC battle. It’s, of course, never over until it’s over. Pogačar will have two significant mountain stages before the Tour reaches Paris on Sunday, so the chances are there. But psychologically, it will be tough for Pogačar to regroup after Tuesday’s time trial.

While it’s clear that Jumbo-Visma’s energy at the 2023 Tour de France has been focused on helping Vingegaard win the yellow jersey—something they’ve been very successful at!—it was still surprising to see the Dutch superteam without a stage win through the first two weeks of the Tour. That changed on Tuesday, thanks to the maillot jaune himself. Vingegaard rode an unbelievable TT to Stage 16 to claim the stage win by 1:38. Surely, the GC gains are the most important, but Jumbo-Visma won’t be too upset to finally snag a TdF stage win in 2023.

Stage Winner : Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious)

Wout Poels (Bahrain Victorious) won Stage 15 of the 2023 Tour de France, capturing the win from the breakaway and beating a talented group to claim the first TdF stage victory of his career.

Poels spent a lot of time in the breakaway on Sunday, but his strength showed throughout the entire day. He stayed patient in the break and joined an attacking group with around 35K to go in the stage. That quartet included Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), Krists Neilands (Israel-PremierTech), and Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates). In the early parts of the final climb of the day—Mont Blanc—Poels made his move on Van Aert and extended his lead from there.

The Biggest Loser of the Day

Normally we call this section”The Biggest Loss of the Day” because it sounds nicer. But we’ll throw that out of the window for this one. The biggest loser of the day on Sunday was the fan that interfered with the peloton early in Stage 15, causing a massive crash.

It’s got to be the fans! Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) battled up the Mont Blanc and finished together at the finish of Stage 15. Vingegaard’s yellow jersey advantage remains at 10 seconds as we enter the rest day on Monday before the final week of the Tour de France. The margins couldn’t be closer, and who doesn’t love a tremendously close GC battle in the Tour de France? Fans will enjoy an action-packed—and surely attack-filled—final week of this Tour.

Stage Winner : Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers)

Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers) won Stage 14 of the 2023 Tour de France during a wild day in the GC. Rodriguez was dropped on the final climb up the Joux Plane, but he was able to return on the ensuing descent, and gap the two GC leaders and ride to the stage win—the second in as many days for INEOS—and improve his own GC positioning.

We expected to see GC fireworks on Stage 14 and we got exactly that. But at the end of the stage, there ultimately wasn’t a ton of change at least as far as the top two in the Tour were concerned. So therefore, the biggest winner of the day is Carlos Rodriguez and his INEOS Grenadiers team. Rodriguez capitalized on Pogačar and Vingegaard focusing on the overall GC situation. He seized his opportunity on the descent in the run-in to the finish and claimed victory on the day and moved into the podium, now sitting in third place overall in the GC, 4:43 back of the yellow jersey.

As we watched the absolute most thrilling stage of the 2023 Tour de France, Tadej Pogačar had Jonas Vingegaard on the ropes and was ready to launch an attack as they approached the top of the Col de Joux Plane. But that plan was foiled. Pogačar attacked, but was forced to stop his acceleration when the motorbikes got in the way. Eventually, Vingegaard was the one to attack and gain the time bonuses on offer at the top of the climb. You can blame the fans. You can blame the motorbikes. But maybe your blame should go to the race organizers, who should have had barrier set up to remove the chance of any interference with the battling riders.

The Other Biggest Loss of the Day

With 146K to go in Stage 14, a massive crash involved a majority of the peloton, leading to the abandonment of five riders. The race was also neutralized—a good decision by the race officials given that there wasn’t even a breakaway formed at the time of the crash. After losing GC hope Richard Carapaz, EF Education EasyPost’s Esteban Chaves and James Shaw were caught up in the crash and forced to abandon the Tour. Louis Meintjes (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Antonio Pedrero (Movistar) and Romain Bardet (Team dsm-firmenich) also abandoned.

And How About One More Winner of the Day

Despite the motorbikes/fans/race organizers spoiling what could have been a perfect day for Pogačar, the Solvenian’s ability to withstand the torrid pace set all day long by the Jumbo-Visma squad is a big win. Ultimately, Pogačar lost one second to Vingegaard and now trails by 10 seconds in the GC standings, but he’s shown that he may hold a slight advantage in form over Vingegaard. It’s going to be a wild last week of racing.

Stage Winner

Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski (INEOS Grenadiers) won Stage 13 of the 2023 Tour de France, The 33-year-old won the stage atop the “Beyond Category” Grand Colombier after spending all day in the breakaway and then attacking what was left of it on the lower slopes of the final climb. It was clear throughout most of the 137.8km ride from Châtillon-Sur-Chalaronne to the summit of the Grand Colombier that UAE Team Emirates wanted to set-up Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar for the win. But Kwiatokoski, a super-domestique with an impressive resume of his own, proved too strong to catch, holding-off Belgium’s Maxim Van Gils (Lotto-Soudal) and then Pogačar to take the second Tour de France stage victory of his career.

Biggest Winner of the Day

While they didn’t win the stage, UAE Team Emirates has to be feeling good about its chances of winning its third Tour de France in four years. The team rode an impressive race from start to finish, lined-up at the front of the peloton throughout much of the day and setting a ferocious pace on the final climb to whittle down the yellow jersey group. But that was just an amuse bouche, as Great Britain’s Adam Yates attacked the group about 2 kilometers from the summit, drawing out Vingegaard’s teammate Sepp Kuss, and then Vingegaard and Pogačar themselves. Pogačar saved his own attack for the final ramp to the finish line, and while Vingegaard was able to follow at first he soon succumbed to the Slovenian’s acceleration. Jumbo-Visma clearly thinks the Alps will prove to be the Tour’s most important battlegrounds, but UAE is confident, strong, and looks to have all the firepower they need to win the Tour.

Gutsiest Ride of the Day

Kwiatkowski seems to have been given a free role at INEOS, chasing breakaways despite the fact that the team has two riders, Spain’s Carlos Rodríguez and Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock, in the top-10 overall. The 33-year-old rewarded the team’s faith today, ensuring that no matter what happens with its young GC riders, the team won’t go home from the Tour empty-handed.

Unsung Hero/Head-Scratcher

If you watched earlier seasons of the Movistar documentary “The Least Expected Day” on Netflix, then Spain’s Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) should be a familiar name to you. (And if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?) The mercurial rider is immensely talented, but he often gave his directors and teammates headaches by making some bone-headed decisions from time to time. After transferring to UAE Team Emirates after the 2021 season, the 29-year-old is now one of Pogačar’s most important domestiques, which he showed with his pace-setting midway up the Grand Colombier. But just for good measure, he also showed why Movistar found him so frustrating: once he pulled off from the yellow jersey group, he caught back on to the back of it, which meant he must have had a little left in the tank that he could have given while he was on the front. His directors will certainly discuss this with him before tomorrow’s stage.

What Were They Thinking?

Intermediate sprints are usually designed for, um, sprinters. But today’s came in the town of Hauteville-Lompnes, midway up a long, gradual climb. We get that these are business decisions (towns pay lots of money to host the Tour’s intermediate sprints), but we can’t help but wonder what the Tour organizers were thinking today. Our best guess is that there were few bidders to host the sprint, leaving ASO with no other choice but to put it on a plateau.

Biggest Loser of the Day

Today was Bastille Day and the French were out in force on the Grand Colombier–so much so that the ascent was closed to anyone hoping to climb it early in the morning. But they had little to cheer for thanks to a lackluster showing from the Tour’s French riders. Quentin Pacher (Groupama-FDJ) did his best, attacking on the lower slopes of the Grand Colombier only to be caught by Kwiatkoski and others a little while later.To make matters worse, Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ) and Romain Bardet (DSM-firmenich) were both dropped from the yellow jersey group thanks to the pace set by UAE Team Emirates, leaving David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) as the home nation’s best chance for a high finish in Paris (although that’s a bit of stretch given the fact that he’s ninth overall and almost 7 minutes beyond Vingegaard).

Best North American

Sepp Kuss rode valiantly on behalf of Vingegaard, covering Yates’ attack near the top of the Colombier and then hanging on to finish twelfth on the stage. He’s now back into the Tour’s top-10 overall, but will likely sacrifice himself for the sake of Vingegaard in the Alps, where his team thinks the race will be decided.

Rookie of the Day

Riding his first Tour de France and only his second grand tour, Rodríguez maintained his position on the Tour’s General Classification, ending the day fourth overall, 4:48 behind Vingegaard. INEOS is happy to let the 22-year-old (and Pidcock) follow wheels in the yellow jersey group, giving them the space and the freedom to ride their best Tours possible without any pressure from the team.

There’s still a lot of race left, but Rodríguez looks to be a true podium contender–if he can somehow overcome the nearly two minutes that separate him from Australia’s Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe), who currently sits third overall.

Another Two Bite the Dust

Australian sprinter Caleb Ewan (Lotto Destny) was dropped about 55km from the end of the stage and abandoned the Tour soon after. Ewan barely survived the time cut on Stage 13 and was seen clutching his abdomen after getting dropped. Once thought to be a rider who would dominate Tour field sprints for years, Ewan now hasn’t won a stage at the Tour since 2020. INEOS also lost one its domestiques: Great Britain’s Ben Turner. It’s a good thing Kwiatkowski won a stage today, because without Turner, the team will need him to stay back and support Rodríguez and Pidcock in the Alps.

Stage Winner : Ion Izagirre (Cofidis)

Make it two stage wins for the Cofidis team in the 2023 Tour de France. That’s thanks to a brilliant Stage 12 ride by Ion Izagirre. With 30K to go on the final climb of the day, Izagirre broke free of the breakaway that included the likes of Mathieu van der Poel, riding to the day’s stage win. For Izagirre, it’s his second career stage win—he won

Let’s hear it again for Cofidis! The French team ended a 15-year Tour de France stage win drought on Stage 2 when Victor Lafay rode to the victory. But they weren’t finished there. Izagirre made his move on the Mathieu van der Poel and the rest of the breakaway at the perfect time and rode clear to the win. Cofidis also had Gui Martin positioned nicely in that select breakaway as a backup plan. It was terrific execution on the day during what has been a dream Tour for Cofidis.

Thibaut Pinot was surely going for a stage win on Thursday; it was not to be. But the 33-year-old from Groupama-FDJ, riding in his final Tour de France, made the move into the top ten of GC. He shot up from 15th overall, 9:36 behind the yellow jersey to tenth overall, 6:30 down. It’s likely not the last we’ve seen of Pinot’s stage win attempts in this year’s Tour, but regardless, it’s cool to see the veteran in the top ten overall.

The Heartbreak of the Day—and the Whole Tour (So Far)

It’s been a strong couple weeks for American Matteo Jorgensen. But unfortunately for the Movistar rider, he doesn’t have a stage win to show for it. Few riders—if any—have spent more time in the breakaway during the first 12 stages of the Tour, but the big win has been just out of his grasp. No defeat was more heartbreaking than Sunday’s Stage 9 on the Puy de Dôme. On Stage 12, Jorgensen appeared to be the strongest rider in the group chasing Izagirre, but he left it too late. He launched a number of (ultimately futile) attempts to try and bridge the gap, but it wasn’t to be. The good news for the American is that there are plenty of pro-breakaway stages remaining for him to try and claim his well-deserved glory.

Stage Winner : Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck)

Jasper Philipsen won Stage 11 of the 2023 Tour de France, picking up his fourth stage win so far and continuing to assert his dominance in the sprints. It was a wet and technical finish in Moulins on Tuesday, but that didn’t stop Philipsen, who sprinted past Dylan Groenewegen in the closing meters to claim win No. 4 of the Tour.

