2022 Tour de France

Lore & Background

For