Philipsen has proven himself to be the king of the sprints in this year’s Tour de France, capturing his fourth stage victory in the first 11 stages. Additionally, he improved upon his lead in the green jersey points competition. He now leads that by a staggering 145 points. What’s perhaps most impressive about his Stage 11 victory was that he did it without the aid of his top Alpecin-Deceuninck comrade Mathieu van der Poel, who was not spotted up front in the run in to the finish. Philipsen has proven that he can win in multiple different ways and he could be well on his way to a second straight Stage 21 victory in Paris.

Another day, another goose egg in the stage win column for Soudal-QuickStep. The QuickStep team was right at the head of the peloton for much of the ride into the finish in Moulins, working for Fabio Jakobsen, but in the final sprint, Jakobsen was a non-factor sitting on the back of the bunch and ultimately finishing 16th on the day. Jakobsen crashed during the tricky Stage 4 finish, and it appears the sprinter hasn’t fully recovered from those injuries.

The Close Call of the Day

Well, that could have been bad. As the pace ramped up with just over 5K to go in the stage, the Jumbo-Visma train was at the front with Soudal Quick-Step’s Julian Alaphilippe sandwiched in between then. The yellow jersey of Jonas Vingegaard made his way along the edge of the road next to Alaphilippe and—perhaps not noticing him—Alaphilippe drifted towards Vingegaard and the pair nearly collided. Thankfully, nothing happened and Alaphilippe gave the maillot jaune an apologetic tap of the back and the run into the finish continued.

Stage Winner : Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious)

Pello Bilbao won a sprint out of the breakaway to claim the Stage 10 victory after a thrilling of racing.

Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) takes his first Tour de France stage win at 33-years-old. This is the first win by a Spanish rider in 100 stages. He also slides into the top 5 for the overall standings. Bilbao rode an incredibly smart sprint, shielding himself with Zimmermann and O’Connor as long as possible before throwing the hammer down. Bilbao becomes the 5th first-time stage winner of the tour. In his post-ride interview he dedicated his ride to Gino Mäder, who died recently after suffering a terrible crash in the Tour de Suisse.

Krists Neilands (Israel–Premier Tech) rode a perfectly aggressive race, earned the KOM points on Côte de la Chapelle-Marcousse (Cat 3), and just kept building his lead in front of the two chase groups. With 10 km to go, the team radio told him, “It’s the day of your life, the day of your life, let’s go.” But with less than a kilometer to go, he couldn’t hold off the chasers. He put up an incredible battle and came away with 4th place.

Biggest Villain(s) of the Day

The road and the heat. Man-eating speed bumps, loads of gravel, and chipped pavement all made fast descents even more dangerous than usual. And by the end of the race, temperatures soared to 97-degrees and riders had a hard time staying hydrated. Groups of 4-5 stuck together just to survive.

Newest Race Strategy?

Sometimes race leaders wait until the last mile to make their move. And sometimes they do it with 100 miles to go. Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard went on the attack early in the race to split the peloton. That set the pace for an aggressive day. Still with 48 miles to go there was a 14-man breakaway that took off. The pace throughout the stage was bonkers, making it difficult for such riders as Wout van Aert, who always wants to be the one to set an ambitious pace. Riders started dropping like flies with 30 km to go.

The peloton eventually calmed down and came together, led entirely by Jumbo-Visma.

Cutest Couple

Frenemies and cyclocross stars Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert worked together for a bit to attack out of the peloton with 40 km to go. They broke up after 10 km of riding together as Wout dropped Mathieu to ride on. They proved that when conditions are tough, working with anyone is better than no one.

Stage Winner: Mike Woods (Israel-PremierTech)

Canada’s Mike Woods (Israel-PremierTech) won Stage 9 atop the Hors Categorie (“Beyond Category”) Puy de Dôme, one of the most famous climbs in Tour history. The 36-year-old from Toronto paced himself from the base of the climb, catching four riders on his way to his first Tour de France stage victory.

France’s Mathieu Burgaudeau (TotalEnergies) finished second and Slovenia’s Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) finished third. After an aggressive day of racing from the breakaway, American Neilson Powless held on to finish sixth on the Puy de Dôme, extending his lead in the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition. He’ll wear the polka dot jersey into the first rest day and to start the Tour’s second week

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) clawed back 8 more seconds, and now sits just 17 seconds behind Denmarks’ Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) on the Tour’s General Classification. It seems like an eternity since the two-time Tour winner lost over a minute to Vingegaard at the end of Stage 5, and he’s now regained almost all the time he conceded. More importantly, after gapping the Dane on Stage 6 and Stage 9’s summit finishes, he clearly has a mental edge of his biggest rival to win the Tour.

American Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) attacked the 14-rider breakaway with about 40km to go, heading up the road on his own and slowly extending his lead. Helped by the fact that the four riders chasing him weren’t working well together, it looked for a while as if the 24-year-old from Boise, Idaho was about to take his first Tour de France stage win.

But as the climb steepened, word came that Woods was steadily closing the gap from further down the mountain, and before we knew it, there he was. Jorgenson was clearly running on fumes as first Woods and then France’s Pierre Latour (TotalEnergies) and Slovenia’s Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious) caught the American. He ended the day one spot away from the podium, a painful result considering how close he came to winning–and his two fourth-place finishes in last year’s Tour.

Best Mathlete

American Neilson Powless went on the attack again today, joining the breakaway in an attempt to pad his lead in the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition. Well, Powless needs to send a thank you note to his elementary school math teacher (or at least his director sportif): by winning each of categorized climbs in the middle of the stage, Powless ensured that he had enough points to keep the polka dot jersey–no matter what happened on the Puy de Dôme, which awarded 20 points to the rider who was first to the summit. Powless’ sixth-place finish on the stage earned him another six KOM points, extending his lead even more.

Powless now leads Austria’s Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) by 18 points and with only 16 points available between Stages 10 and 11, the American is guaranteed to wear the jersey through Thursday. Look for him to continue his polka dot assault: Gall might be given more freedom to fight for the jersey himself after his captain, Australia’s Ben O’Connor, lost more time at the end of Stage 9, meaning his team might be shifting its goals to fight for stage wins–and the King of Mountains prize.

Unsung Hero

American Sepp Kuss and Belgian Wout van Aert get all the prestige as Vingeggard’s top two domestiques (deservedly so), but let’s take a minute to recognize the pace-setting done by Dutchman Wilco Kelderman (Jumbo-Visma). Today he took over after van Aert pulled off and before Kuss took his turn, shedding more riders from the GC group. It’s too bad that Pogačar seems to be profiting from the hard work being done by Vingegaard’s team. Perhaps we won’t see so much of Kelderman, Kuss, van Aert, and co. at the front during the Tour’s second week.

Eeriest Moment

One of the conditions of the agreement that allowed the Tour to revisit the Puy de Dôme was that fans would not be allowed to line the climb’s upper slopes, which meant an eerie almost awkward silence as the riders tackled the final portion of the ascent. In a Tour that’s already seen overzealous fans cause some mayhem, the silence was likely a welcome treat for riders annoyed by fans getting in their faces during the Tour’s most important–and painful–moments.

Worst Luck?

Jorgenson needed a bottle at about 33km to go, but was unable to get one because the cars and motorbikes had been moved out of the gap as his pursuers dangled close behind. On a sweltering day that asked a lot of the riders in terms of hydrating and fueling, those few minutes without a bottle–and without his team car–might have made the difference between winning and losing the stage.

A day after they won Stage 8, today could have been another chance for Lidl-Trek, with Denmark’s Martin Skjelmose and Italy’s Giulio Ciccone contenders to win on the Puy de Dôme. But the team missed the move, a tactical blunder that cost them a chance to take a historic victory. To his credit, Skjelmose tried to bridge up to the move after it escaped, but he was joined by Italy’s Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost), who already had Powless up the road and was ordered not to work with the Dane.

And to the idiot gentleman who brought a clothesline to the roadside of the Tour de France: Please leave your laundry at home!

Stage Winner : Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)

Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won a Stage 8 sprint, holding off Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) to win his first stage of the 2023 Tour de France. The run-in to the finish saw some punchy climbs, but the top sprinters were all there and Pedersen took the win in the end.

Pedersen claimed his second career Tour de France stage win. It was stage that was designed nicely for his strengths with some climbs near the end and a technical finish. The Lidl-Trek team was perfectly positioned to springboard Pedersen to the finish. Alpecin-Deceuninck had a strong leadout train as well, putting Philipsen in good position to win his fourth stage of the Tour. But Pedersen had the advantage from the start of the sprint and was able to hold off Philipsen in what seemed like an impossibly long final stretch to the line.

Stage 8 saw the withdrawal of Mark Cavendish, one of the all-time great Tour de France riders. Cav suffered a collarbone injury and was forced to abandon , ruining his chance of breaking the all-time TdF stage wins record. It’s an especially hard pill to swallow for Cavendish and cycling fans alike, with the crash coming a day after the Manx Missile nearly captured his record-breaking stage win were it not for a mechanical issue in the closing meters. Although he announced his retirement at the end of the season in May, maybe there’s a chance

Simon Yates (Jayco–AlUla) was the lone GC rider to lose time on Saturday, crashing with about 6K to go in the stage—outside of the 3K safe zone where riders don’t lose any time for crashes.. Simon Yates entered the stage in fourth place in the GC, 3:14 off the yellow jersey and now he sits in sixth place, 4:01 back and now behind Carlos Rodriguez (INEOS Grenadiers) and his twin brother Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates).

The Run-Through-A-Brick-Wall Moment of the Day

How about the reaction from the Lidl-Trek team car after Pedersen’s epic Stage 8 win? Listen for yourself and get pumped up on this Saturday.

This was a stage that had cycling fans screaming at the top of their lungs at the finish. After a long, sleepy, and mostly flat stage, all the action was crammed into the last 3K. Why all the screaming? Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) came this close to winning the stage and breaking the TdF stage wins record, only to be passed by the seemingly unstoppable Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) with 500 meters to go.

Philipsen was once again positioned perfectly for the win by his leadout ace during this year’s Tour, Mathieu van der Poel, in what he referred to as the team’s “dream Tour” during post race interviews. Cavendish, however, made it very clear that he is more than capable of winning a stage this year, with a second place finish being his best one yet. If Cav keeps getting stronger as he seems to be, there will very likely be more screaming fans tomorrow.

Biggest Winners of the Day

The Alpecin lead out train offered another masterclass in how to win stages in this year’s Tour, with Mathieu van der Poel delivering Jasper Philipsen to another stage win. The other big winner for us during this stage was the one and only Mark Cavendish, who almost made it to the line first before Philipsen overtook him at the last moment. The fact that the Manx Missile’s finish position has come closer and closer to number one with every sprint stage, we think he has the power and form necessary to win number 35 this year. For today, Philipsen keeps the green jersey for another day.

Biggest Surprise of the Day

On a stage that often resembled a recovery ride until the last 10km as the riders gave their legs a bit of a break after two stages in the Pyrenees, the commentary surrounding Wout van Aert and whether he’s on the wrong team was loud and impossible to miss. Christian Vande Velde openly questioned on air what Wout would be able to do if he were on a team he could lead during the Tour instead of having to work for Jonas Vingegaard. With persistent media speculations about tension between Van Aert and Vingegaard on the Jumbo-Visma squad, the riders have routinely denied that anything is amiss, but the questions about whether that’s true have never been this blunt.

Gutsiest—Erm, or Maybe Stupidest—Ride of the Day

With approximately 20K to go, French riders Pierre Latour, the white jersey winner of 2018, and Nans Peters, a 2020 Tour stage winner, took off, working together in an attack that it seemed impossible to hold to the line. This didn’t seem to phase these two, as they spiced up an otherwise sleepy stage, putting up to 40 seconds on the peloton. Eventually Latour went solo in an all out effort, putting the sprinters on notice before blowing up with 3.5K to go.

Strongest American Rider of the Day - Nielsen Powless

Polka Dot Powless kept the King of the Mountains jersey for another day after recapturing it yesterday. The California native has become the de facto team leader for EF Education-EasyPost after Richard Carapaz crashed during Stage 1 and was forced by his injuries to leave the race. Powless went after the KOM competition right out of the gate during this year’s Tour, and so far he’s worn polka dots six out of the seven stages.

Tadej Pogačar won Stage 6 of the 2023 Tour de France, and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) took the yellow leader's jersey during an busy day in the Pyranees. While Vingegaard took over the GC lead, Pogačar made the biggest statement of the day, passing and gapping Vingegaard on the final climb of the day. Pogačar won the stage and narrowed the gap to Vingegaard.

Tadej Pogačar, who made us think that maybe he was playing with us all day. He saved it all for the last 2 km. taking even Jonas Vingegaard by surprise. He took back much of his deficit on the yellow jersey today. He put himself back in the race.

With 2.5K to go on the climb to Cauterets up the Plateau du Cambasque, Tadej Pogačar attacked Vingegaard with a huge surge. Today’s final stretch hints that this whole tour might come down to seconds. Pogačar ended up 24 seconds ahead of Vingegaard on the stage.

Wout van Aert can lead a race forever. The super-domestique did so much work to set the pace for this entire stage. The pacemaking was literally perfect, many times looking like the only one working. With 4.4 km. to go he finally pulled over and left it up to Vingegaard looking like he had given it every ounce of his being.

Strongest American Rider(s) of the Day

Neilson Powless (EF Education–EasyPost) had a very strong day earning the overall KOM on the climbs.

And Sepp Kuss has been wildly consistent through the tour so far. Today, as usual, he dropped every one of his competitors to bring Jonas Vingegaard up the climbs. He’s easily one of the most valuable riders for Vingegaard.

Stage Winner : Jai Hindley (Bora–Hansgrohe)

Jai Hindley won Stage 5 of the 2023 Tour de France, claiming the yellow leader’s jersey along with it. It was an eventful first day in the Pyrenees as the top climbers in the world shined and shook up the GC in a big way. Giulio Ciccone (Lidl–Trek) was second in the stage and Felix Gall (AG2R Citroën) came across third on the day. Emanuel Buchmann (Bora–Hansgrohe) was fourth and Jonas Vingegaard was fifth on the stage. Ciccone, Gall, and Buchmann were all 32 seconds behind Hindley and Vingegaard was 34 seconds behind the stage winner.

Jai Hindley put himself in the right breakaway and made all the correct moves on Stage 5 to rocket himself to the stage victory and the yellow jersey. It was an absolutely brilliant day in the saddle for the Australian, who said after the race that he was merely “improvising.” Hindley is no stranger to wearing the leader’s jersey at a Grand Tour; he won the 2022 Giro d’Italia. This may not necessarily be just one quick day in yellow tomorrow for Hindley. More on that in a bit.

When Jonas Vingegaard attacked off the wheels of his teammate Sepp Kuss on the Col de Marie Blanque with 19K to go in the stage, it was our first opportunity of the Tour to see if co-favorite Tadej Pogačar had the legs to match him. He did not. Vingegaard blazed ahead up the climb and maintained that advantage even on the descent of the Col de Marie Blanque. All told, Vingegaard finished 1:04 ahead of Pogačar on the stage, and is 53 seconds up on him in the GC.

Pogačar is in a tough position after Stage 5, now 53 seconds behind the reigning Tour champion Vingegaard. Pogačar, who won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, has a lot of work to do over the next few weeks to attempt a comeback on Vingegaard. Pogačar suffered a fractured wrist in April and lost some time on the bike while he recovered. Is that lost fitness the difference maker here?

Could it be the 47 seconds that Vingegaard surrendered to Hindley? Hindley is, of course, a former Grand Tour winner and not a rider to be taken lightly. It may have been a bit surprising that the Bora–Hansgrohe rider was allowed to get in the breakaway that eventually launched Hindley to the win. But that was the calculation that the Jumbo-Visma and UAE Team Emirates squads made. It’s possible that Thursday’s stage—once again in the Pyranees— is Hindley’s lone day in the yellow jersey. It’s also possible that Hindley is in yellow for much longer than that. Never doubt the power of the maillot jaune.

The Moment of the Day

The official Tour de France YouTube has made some great highlight videos. But they’ve also been great about showing fans the terrific raw—erm, unedited—emotion that the Tour brings out. Take the above video of Hindley after the stage as evidence.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) claimed his second stage win of the 2023 Tour de France, sprinting to the Stage 4 victory on Tuesday. It was a crash-marred last 5K after a very slow day in the peloton. Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck team once again delivered a great leadout and Philipsen had the legs at the end to hold off a hard-charging Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny). Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) was third across the line to make for the same three men on the podium as Stage 3 (just flip Ewan and Bauhaus).

Alpecin-Deceuninck continued to assert its dominance, claiming the stage win for a second straight day. But Stage 4 was a lot different than Stage 3, despite both days being relatively flat stages. The Stage 4 finish on the motorsport track, Circuit Paul Armagnac created plenty of chaos, which saw three different crashes in the final 2K. But the Alpecin team once again held strong and Mathieu van der Poel emerged at just the right moment to deliver Philipsen to his second win in as many days.

Jasper Philipsen won Stage 3 of the Tour de France, capturing a sprint victory over Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny). Philipsen received a terrific leadout from his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Mathieu van der Poel and was delivered to the finish in great position to use his power to take the stage win.

It was a bit of a controversial finish, as race organizers took a little while after the finish before declaring Philipsen as the stage winner officially. There was some question about whether Philipsen drifted into Wout Van Aert’s line in the closing meters of the finish. Ultimately, there would be no relegation and Philipsen was given the stage victory.

Winner of the Day

It’s Alpecin-Deceuninck. Who is going to be able to beat this team when Mathieu freakin’ van der Poel is providing a picture perfect leadout? Meanwhile, Philipsen’s speed these days seems to be the best in the world. Between Philipsen and MVDP, we likely haven’t seen the last stage win for Alpecin in this Tour.

Biggest Loss of the Day

This goes to Wout Van Aert and Jumbo-Visma for a second straight day . After a miscalculation in the sprint finish on Sunday’s Stage 2, Van Aert missed out on another good opportunity to grab a stage win on Monday’s Stage 3. This sprint, however, was a little different—and maybe he has a complaint for the ASO. Neck and neck with Philipsen in the closing meters, Van Aert looked to be running out of room between Philipsen and the barriers. Van Aert let up—possibly to avoid a crash?—and Philipsen rode to the stage win (though there was a fairly lengthy delay before race officials declared Philipsen the winner). Did Philipsen impede Van Aert? Watch for yourself and you be the judge.

Touching Moment of the Day

This came from the Arkéa–Samsic team car as the lone holdout of the breakaway, Laurent Pichon, rode solo through the streets of Spain. Over the radio the team told Pichon: “I’m so proud of you. You are a warrior. You give us so much great emotion. Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy! I love you very much.”

Pinchon, for his efforts on the day, was given the combativity award—and rightfully so. How can you not get emotional about the Tour de France?

Celebration(s) of the Day

Nothing against Philipsen’s fist pump as he crossed the finish line of Stage 3, but let’s give it up for Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost). The American, once again, spent the majority of the day in the breakaway to gain precious King of the Mountains points to retain his polka dot jersey. He summiting all four climbs first and gave the fans a nice waving of his arms at the top—a rare mid-race celebration that we can all appreciate! Powless claimed the maximum seven KOM points on offer on Stage 3 and extended his lead in the competition as we head into another sprint stage on Tuesday.

Stage Winner : Victor Lafay (Cofidis)

Victor Lafay won Stage 2 of the 2023 Tour de France. The Cofidis rider broke free of the lead group of riders that included many of the race favorites with 1K to go in the Tour’s longest stage (208.9K). It was a surprise victory for Lafay, who managed to hold off a hard-charging Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar in the waning meters to capture his first-career stage win.

Victor Lafay and the whole Cofidis team are easily the biggest winners of the day. It’s been 15 years since the French team has won a stage in the Tour de France, and on Sunday, Lafay came through in thrilling fashion to get Cofidis the win on the day. With Van Aert in the reduced peloton coming to the finish, Lafay knew his only shot of taking the stage would be by launching an early attack. He went with 1K to go, and thanks to a bit of misjudgement on Van Aert’s part and some pure guts on Lafay’s part, he won the sprint and earned the first stage win for Cofidis since Sylvain Chavanel in 2008.

It’s unquestionably Wout Van Aert and the Jumbo-Visma squad for missing a surefire opportunity at a stage win. Jumbo had both the numbers and the speed in the reduced peloton for the bunch sprint at the end. But the tactics just weren’t there for the Dutch superteam. Van Aert made his emotions known just as he crossed the finish line, slamming his handlebars, knowing full well he left it too late to take his tenth career TdF stage win.

Another Big Day for the American

Neilson Powless will keep the polka dot jersey for another day—and it’s been well-earned. The American riding for EF Education-EasyPost got himself in the break and banked key King of the Mountains points. Powless was first over four climbs that offered points and he now holds a four-point lead over Tadej Pogačar in the KOM competition. It looked for a time that Powless might be able to hold out for the stage win—and perhaps a shot at the yellow jersey. But a motivated peloton brought him back on the last major climb of the day.

Carapaz Abandons

After a Stage 1 crash involving Enric Mas (Movistar) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) forced Mas to abandon the 2023 Tour de France, Carapaz was able to limp to the finish of the opening stage. But unfortunately for the Ecuadorian national champion, he wouldn’t start Sunday’s second stage, suffering a fractured kneecap. It’s never fun to see two of the peloton’s top stars leave the Tour after just one stage.

Stage Winner : Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates)

Adam Yates (UAE team Emirates) claimed Stage 1 of the 2023 Tour de France, winning an unusually difficult opening stage and claiming the race’s first yellow jersey. Adam Yates outlasted his twin brother, Simon Yates (Jayco–AlUla), as the two riders broke free after the final climb of the day.

It’s gotta be the Yates family, right? There simply cannot be a better feeling for Adam and Simon’s loved ones than watching the two twin brothers battle it out for not only a stage win in the Tour de France, but also the maillot jaune.

Who Was the Other Biggest Winner of the Day?

We’ve never seen a Grand Départ this tough before—and we’re better for it. An opening stage prologue or short time trial always felt like a bit of a tease. It was always the Tour, but was it really the Tour?

Instead this year, we didn’t have to wait too long for the fireworks. There was a nervousness in the peloton that is normally reserved for later in the race. With the prize of a guaranteed yellow jersey for the stage winner at the end, anything could happen. The punchy climbs of the Basque region of Spain—particularly the last three—provided some terrific Stage 1 excitement.

The downside of an action-packed first stage is the inevitability of a crash and that’s just what we saw on the descent of the Côte de Vivero. Enric Mas (Movistar Team) and Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) went down with around 23K to go in the stage. Mas entered the Tour as a top podium threat and was ultimately forced to abandon, while Carapaz managed to get back on his bike and finish the stage, but lost enough time to take him out of podium contention.

Top American of the Day

Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) will become the first American to wear the polka dot jersey since Nate Brown in 2017. Powless, who very nearly claimed the yellow jersey at the Tour last year, was first across the top of the second category Côte de Vivero. Powless figures to be a major player in the mountains classification—and Saturday marks a strong start for him.

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• Records are falling everywhere!
• “People won’t bother reading the truth, the damage is done”
• “It would take months for the bike to be delivered”: Nigerian sports minister responds to criticism of cyclist Ese Ukpeseraye being forced to borrow German bike to race sprint and keirin events
• Jonas Vingegaard set to return to racing in the Basque Country at tomorrow’s Clásica San Sebastian and next week’s Tour of Poland, where Dane took first professional victory in 2019
• Swapping the tractor for a bike: Norwegian cyclist riding over 1,500km from Olso to Suffolk to watch Ipswich Town’s first Premier League match of the season against Liverpool
• Use of cargo bikes up by 73 per cent in London’s square mile and 63 per cent across the capital, new analysis shows
• road.cc Recommends: the Summer Update
• Farce, fast finishing, and French frenzy at the velodrome: Olympic track recap, as Thomas takes emotional Omnium win, Finucane pipped in keirin, and some feisty sprints lead to judges stepping in

It’s strange to think that not that long ago, Chris Froome was the benchmark for staggering climbing times in grand tours.

But the times have certainly a-changed, and after Tadej Pogačar’s slew of record-breaking rides at this year’s Tour de France – which included destroying Marco Pantani’s Plateau de Beille time from 1998 by three and a half minutes , along with several other records set during cycling’s wild west EPO era – it’s clear that the goalposts have shifted significantly since Froome’s days as the sport’s dominant grand tour winner.

(ASO/Charly Lopez)

And that’s something even the four-time Tour winner acknowledged himself this week while speaking to Velo’s Shane Stokes at the Arctic Race of Norway, where the 39-year-old finished 89th on GC to continue his run of mid-bunch stage race placings this year.

“It’s incredible, absolutely incredible,” Froome, said of Pogačar’s performance at the Tour this year, where the rampant Slovenian took six stage victories, including every single high mountain stage, and beat Jonas Vingegaard by over six minutes on the way to his third career Tour title.

“If the numbers that are being reported coming out of the Tour de France are to be believed and correct, it is just mind boggling. I mean, an amazing, amazing, amazing performance.”

> Not so marginal losses: Chris Froome reveals recent bike set-up was “centimetres” apart from Team Sky days due to “oversight”

To put Froome’s comments into context – on Plateau de Beille last month, in what many, including Pogačar himself, rate as one of the greatest climbing performances cycling has ever seen, the UAE Team Emirates rider averaged a staggering power output of 7w/kg for just under 40 minutes on the 15.8km, 7.9 per cent Pyrenean brute.

And that was at the end of a 199km monster stage that featured four other first-category climbs before the HC denouement, and one that was raced hard from the gun.

By contrast, according to Team Sky – and you can take their claims with as much salt as you like – Froome averaged 6.1w/kg when he destroyed his rivals on La Pierre-Saint-Martin at the end of stage 10 of the 2015 Tour, putting 59 seconds into second-placed teammate Richie Porte and over a minute into everyone else, including Nairo Quintana.

(Alex Broadway/ASO/SWpix.com)

That was Froome at his summit finish-killing peak, and it’s important that while, at 15.2km and 7.4 per cent, the Pierre-Saint-Martin is similar to the Plateau de Beille, the Team Sky leader’s exploits came at the end of a stage which featured no other climbs before its mountain-top finale, and came almost an entire week earlier in the race than Pogačar’s Pirata-destroying ride.

Even Lance Armstrong and his old mucker Michele Ferrari used to bang on about the sacred number of 6.7w/kg that would almost certainly guarantee you the yellow jersey in Paris. Now, Pogačar is hitting the 7 mark, and most of the top five are outdoing three decades of seemingly insurmountable climbing performances.

But it’s not just the Slovenian’s sport-redefining performances at the Tour that impress Froome.

“Given what he’s been able to do in one day races and classics earlier on in the season, to still be able to carry that form through to the Giro and the Tour is just phenomenal,” the Israel-Premier Tech rider added. “He’s a phenomenal athlete. It’s been a pleasure to watch.”

(Simon Wilkinson/SWpix.com)

Another notable difference between Froome and Pogačar is the age at which they reached the top of their sport.

The Slovenian won’t turn 26 until the end of the next month, but he’s already amassed 84 professional victories, including three Tours, a Giro, 17 Tour stages, three editions of Il Lombardia, two Liège-Bastogne-Liège wins, two Strade Bianches, a Tour of Flanders, six Giro stages, and a Paris-Nice.

By Froome’s 26th birthday, the British rider had yet to take his first pro win.

And Froome says that shift towards riders dominating at younger and younger ages (just look at double Olympic champion, monument, and grand tour winner Remco Evenepoel too, who’s still only 24) has been the biggest development he’s seen in cycling during his career.

> "Even Tadej Pogačar will have difficulty beating him": Eddy Merckx "completely in awe" of Remco Evenepoel, predicts "exceptional" Olympic champion will beat Tour winner at World Championships

“I think the availability of data has really changed the sport in the last decade. Young teenagers most probably have access to how professionals are training. We’re probably getting 13, 14-year-olds training like WorldTour riders,” Froome, whose palmares also includes two Vuelta a España overall wins and a Giro d’Italia, says.

“So by the time they turned professional at the age of 19, 20, 21, they’re ready to even go and win races like the Tour de France.

“It’s meant that across the board the levels is much higher. And altitude is definitely a factor as well. Everyone’s going to altitude now, whereas beforehand, certainly during the Team Sky days that I had, there were only a handful of teams going to altitude. Now it’s everyone’s going.”

(Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

But with success coming at such a young age, does Froome reckon Pogačar can maintain his momentum and keep breaking records, including the all-time Tour record of five wins, before he retires?

“Certainly,” Froome concludes. “I don’t think we can put a limit on that, given how he’s riding. I think at any record is vulnerable, given his age, and given how he’s riding right now.”

(Ed Sykes/SWpix.com)

Right, as the Berlin rave vibe gets going in the Paris velodrome, I’m away off to watch some sprint and Madison racing on the telly (and maybe even get out on the bike myself).

I’ll catch you all on the other side of the Olympics, and just in time for the Tour de France Femmes. Now that’s a proper summer of sport…

Decent cycling infrastructure is one thing. Cycling infrastructure constantly being destroyed by reckless, dangerous drivers is another entirely.

That’s the point being made by the aptly-named Twitter account ‘Cycleway, my arse!’, whose main goal online is highlighting what they regard as the second-rate nature of Transport for London’s Cycleway 1, and who this week posted the following photos “some of the things recently destroyed by drivers on TfL’s dreadful Cycleway 1 route”:

“When will Will Norman admit this route isn’t for purpose?” the account asked. “It’ll always be dominated by drivers.”

And terrible drivers, at that…

> Cyclist in “never-ending” pain after suffering life-changing injuries in pothole crash told he has no grounds for compensation as hole was 13mm too shallow

EF-Oatly-Cannondale will be hoping for stage wins courtesy of double Olympic champion Kristen Faulkner and Paris-Roubaix winner (and the peloton’s barbecue and dancing queen) Alison Jackson, but they’ll be doing so on a strictly milk and cheese-free diet.

While ditching the dairy may have something to do with their sponsor Oatly specialising in oat milk and other dairy alternatives, and the Tour de France Femmes being a handy advertising billboard for their products, the team’s nutritionist Anna Carceller says a traditional diet that includes dairy can hinder a rider’s recovery.

“If a rider is lactose intolerant, she can have very severe digestive problems, which disappear when lactose is removed from her diet,” Carceller says.

“During intense racing, some athletes have functional intolerances with complex molecules like lactose, developing negative symptoms that can impact their performance and overall wellness. Both of these are medical conditions that have to be addressed and managed properly. Eliminating dairy from a rider’s diet can often solve these problems.”

Carceller adds that at a gruelling stage race like the Tour, a rider’s ability to recover after the demands of each stage is key, and that cutting out dairy may also have anti-inflammatory benefits that can help riders recover faster, enabling them to meet the demands of tough stage after tough stage.

“A dairy-free diet is compatible with high performance,” the nutritionist says. “Food science has shown us that nutritional diversity can be met in a dairy-free diet, allowing an athlete to have an excellent diet while going dairy-free without problems.”

Team CEO Jonathan Vaughters added: “This is a nutrition strategy we’ve discussed over the years but have never before implemented. With Oatly coming on board as a partner, it finally makes sense to go dairy-free at certain races. In regards to nutrition, as well as flavour, we can give our riders what they need through Oatly products.”

If only Toon Aerts and Shari Bossuyt had adopted this new groundbreaking nutrition strategy, eh?

> Wake up to (anything but) milk: Pro cyclists warned not to eat or drink dairy products at cyclocross race after positive doping tests

An extremely narrow stretch of pavement shared by pedestrians and cyclists in Bristol, located next to a busy road, is set to be improved after Active Travel England money was relocated following an underspend on other cycling and walking projects in the city.

According to B24/7 , £283,000 will be spent on an ‘outline business case’ for improving walking and cycling along Bath Road, from Cattle Market Road, located next to Temple Meads station, to the Three Lamps junction, after an unexpected underspend on Active Travel England funding on other projects.

Walking and cycling schemes at Filwood Quietway, Deanery Road, Old Market Quietway, and Malago Greenway were completed for less than originally thought, while £50,000 of the unspent funding will also contribute towards the city council’s on-street cycle hangar programme.

Jack Carlin will hope to add another bronze to his Olympic individual sprint collection this evening, after the Paisley rider was knocked out in the semi-finals, losing two straight matches to the formidable Dutch powerhouse Harrie Lavreysen.

After Lavreysen took a comfortable first race lead, in a semi-final featuring the gold and silver medallists from the team sprint, Carlin hoped to make life difficult for the three-time Olympic champion, sailing up and down the bankings of the track in a bid to unsettle his rival.

 (Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com)

It wasn’t to be for Carlin, unfortunately, as reigning champion and pre-Games favourite Lavreysen powered his way past on the home straight to book his place in yet another Olympic final.

However, there is to be no repeat of the all-Dutch sprint final in Tokyo, after Lavreysen’s teammate Jeffrey Hoogland – who beat Hamish Turnbull in the quarters yesterday – was knocked out in just two races by Australian Matt Richardson, who will hope to cause an upset against another orange-clad rider to win his first ever Olympic title later this evening.

I’ll admit, the revised Clásica San Sebastian route, and the new final climb of the Pilotegi, has passed me by a bit, what with the Tour and Olympics dominating the bike racing agenda in recent weeks.

But, judging by Neilson Powless’ Strava account of his pre-race recce, the Pilotegi – located just 8km from the finish – looks like it’s going to be brutal.

According to Powless’ numbers, the final 600m of the climb (which in total lasts for 2km at an average 11.7 per cent gradient) averages a frankly shocking 20.7 per cent.

To get to grips with the potentially Clásica-deciding test, and to get a taste of how it’ll be raced tomorrow afternoon, the American put out 7.5 watts per kilo (which, as we concluded earlier, is pretty decent)… but only managed to average 12kph for the almost three minutes it took him to ride that final 600m, and at a cadence of just 67 to boot.

Forget the Olympics, it looks like the finale of San Sebastian is going to very, very fun tomorrow…

It’s been quite the start to this afternoon’s session at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines velodrome in Paris, as record after record fell during the qualifying round of the women’s individual sprint.

With Lea Friedrich’s Olympic record for the flying 200m of 10.31 seconds smashed halfway through the session – 10 riders would ultimately overtake that mark by the end of qualifying – the German then retaliated by setting a blistering new world record for the distance.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

The 24-year-old’s time of 10.029 blew apart Kelsey Mitchell’s five-year-old record of 10.154 (which was also set at altitude), and brought the women’s flying 200 extremely close to the magical 10-second mark.

And, with something in the hot and humid air of the velodrome, three other riders, including GB’s Olympic team pursuit champions Emma Finucane and Sophie Capewell, and last night’s keirin gold medallist Ellese Andrews, also beat Mitchell’s previous mark.

Looks like we’re going to have some competition on our hands.

More from the fallout to the Telegraph’s rather lacklustre attempt to correct their most obvious attempt yet to spread anti-cycling misinformation:

> Cyclists frustrated Telegraph newspaper not required to put “52mph cyclists creating death traps” correction on front page like original headline

As the women’s sprint qualifying gets underway in Paris this lunchtime, yesterday we reported that one of the riders competing in the event, Nigerian Ese Ukpeseraye, was forced to borrow a bike from the German team after being drafted into Nigeria’s track line-up at the last moment.

“Don’t be surprised that I’m competing in the track, in the sprint and keirin,” Ukpeseraye posted on Instagram yesterday confirming her late call-up, after her Canyon-Sram development team revealed that Germany had stepped up to loan her a bike to enable the 25-year-old, who took part in the road race last weekend, to compete on the track.

“It is what it is,” she said.

Ese Ukpeseraye racing on her borrowed bike in the keirin yesterday (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

Following Ukpeseraye’s somewhat cryptic, frustrated post, Nigeria’s cycling fans rushed to condemn the country’s governing body, believing that they had failed to adequately prepare for the Olympics, leaving their representatives without the necessary equipment to race.

However, in the wake of this criticism, the country’s sports minister took to social media to “clarify” the situation, claiming that Nigeria were only granted a spot in the women’s sprint and keirin events two weeks ago after another nation had been disqualified – by which point the team, and their bikes and kits, had already left for Paris.

> “That’s the Olympic spirit”: German track team loan Nigerian rider bike after late call-up for sprint and keirin events

“My attention has been called to a post on social media by Ese Ukpeseraye,” Senator John Owan Enoh said in a statement. “After reading the post and some follow up comments I swung into action. Ese’s post seems to have been grossly misunderstood, perhaps also because it didn’t seem to give proper context to the matter in perspective. It is important I make some clarifications.

“Team Nigeria qualified for one road race in cycling and prepared for it in terms of training and the appropriate competition equipment. Team Nigeria was fully prepared for this road race until two weeks ago after the Cycling team with the rest of Team Nigeria had already left for the Olympics, that a communication from the UCI was received reallocating additional slots to Nigeria in the keirin and individual sprint.

        View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Lovina Ukpeseraye (@eselovina)

“This reallocation to Nigeria was due to the disqualification of a country, leaving Nigeria as the next eligible to make the list of qualified countries to compete. Unfortunately, this additional slot required the use of a different competition equipment in terms of biking.

“For this track race reallocated to Team Nigeria, a very special equipment (approved specifically for the Olympic track game) is used. It’ll take months to have it delivered after ordering and making payment. To therefore get Ese to compete, the Federation through Ese’s club in Europe and working with a German owned company, got a ‘Track Bike’ for our cyclist Ese.”

After finishing second behind a rampant Tadej Pogačar at the Tour de France, just months after suffering what seemed initially like season-ending injuries at the Tour of the Basque Country , Jonas Vingegaard is already set to return to racing at tomorrow’s Clásica San Sebastian, before taking on the Tour of Poland next week, the Dane’s Visma-Lease a Bike team confirmed today.

After ruling himself out of the Vuelta a España, where he finished second overall last year, Vingegaard will instead begin his post-Tour campaign by returning to the Basque Country at Saturday’s Clásica San Sebastian, won three times in the last four editions by Remco Evenepoel, who will eschew the one-day race in favour of a post-Olympic rest period and a build-up to next month’s worlds that will include a Tour of Britain debut.

  (A.S.O/Charly Lopez)

Vingegaard will be joined for the hilly classic by the in-form Sepp Kuss, who will head straight from today’s final stage of the Vuelta a Burgos which he currently leads, and promising British rider Thomas Gloag, who’s also on the recovery trail after winning a stage of the Czech Tour at the end of July, the 22-year-old’s first international race for almost a year.

Dylan van Baarle, Milan Vader, and Julien Vermote round out Visma-Lease a Bike’s team for San Sebastian, the new revised route of which includes the Pilotegi, a short but brutal climb that contains pitches of up to an eye-watering 27 per cent, located just eight kilometres from the finish.

“I was very tired after the Tour. For five days, I did absolutely nothing. I recharged my batteries and then started training again. Everything went well. I currently feel fresh and am ready to take on the next two races,” Vingegaard, who finished eighth in his only appearance in the Clásica in 2021, said in a press release today.

“It will be special to return to the Basque Country after everything that happened a few months ago. Fortunately, I also have many good memories of that region, so I am really looking forward to racing there again.”

 (A.S.O/Charly Lopez)

Two days after racing the Basque classic, two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard will then race the Tour of Poland, the scene of his breakthrough first pro victory in 2019, and a stage race the Dane says he has a “special bond” with and where he feels he has “something to prove”.

“The race in San Sebastián and the Tour de Pologne are two beautiful races. Moreover, I have a special bond with Poland. It was where I achieved my first victory in the WorldTour,” the Dane says.

“It feels like I still have something to prove there. In 2019, I won the hardest stage and I then started the next day in the leader’s jersey, but I couldn’t secure the overall victory.

“I am determined to win this year, but of course, the competition is not to be underestimated.”

The new Premier League season is fast approaching (I know, those two weeks without football on the TV were rough – and no, I’m not counting the Olympics), so it’s time for that annual August football/cycling crossover tradition to pop up again: football fans riding their bikes inordinately long distances across Europe to watch a match.

This time, it’s the turn of Norwegian cyclist, bike blogger, and Ipswich Town diehard (yes, really) Richie Wiik, who’s currently halfway through his 1,500km-plus ride from Olso to Portman Road to watch his team’s opening game of the season, and their first top-flight match for 22 years, against Liverpool next Saturday lunchtime.

Wiik, who’s sofa surfing during his bikepacking tour of northern Europe to mark Kieran McKenna’s side’s long-awaited return to the corrupt, desolate landscape that is the Premier League, says he started supporting Ipswich following their famous 1978 FA Cup Final victory over Arsenal.

“I love cycling. I have different cycling blogs,” he told the Ipswich Star . “I’ve been an avid fan of Ipswich since I was in my early teens, and so I was waiting for the fixtures to be released.

“I saw Liverpool at home for the season opener, and this was my trigger to do something crazy to cycle all the way from Oslo to Ipswich.”

Wiik’s route involved setting off on 28 July and riding south from Oslo to Denmark, then through Germany and the Netherlands, before ferrying across to Harwich and riding on to Portman Road, which he hopes he’ll reach next Friday, with a day to spare.

“The most challenging part has been the logistics,” Wiik says, noting that he started with a Liverpool-supporting friend, who turned back when they reached Germany.

“I have so far stayed in everything from a tent in someone’s garden to hotels, but my biggest revelation was finding a website called warmshowers.org. It’s couch surfing for the cycling community and I am amazed by how many hosts there are in Europe.”

Writing yesterday on his Facebook page from Germany, Wiik said: “Arrived in the German town of Papenburg, cycling slowly westwards in the manageable headwind.

“Passing countless German villages and hamlets the last couple of days, right off the beaten track, I can truly say I’d never be here and seen all this if it hadn’t been for the cycling.

“I aim to enter Dutch territory tomorrow, and mind you I find even that somewhat hard to fathom. I’m still not totally convinced I'll make it all the way to Ipswich and that first top flight clash in over 22 years, but the whole idea is starting to dawn on me!”

New analysis by the Clean Cities campaign has found that, between 2022 and 2023, the use of cargo bikes has risen by 73 per cent in the City of London, and by 63 per cent across London as a whole, as businesses shifting to cargo bikes continue to report faster and cleaner deliveries.

In the wake of the findings, Jack Skillen, a director at business improvement district Team London Bridge, told Forbes that more than 200 businesses in central London now use cargo bikes.

“The change in London Bridge has been dramatic and has a positive impact on the environment and the public,” he says.

> “It would be good if we could choose a healthy and sustainable form of travel without fearing for our lives”: Delivery cyclist reveals he was forced into railings by road rage driver, as Sustrans publishes research examining problems facing cycle couriers

The campaign behind the study, Clean Cities, a European coalition of non-governmental organisations encouraging cities to transition to zero-emission mobility by 2030, argues that greater cargo bike usage can reduce congestion, improve efficiency for businesses, and support the development of more liveable and healthier cities.

Speaking ahead of the annual Cargo Bike Cruise, which took place at the weekend and saw more than 80 cargo bike riders, and 54 local businesses, cycle around London to highlight the campaign’s aims, Jemima Hartshorn, the founder of the clean air campaign Mums For Lungs, said: “We must see London transition to a cleaner and greener city, so we must incentivise businesses to adopt not only electric vehicles but innovative and yet simple solutions such as the cargo bike.”

> An Italian all-road ripper, a 10/10 frame bag and a double Canyon: road.cc recommends updated with 11 top cycling products

Well, that was another wild night in the Olympic velodrome, wasn’t it?

Even the most hardened nay-sayers of racing around in circles would admit that, after home hero Benjamin Thomas secured an extremely popular gold in the Omnium in front of a raucous French crowd, and New Zealand’s Ellesse Andrews cemented her status as the best keirin rider in the world with an Olympic title, as GB’s Emma Finucane added bronze to the gold she collected in the team sprint earlier in the week.

However, it wasn’t without its farcical moments, especially in the farce-friendly men’s Omnium (but hey, in an Olympic track cycling competition where the ball lap has failed to ring on two separate occasions already, who doesn’t love the odd bit of chaos?).

After the opening tempo race was marred by delayed points and slow decision making by the commissaires – who, to be fair, have a difficult job keeping tabs on what at times resembles an unruly creche – the brilliantly intense and chaotic elimination race also saw a number of laps in which nobody was, in fact, eliminated, with the judges unable to call (with only a lap or two to decide) which rider crossed the line last in time, therefore giving everyone a reprieve.

Then French favourite Thomas, desperate for a good score to keep him in the hunt for gold, was knocked out with eight riders remaining, only for that that decision – after a quick debrief and to the delight of the home crowd – was swiftly reversed, as a frustrated Fernando Gaviria was instead sent packing.

Omnium juries after Thomas clearly got last in the elimination sprint #Paris2024 #OlympicGames #CyclingTrack pic.twitter.com/q4pSSvPDTJ — Olympic Games Memes (@Cycling_Memes1) August 8, 2024

That U-turn by the officials allowed Thomas to cling on for third, behind second-placed Elia Viviani (who was later demoted for a dodgy manoeuvre during the race. I know it’s hard to keep up) and an expert from-the-front performance by Ethan Hayter, whose suffering in the heat of the velodrome ultimately led to him feeling like he was “stuck to the track” during the decisive points race.

And it was during the points race where Thomas took advantage of that fortuitous elimination decision, riding a perfectly judged race to gain two laps and leapfrog Belgian Fabio van den Bossche (who was forced to settle for third) and win a hugely popular gold, as Portugal’s Iúri Leitão also secured his country’s first ever male track medal with silver.

Oh, and what’s more – Thomas, in true French style, even managed to crash during the latter stages of the points race, jumping back on his bike to complete the job as he was roared on by the deafening home supporters, who didn’t disappoint when it came to a jubilant and emotional rendition of La Marseillaise during the medal ceremony.

The Omnium is maybe my favourite olympic event. Four increasingly weird cycling races with contrived rules that sound like I made them up. It's just heaven — Ivan Brett (@IvanBrett) August 8, 2024

I told you it was dramatic. (Oh, and that’s Ivan from the Traitors series one tweeting about the Omnium, in case you were wondering.)

And the drama and the chaos continued in the men’s sprint quarter finals, where Japan’s Kaiya Ota thought he had progressed to the next round after beating GB’s Jack Carlin 2-0 in a feisty match marred by flying elbows from Carlin and Mark Renshaw-esque headbutts from Ota.

However, the judges relegated Ota for the unnecessary use of his head, and Carlin promptly won the decider to book his spot in the semis. His teammate Hamish Turnbull will be missing from that round, however, despite giving favourite Jeffrey Hoogland by beating him in their first match, before the Dutch star roared back to prevent the upset of the round.

Meanwhile, Emma Finucane’s seriously impressive Olympic debut continued, as she bagged a bronze in the women’s keirin, as world champion Ellesse Andrews of New Zealand showed her class to add an Olympic title to her collection, while the Netherland’s Hetty van de Wouw pipped Finucane at the end for silver. The Welsh star’s gold medal-winning team sprint colleague Katy Marchant finished fourth, ahead of Emma Hinze.

“Going up in that final and scraping through the semi, I knew I had to find something in my legs that I hadn’t seen before,” Finucane told the BBC after the race.

“Ellesse is world champion, she has demonstrated today that she is so strong. All of the other girls in that final, we’re the strongest girls in the world that’s why we are in the Olympic final. And to even be there next to one of my best friends, Katy, was such a pinch me moment.

“To get a bronze medal, it literally feels like gold to me because I left everything out there on the track. If you told me a year ago I’d be coming to the Olympics and getting a gold in track sprint and then bronze in keirin, I would’ve been like ‘no way’ but here I am.”

And to think, there’s more drama to come today. But let’s just hope all the bells ring in time and all decisions are made promptly, okay?

Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.

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38 comments.

I was cycling in Tenerife in 2016, and went there in large part because it was already well-known that many teams went there for altitude training - the hotel up by El Teide exists exists in at least part to serve athletes. It's been there since the 1950s. Tenerife was already advertising its suitability for cyclists to train at back at least in the 1960s - they brought Eddy Merckx over to help with marketing. I don't know where he stayed, perhaps at altitude at Parador Canadas - he was certainly aware of at least some of the effects of altitude training, and actually had a training rig with an oxygen mask to breathe /reduced/ oxygen air at home! (kind of wrong way around in modern thinking...).

I was a week in Tenerife, and I saw the Saxobank team in Los Cristianos, and a couple of Slipstream / Cannondale Riders riding down from El Teide early in the morning, with a moped rider, as I was going up. So Cannondale evidently were staying up at the altitude hotel. (Going down for motor-pacing training I assume).

Obviously, Pogacar's staff have managed to find fluffier pillows than Sky had back in the day. That's the only explanation.

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A few stories from Leicestershire.

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/woman-30s-dies-after-...

https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/drug-driving-dad-who-...

My thoughts are with Colin's friends and family.

You'd have thought that coked up and on the phone could and should have been enough to get a jury to convict on dangerous. Especially with the toe rag lieing and blaming the victim.

Ref Chris Froomes comments. It does make me wonder how in the space of a few years - not decades, the top riders seem to have become near super human in their achievements. Is it the bikes? They all have the same bikes which if anything are heavier than a few years ago. Is it nutrition? Teams will offer it to all their riders too so no real jump there. What else could it be? How are a handful of riders become so good all at the same time and one especially bad numbers that are other worldly in their size?   

And then I think, how old are they? When did they start on the pro scene and when did bio passports become a thing?   

A bio passport can tell you any strange peaks and abnormalities in a riders bio chemistry. But what if they were always there from day one? What is abnormal?  

once every so often you get a wonder kid or a talent do good they leave everyone behind. But to have 3-4 all at once? Are Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenapoel really so much better than every else? The gap between these and the next best riders is cavernous.   

It could just be one big coincidence I guess. Who know?  

Smoggysteve wrote: A bio passport can tell you any strange peaks and abnormalities in a riders bio chemistry. But what if they were always there from day one? What is abnormal?   once every so often you get a wonder kid or a talent do good they leave everyone behind. But to have 3-4 all at once? Are Pogacar, Vingegaard and Evenapoel really so much better than every else? The gap between these and the next best riders is cavernous.   

The biological passport has been around in cycling since 2008, so certainly will have followed the current riders all their professional lives.

The gap between Pogacar and the rest is large but by no means cavernous, yes he's won three Tours but he's lost two, he's yet to win a WC title and so on. Also it's clear that he's a once-in-a-generation talent, possibly a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Merckx. The others aren't so far above the rest and the fact that plenty of other riders have won big races, world championships and even GTs (Kuss, Geoghan Hart, Bernal, Carapaz, Yates, Hindley, Dumoulin, Thomas, Aru, Quinatana all in the last decade) shows they're not quite as dominant as is sometimes claimed. That's before you even talk about the other extraordinary riders like MVDP, WVA and so on. It's not just three or four at the top.

Rendel Harris wrote: The biological passport has been around in cycling since 2008, so certainly will have followed the current riders all their professional lives.

The biopassport is there to catch really dumb dopers, who dope without the support of bio-science / medical staff to keep them "within the lines". It won't catch anyone who knows what they're doing, is my impression (from being around some sports scientists for a period - sports scientists who had grants from WADA for anti-doping studies).

As I commented below, riders can now take in and utilise up to 250g of carbohydrates more over the course of a 5 hour race than was thought possible just a few years ago. That's around 1,000 (kilo)calories give or take, enough for an hour's hard effort for a decent amateur and enough to make a massive difference for a pro towards the end of a stage, not to mention how well they can recover for the following days if they're not completely depleted. So a gifted athlete beating a doped athlete's 'record' on a long climb by 3 minutes at the end of a mammoth stage with today's training methods, altitude camps, nutrition, aero equipment (which makes a difference even at 20kph), power meters etc etc is entirely feasible, especially considering the doper was probably riding on fumes by the end of the stage. 

I've been wrong before - I was an LA believer - and was very skeptical of Pog and Roglic after Operation Aderlass when the UCI announced an investigation into Slovenian cycling in general. However, I am slowly starting to believe again.... 

Jakrayan wrote:  aero equipment (which makes a difference even at 20kph)

And let's not forget the energy saved throughout the day on the way to the climb, when people say the extra two kilos of bike weight and aerodynamic advantages wouldn't make an enormous difference on a climb they are forgetting all the extra energy it took the previous generation of riders to get those heavier, less aerodynamic bikes to the foot of the climb in the first place.

It's like listening to battered wives defending their abusers in here. If you think this current crop of riders are getting better power numbers than peak doping of 20 years ago with a few extra grams of carbs, aero frames and fat tyres then good for you.

Nick T wrote: It's like listening to battered wives defending their abusers in here. If you think this current crop of riders are getting better power numbers than peak doping of 20 years ago with a few extra grams of carbs, aero frames and fat tyres then good for you.

Aero frames save an estimated 80W at 20mph (more at peleton speeds). Tubeless wide tyres maybe 20W. 2kg of weight saved, maybe another 10W. Take two riders of equal capabilities on identical bikes except one has a 110W motor, ask them to ride 150kms at the same pace and then take away the motor and put them on an alpine climb, are you really going to be surprised if the one who was getting 110W extra assistance all day has more power left at the end? "A few extra grams of carbs" - as Jakrayan has pointed out, modern gels allow riders to take on board around 20% more fuel than the riders of just a few years ago, let alone the "peak doping" era when nutrition wasn't far off the jelly babies, fig rolls and ham baguettes days, the effect that will have is surely obvious. Then you completely ignore the effect of altitude training, pretty much absent back then and part of every pro's programme now; altitude training has much the same effect as doping in increasing EPO production and so improving oxygen supply to the muscles, increasing VO2 max and improving lactic tolerance. So, you have huge power savings from equipment, massive extra fuelling capacity and training methods that greatly increase the amount of oxygen supplied to the muscles, if you think all that won't increase power numbers then good for you.

Aero frames don't change your w/kg figures!

an article on this very website demonstrated that Pantani was riding a bike as light of lighter than todays bikes.   

altitude traning has been understood for at least 30 years, Boardman utilised it for the Barcelona Olympics. 

peak doping era nutrition was no more than jelly babies and a can of flat coke? Seriously? In the days of Dr Ferrari? Get a grip for heaven's sake man.   

"power savings to reach the climb fresher" is absolutely meaningless, you get there as quickly as the peloton gets there. If you're all on steel tube frames and box section rims you just get there slower. On the climb you'll do whatever watts you can do. 7w/kg is unnatural, just like 6.7w/kg was 20 years ago

Nick T wrote: Aero frames don't change your w/kg figures!

Yes, in fact they will, because as I tried to point out if a rider has been using 100 W less power all day clearly they will have more power left at the end. As a matter of fact the watts per kilo figures haven't changed that much, Pogacar is putting out around 7 W/kg for 15 minute periods on climbs, Pantani is estimated to have done about the same. The difference is that Pogacar can do it more regularly and for longer periods, in large part due to the amount of power he will have saved on the flat due to equipment, far superior fuelling strategies and the effects of prolonged training at altitude.

Nick T wrote: "power savings to reach the climb fresher" is absolutely meaningless, you get there as quickly as the peloton gets there. If you're all on steel tube frames and box section rims you just get there slower. On the climb you'll do whatever watts you can do. 7w/kg is unnatural, just like 6.7w/kg was 20 years ago

The current average speeds in the Tour are only about 2 km/h faster than they were in the 2000s, or 5%, and yet they are riding bikes that save around 100 W at 40 km/h, or 30%. Of course that will deliver riders to a final climb having used less effort to get there and therefore they will be able to sustain peak power for longer. There is nothing "unnatural" about 7w/kg, by the way, I'm 55 and don't race and I can put out 7w/kg and more easily, the difference, obviously, is the length of time that power can be held, for me about 20 seconds, for the pros 15 minutes+. Still, if you want to persist in your strangely desperate desire to claim that superior fuelling, altitude training and bikes which require a lot less power for the same speed don't make any difference and Pogacar and all his close rivals are definitely on drugs, in your own phrase, good luck to you. I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

I've got to agree with Nick. The advantages of aero frames are negligible when you're sat in the middle of the peloton. The idea that a few more carbs are allowing the current crop of riders to eclipse the superhuman performances of the EPO era is fanciful in the extreme. I enjoy watching the performances of the likes of Pog and Remco, but I'm not naive enough to believe that they're clean.

As I pointed out, it's not "A few more carbs" but around 20% extra fuelling. Riders aren't always in the peloton, are they, particularly on a mountain stage between ascents. Another factor which has not yet been mentioned here is the far greater comfort of modern frames, wider tyres and lower pressures, anyone old enough (as regrettably I am) to have ridden 1980s road bikes on 21 mm tyres through to the bikes available today will testify that modern bikes and tyres are far less fatiguing to ride, another thing to take into account when considering why riders appear to be arriving on final climbs much less fatigued than their predecessors. On a wider point, athletic performances always have improved and will continue to improve, it's ridiculous to say that however many improvements in training, nutrition and machinery there have been, and I've been at pains to point out that they have been huge, anyone who matches the times of the EPO cheats* must be cheating themselves. On that basis Usain Bolt must've been cheating because he ran far faster than Ben Johnson? Fausto Coppi took seven packets of amphetamine to break the hour record in 1964, does it follow that everyone who has broken the record since must have been doping?

*When you talk of the EPO era it should be remembered that altitude training is effectively legal doping in that it naturally increases EPO levels so it is not that surprising that athletes who now undergo substantial amounts of altitude training that brings their EPO level close to those artificially achieved by the dopers should be achieving similar performances.

No, they're not always in the peloton, but GC contenders are very rarely on their own until they're on a climb.

It just seems incredible that riders such as Armstrong were doping on an industrial scale when all they needed to do was eat more and they would have achieved better results than from the drugs.

And hypoxic tents and altitude training have been around for decades. Armstrong himself did significant altitude training.

Today's riders aren't just matching the EPO era, they're outperforming it by a good margin. I'd love to believe they're doing that clean, but it seems very unlikely to me.

AidanR wrote: No, they're not always in the peloton, but GC contenders are very rarely on their own until they're on a climb.

That's true but then they benefit from the benefit their domestiques have got from needing less effort to lead them; I'm sure you've noticed over the last decade how much longer and deeper domestiques are carrying their leaders up climbs, something which would would indicate that they are arriving at the climbs less exhausted than in the past.

AidanR wrote: It just seems incredible that riders such as Armstrong were doping on an industrial scale when all they needed to do was eat more and they would have achieved better results than from the drugs.

Come on, firstly you know I haven't said anything of the sort, "all they needed to do was eat more" forsooth! I've tried to detail a multitude of reasons why performances may have improved without having to accuse riders of doping. In terms of nutrition though, I refer you again to Jakrayan's comment that new products now allow riders to consume 120 g of carbs per hour whereas before 90 g was regarded as the upper limit, it's not a question of all they needed to do was eat more, they were eating as much as they could without making themselves sick, now they can get significantly more in the tank.

AidanR wrote: And hypoxic tents and altitude training have been around for decades. Armstrong himself did significant altitude training.

Armstrong said he used an altitude tent, yes, and maybe he did, but I wonder how much that was pre-emptive misinformation to try and explain away his high EPO levels if he did get caught.

I've heard this all before: they're not cheating, it's just this-that-and-the-other advance.

I don't doubt many of the strides that have been made, but what I do doubt is that they add up to anything like enough to thoroughly eclipse the times and power outputs of an era of epic doping.

Let's not forget how few people got busted for doping in that era. The lack of positives now should be treated with similar scepticism.

AidanR wrote: Let's not forget how few people got busted for doping in that era. The lack of positives now should be treated with similar scepticism.

Let's also not forget that the biological passport did not exist in that era. You say you doubt that the advances in cycling are anything like enough to eclipse the times and power output of the EPO era, and yet as detailed here they are riding bikes that are 100 W more efficient, using nutrition that allows them to take on 20% more fuel, and undergoing sustained and regular altitude camps that effectively replicate in a natural way the effect of EPO. These are facts and you say you don't doubt them and yet you still insist that they must be doping? I'll ask that question again that I asked above, because Ben Johnson smashed the world record and took the Olympic gold for 100m in 1988 and was subsequently proved to be on drugs, does that mean that all the athletes who have beaten his world record time since, and particularly Usain Bolt who obliterated it, must've been on drugs? The advances in track technology and running shoes have been nowhere near the advances in cycling over the last quarter of a century, so they must've been doping as well?

ETA I've probably made it clear by now, but I really hate the lazy accusation that anybody who turns in an amazing performance in cycling must be doping. These are quite extraordinary young men and women who put themselves through training regimens and physical demands in racing that we could not possibly imagine and make incredible sacrifices and indeed risk their lives for our entertainment. Unless and until it is proved that they are doping they deserve better than baseless accusations that of course they must be because dopers back in the day didn't achieve their times when they were on much less efficient bikes, less accurate nutritional regimes and with much less effective training programmes. Unless people can produce proper evidence rather than "I think there must be something going on" it's silly and disrespectful.

Forgot to add something which was on the tip of my tongue, in part possibly thanks to a fractured skull and concussion just over a year ago due to a crash (not my fault) during a training race a little over a year ago. NB definitely NOT trying to start the helmet debate all over again! 

Talking of equipment, in addition to aero gains, lower rolling resistance and so on, the 'easier' gears have definitely made a significant impact. When the pros are riding 34x34 on some of the bigger climbs, you know there's something to it. A higher cadence means you can produce the same power at a lower torque, which is less fatiguing as you are (counterintuitively perhaps) using the slow-twitch, endurance muscle fibres rather than the fast-twitch ones which are more suited to short, hard efforts like sprints and Classic-type climbs. Basically you can sustain the same power for longer at a higher cadence, though the exact cadence is different for different riders, not everyone can 'spin to win'. An an, admittedly anecdotal, example, I rode L' Alpe d'Huez a good few years ago with 39x25 as my bottom gear, and was just outside the hour to the TdF stage finish. I went back the following year - same weight, same FTP, same bike similar weather (little to no wind) with a 29 at the back and went up 2 full minutes faster - 58:31. The lower gear was the only difference I am aware of. 

So can a much better trained and fuelled rider on vastly superior equipment beat the record set by a doped athlete running on fumes by 3 minutes on a long Pyrenean climb? Of course he can. 

AidanR wrote: I've heard this all before: they're not cheating, it's just this-that-and-the-other advance. I don't doubt many of the strides that have been made, but what I do doubt is that they add up to anything like enough to thoroughly eclipse the times and power outputs of an era of epic doping. Let's not forget how few people got busted for doping in that era. The lack of positives now should be treated with similar scepticism.

The "but the bikes are better!" stuff is a complete smoke-screen. If the power meter and the weighing scales say 7 W/kg, the equipment is irrelevant. If we're estimating power from time up a climb using calculations, well, we can take improvements in CDa and rolling resistance into account in those calculations, and still arrive at a good estimate of the human W/kg.

7 W/kg is a significant improvement over 6.7 W/kg - and it's not the equipment, by *definition*. And if the free-reign EPO and blood dopers in the 90s and 00s couldn't get past 6.7 on ~40 min climbs, well...

While remaining agnostic on the doping front, you've fairly comprehensively missed Rendel's point here. He's saying that the equipment allows for less exertion and fatigue  prior  to the climb.  If  that's true (again, not taking a position either way here), then they'll have more in the tank to put out more watts for longer on the climb (and would do so even if they switched to a vintage bike at that point - or, for that matter, if they decided to ride up it on a Boris Bike  Ken Cycle).

That was indeed my point, it wasn't necessarily that vintage bikes would not climb as well but that modern bikes would deliver the rider in fresher condition and, as you say, allow them to ride harder for longer. Another point that hasn't been addressed is the fact that Pantani & co were riding with a 42/25 maximum low gear (in fact Pantani had a 23 largest cog, claiming that anyone who needed more was not a proper climber), what effect did that have on muscle fatigue by the end of the race compared to someone spinning up climbs on a 40/30? Throw in the capacity to take on 20% more carbs and that's a lot of factors to consider, and to consider more seriously than simply stating "that doesn't make enough difference".

I'm still waiting for any of the skeptics to answer my question with reference to Usain Bolt and Ben Johnson: if somebody breaks a record that was previously set by a known doper, does that mean that the person who set the new record must de facto also be doping? That appears to be their position, in which case every current world record holder in any speed or endurance or strength sport must be a doper.

Rendel Harris wrote: The current average speeds in the Tour are only about 2 km/h faster than they were in the 2000s, or 5%, and yet they are riding bikes that save around 100 W at 40 km/h, or 30%. Of course that will deliver riders to a final climb having used less effort to get there and therefore they will be able to sustain peak power for longer. There is nothing "unnatural" about 7w/kg, by the way, I'm 55 and don't race and I can put out 7w/kg and more easily, the difference, obviously, is the length of time that power can be held, for me about 20 seconds, for the pros 15 minutes+. Still, if you want to persist in your strangely desperate desire to claim that superior fuelling, altitude training and bikes which require a lot less power for the same speed don't make any difference and Pogacar and all his close rivals are definitely on drugs, in your own phrase, good luck to you. I prefer to give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

Old steel bikes roll incredibly well. On the flat, in a bunch, a vintage bike is no less efficient. I have a top-3 KOM somewhere on a flat segment, on a cheap-ish 1982 Holdsworth road bike. Due to tail-wind and old wheels still being very good (see below for a possible reason why).

My expensive late 70s / early 80s Campagnolo Record hub wheels on my vintage Colnago road bike are noticeably fast spinning wheels. Pretty sure they still spin with lower resistance than some of my modern wheels. Cup and cone bearings are actually _better_ for wheels than press fit bearings, from what I gather from various bearing experts - but the latter are cheaper to build and maintain, so nearly all modern bikes have those now. Shimano held out with cup and cone for a long time, maybe they still do - not sure.

So I just don't buy "but they'd be fresher today arriving at the climb".

David Walsh, who was instrumental in bringing down Lance Armstrong, is a fan of Pogačar and often writes articles (in the Times no less, which doesn't exactly carry a huge amount of pro cycling stories) that are full of praise for him, Vingegaard etc. That tells me all I need to know. 

it doesnt really, just because Walsh was a factor in Armstrongs case (everyone forgets LA Confidential was co written with Pierre Ballester), it was Landis really who was instrumental in taking him down.

so it doesnt mean Walsh is some annointed dope finder general, and his apparent seal of approval means theres nothing going on.

theres something going on with the current group of riders to produce these kind of numbers, and it aint all better nutrition and rounder wheels, whether it crosses the line into breaking the rules, I dont think anybody but those directly involved really knows.

It was Landis' testimony that was the smoking gun for sure, but Walsh had been pursuing him for years, speaking to Betsy Andreu, Emma O'Reilly amongst others, asking awkward questions at press conferences when no-one else dared. I was in the LA camp at the time and thought DW was little more than a troll, but was proven very wrong. He spent a.lot.of time with Team Sky / Ineos more recently and, although he wasn't impressed with everything, didn't see any signs of any wrongdoing (Jiffygate not withstanding). So if he's convinced by Pog etc al then that's good enough for me. 

Also, a decent cycling calculator will have taken different aero-drag and rolling resistance figures into account. A human doing 6.7 W/kg on a steel bike with 19c box section rims wearing wool, and a human doing 6.7 W/kg on a modern aero bike with a skinsuit, are both doing 6.7 W/kg. The speed will be different, but the physiological effort is directly comparable.

The human factor of a 7 W/kg effort is simply way above a 6.7 W/kg. The bike and equipment are irrelevant (other than to what speed results).

Jakrayan wrote: As I commented below, riders can now take in and utilise up to 250g of carbohydrates more over the course of a 5 hour race than was thought possible just a few years ago. That's around 1,000 (kilo)calories give or take, enough for an hour's hard effort for a decent amateur and enough to make a massive difference for a pro towards the end of a stage, not to mention how well they can recover for the following days if they're not completely depleted. So a gifted athlete beating a doped athlete's 'record' on a long climb by 3 minutes at the end of a mammoth stage with today's training methods, altitude camps, nutrition, aero equipment (which makes a difference even at 20kph), power meters etc etc is entirely feasible, especially considering the doper was probably riding on fumes by the end of the stage.  I've been wrong before - I was an LA believer - and was very skeptical of Pog and Roglic after Operation Aderlass when the UCI announced an investigation into Slovenian cycling in general. However, I am slowly starting to believe again.... 

Nothing wrong with a bit of skepticism. All of the same reasons (better bikes, training, nutrition etc) were provided as evidence when la and co had their results questioned. It could all the reasons you mentioned as well as a crop of freak cyclists maturing at the same time or maybe not. 

Yet another factor that will make a difference is the tendency towards shorter stages, and shorter transfers between stages thanks to pressure from the riders, along with having their own bedding so they are more rested before the start of each stage compared with days gone by. It might not make a huge difference in a one day or short stage race (I've raced following very little sleep and felt fine once the flag drops) but over 3 weeks an extra hour or two's rest every day could well be significant. 

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154 riders, 8 stages, €250,000, 1 yellow jersey: the 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift by the numbers

The 2024 event consists of 8 stages in 3 countries, 950 kilometres with 13,566m of elevation, and 154 riders vying for one yellow jersey.

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 The Olympic flame may be extinguished on August 11, but the cycling action reignites on August 12 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with the start of the third edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift .

This biggest event on the women's cycling calendar spans eight stages over seven days, taking riders from the Netherlands through Belgium and culminating in France atop the legendary Alpe d’Huez .

The peloton of 154 riders is filled with Olympians, national and world champions, living legends and the stars of tomorrow – all determined to showcase the best women’s cycling has to offer and challenge defending champion Demi Vollering (SD-Workx).

The racing will be broadcast in 190 countries worldwide, and you can learn how and when to tune in here . Be sure to also check out our preview for a comprehensive look at this year’s courses, contenders and key features.

As we gear up to bring you stories from this historic event in Rotterdam, here are some key facts and figures. 

The 2024 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift in numbers

1st - A year of firsts

- This year sees the event's first foreign  Grand Départ . The race starts in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, then moves onto the Ardennes into Liège, Belgium, and finally into France. 

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-The race also sees its first split stage . On day two of racing, the riders will tackle a short road race early in the day and a time trial in the afternoon. 

- The race finishes atop the Alpe d'Huez , a classic climb in cycling that's never been part of a women's WorldTour race until now. 

3rd Edition

This is the third edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift . While the newness of a women's Tour de France already seems to have worn off,  prior to its momentous rebirth in 2022 , it had been 33 years since we’d seen a woman don an official Tour de France yellow jersey . 

There are four different jersey classifications. These are the races within the overall event. The yellow jersey for the overall winner. The green points jersey is for the rider who amasses the most sprint points at the finish and at the intermediate sprints. The white-and-red polka dot jersey for the best climbers. And the white jersey for the best young rider under the age of 23. 

The race features 22 teams with 7 riders for a total of

The peloton is made up of 154 riders. While the start list has yet to be finalised, some standout riders include:

- At least 4 freshly crowned Olympic champions. Kristin Faulkner (EF -Oatly-Cannondale) won gold in the Olympic road race and was part of the golden Team Pursuit track team alongside Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM) and Lily Williams (Human Powered Health), who'll all race at the Tour. Australia's Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) won a gold medal in the time trial and will be one to watch during the time trial on stage 3.

- At least 3 former or current world champions:  While reigning road race world champion Lotte Kopecky will not be part of the race, the current world time trial champion, Chloe Dygert (Canyon-SRAM), is scheduled to compete. Rainbows can also be found on jersey sleeves and neck collars, indicating former world champions. Among them are Marianne Vos (Visma - Lease a Bike) and Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek).

Bonus : Anna van der Breggen, a three-time world champion, will be present off the bike, serving as the Directeur Sportif of SD-Workx. Likewise, formidable sprinter Giorgia Bronzini, a two-time world champion on the road, will be acting as Director Sportif at Human Powered Health. 

7 female Sports Directors

Of the 22 teams, 7 teams have female Sports Directors, including Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx), Ina Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek), Jolien D’Hoore (AG Insurance Soudal), Alexandra Greenfield ( Uno-X), Carmen Small (EF - Oatly - Cannondale), Melanie Briot (Cofides), Giorgia Bronzini (Human Powered Health) 

This year’s event features 8 diverse stages across 7 days. The race consists of:

- 3 flat stages - 2 hilly stages - 2 mountain stages - 1 individual time trial

949.7 kilometres

During the seven days of racing, the riders will complete 949.7 kilometres / 590 miles across three countries.

13,566m of elevation

- The race features 27 climbs for a total of 13,566m / 44,507 feet of elevation gain. 

- The 2024 edition traverses four mountain ranges: the Ardennes, Vosges, Jura and Alps.

166.4 kilometres

At 166.4 km / 103.4 miles, stage 7 features the longest course of the event

1,924 metres

Highest point of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift: 1,924m (6312feet) Col du Glandon on Stage 8

€250,000

The race features a total of €250,000 in prize money, including €50,000 for the overall winner. While among the biggest prize purses on the women's calendar, this pales in comparison to the men’s  Tour de France prize money,  which sees the winner take home €500,000, and the prize purse totals a whopping €2.5 million.

190 countries

The race will be broadcast across five continents and 190 countries, offering 22.2 hours of live broadcasting over the week. In 2023, nearly 20 million viewers tuned in for the race in France alone. Learn how to watch the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift from your country here.

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Cycling Weekly 's North American Editor, Anne-Marije Rook is old school. She holds a degree in journalism and started out as a newspaper reporter — in print! She can even be seen bringing a pen and notepad to the press conference.

Originally from The Netherlands, she grew up a bike commuter and didn't find bike racing until her early twenties when living in Seattle, Washington. Strengthened by the many miles spent darting around Seattle's hilly streets on a steel single speed, Rook's progression in the sport was a quick one. As she competed at the elite level, her journalism career followed, and soon she became a full-time cycling journalist. She's now been a cycling journalist for 11 years. 

The full general classification, along with the latest stage result, and the standings for the other jerseys

By Cycling Weekly Published 17 August 24

American blasts to the win over 12km coastline course ahead of Mathias Vacek and Wout van Aert

By Dan Challis Published 17 August 24

Eyes turn to Alpe d’Huez showdown as GC battle stalls on Le Grand-Bornand

By Anne-Marije Rook Published 17 August 24

Belgian victorious from breakaway, Vollering and Niewiadoma in stalemate in first Alpine battle

By Cycling Weekly Published 16 August 24

Kasia Niewiadoma maintained her lead in the yellow jersey on an action-filled day in north-east France

By Adam Becket Published 16 August 24

The dsm-firmenich PostNL rider came down in the same crash which saw Demi Vollering hit the deck

"We have to wait and see how it feels tomorrow morning. But I assume I will be able to continue the Tour tomorrow," says the race favourite

By Anne-Marije Rook Published 15 August 24

For the ­Tashkent City Women’s Pro Cycling Team, just getting to the start line of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift was already a win.

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Max Maeder, buoyed by support, to resume racing in September

SINGAPORE – It has been just slightly more than a week since Singapore kitefoiler Maximilian Maeder clinched a historic Olympic bronze in Paris on Aug 9 , but the 17-year-old is not resting on his laurels, with a race in early September lined up.

Speaking to The Sunday Times after riding in a celebratory boat parade organised by the Singapore Sailing Federation at the Marina Bay on Aug 17, the two-time world champion said he is galvanised by the support from Singaporeans to return to racing.

“What invigorates me even more is to see what I’ve come back to, the pride of the people here... All that gives me way more motivation than just simply competitiveness, to continue to do well to try and improve and persevere in the sport.”

“I’m going to be (heading to the) gym and train,” he said. “I probably won’t be able to get out on the water much, but it’s getting back into the season.

“It’s about putting that practice in, and as long as I try to stay fit and get into the groove again, it’ll be good.”

Maximilian’s next race will be the Sept 4-8 Austrian leg of the KiteFoil World Series in Traunsee, where he may come up against Paris 2024 gold medallist Valentin Bontus and runner-up Toni Vodisek of Slovenia.

He is looking forward to facing the two rivals again, adding: “I think Valentin will be (there) because it’s his home country and near where he lives, so that’ll be fun. I don’t know about Toni though, he might be taking a break.”

When asked if losing to the duo in Marseille had given him extra motivation for the race, he replied: “Maybe.”

But, given his competitive nature, Maximilian does not care who he will be racing against. 

“I’m excited to race at any time with anyone, I don’t think it’s just with (Bontus and Vodisek) specifically,” he said. “I just love to compete.”

Earlier, he had hosted a meet-and-greet session for the public, organised by his sponsor DBS, at Esplanade Mall’s Foreword Coffee. About 200 people turned up to cheer him on and queued for photos and autographs.

Another sailor who is eager to return to the water is Ryan Lo.

Although he revealed after the Paris Games that he will be taking a break from sailing , the 27-year-old is keen to try his hands at wing foiling.

“I tend to do a bit of that with my brother, who’s also really good at it,” said Lo, who finished 25th out of 43 in the men’s dinghy event. “Maybe we’ll go to Bintan Island to have some fun, just to do something related to sailing, but for leisure.”

Compatriots Justin Liu and Denise Lim, who usually compete in the mixed Nacra 17, have also picked up wing foiling, together with laser racing and even pickleball.

The pair, who featured at the Rio Olympics in 2016 but did not qualify for Paris, explained that they wanted to stay fit while trying something new.

Liu said: “Both of us are back to work, so we have commitments to that. It’s also a good timing, because it sort of gives us a good chance to take a break, do different things and once that’s done, get back into the flow of sailing again and make plans from there.”

When asked if the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 was still in the picture, given Liu would be 37 and Lim 36 by then, he said that they will not count themselves out.

“We haven’t closed (the chapter) yet, we know we still have something to give to the sport,” he added.

“For us, our (Paris) Olympic campaign didn’t end on the best note… we’ll see how it goes in these few years (plus) we still have the Asian Games before that.”

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Tour de France Femmes: Charlotte Kool wins stage 1 sprint in The Hague and takes first yellow jersey

Ahtosalo and Balsamo finish second and third as Wiebes hit by mechanical problem

How it unfolded

Charlotte Kool (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) won stage 1 of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes in a mass sprint ahead of Anniina Ahtosalo (Uno-X Mobility) and Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek). Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) was piloted perfectly in the final kilometre but appeared to drop her chain after contact with Ahtosalo, as her teammate Barbara Guarischi started the final leadout. 

When Guarischi looked around, it was Kool who came out of her slipstream to take the lead and hold off the challenge from Ahtosalo, Balsamo, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Lotta Henttala (EF-Oatly-Cannondale).

“It’s unbelievable, it’s a dream coming true. It was not an easy season, but this is what it was all about," Kool said after her first Tour stage victory.  

"I want to thank so many people, my coach who always kept believing in me, all my people around me, this is unbelievable. 

“It was a really hectic final, but I like that. I went so early and thought, ‘oh, it’s too long’, and it hurt so bad, but it was enough in the end. 

"I think this is the best day of my life. Everything comes together, and that’s really special,” Kool continued, also taking the yellow jersey in her home country."

After the sign-in and neutral start in the Rotterdam city centre, the peloton faced a 14km neutral zone to the real start that doubled as a sightseeing tour of the city. 

A first crash happened in the neutral zone, and Natalie Grinczer (Roland) was one of the riders involved in her comeback race after crashing out of the Vuelta Femenina in May. Grinczer struggled at the back of the peloton for most of the stage and eventually had to abandon, as did four riders of the Tashkent City Women team.

Laboral Kutxa were the most active team early in the stage, initiating the first breakaway that also included riders from Canyon-SRAM and AG Insurance-Soudal, though they were caught after only five kilometres.

The Basque team again sent a rider off the front with 80 km to go and Cristina Tonetti who quickly gained a 40-second lead. 

When Giorgia Vettorello (Roland) jumped from the peloton to chase Tonetti down, she was shadowed by Yurani Blanco who didn’t take turns, protecting her teammate’s position at the front. 

Vettorello and Blanco were soon caught again, and on the Calandbrug, a crash close to the front of the peloton took down about a dozen riders including Olympic time trial champion Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) and Lizzie Deignan (Lidl-Trek) whose teammate Gaia Realini suffered a mechanical just after the bridge.

Tonetti kept going and won the only mountain sprint of the day as she climbed out of the brand-new Maasdeltatunnel, taking the polka-dot jersey that she will wear until at least stage 4 as there are no mountain points on offer on Tuesday’s stages 2 and 3. 

Her objective accomplished, Tonetti dropped back to the peloton, and the crashed riders eventually made it back too.

There were no attacks for the remainder of the stage but the pace was kept high. Vos won the intermediate sprint ahead of Ruby Roseman-Gannon (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and Marthe Truyen (Fenix-Deceuninck) while Wiebes, Kool, Balsamo and others saved themselves for the final sprint.

Amanda Spratt (Lidl-Trek), Olympic road race champion Kristen Faulkner (EF-Oatly-Cannondale), and Balsamo suffered misfortune with crashes or mechanicals on the run-in to The Hague, but they all made their way back to the peloton.

The sprinters’ teams lined up at the front in the final 15km, and even the 2023 Tour de France Femmes winner Demi Vollering (SD Worx-Protime), took turns in her team’s lead-out train for Wiebes.

Élise Chabbey, Alice Towers (Canyon-SRAM), Barbara Malcotti (Human Powered Health), and Loes Adegeest (FDJ-Suez) crashed in the last three kilometres. 

Up front, SD Worx-Protime were in control as the race passed the flamme rouge. But in the chaos of the final five hundred metres, Wiebes suffered a serious mechanical problem and was unable to pedal after another rider rode into her rear derailleur. Wiebes was unable to sprint and could only watch on as her rivals surged ahead of her.

Kool came from behind and surged past Wiebes’s lead out Barbara Guarischi to win with a good margin ahead of the four closest riders behind her. She also took the first yellow jersey and the green jersey of the 2024 Tour de France Femmes. Stage runner-up Ahtosalo took the best young rider’s white jersey. 

They will wear the jerseys during Tuesday’s 67.9km morning stage from Dordrecht to Rotterdam. 

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Lukas Knöfler started working in cycling communications in 2013 and has seen the inside of the scene from many angles. Having worked as press officer for teams and races and written for several online and print publications, he has been Cyclingnews’ Women’s WorldTour correspondent since 2018.

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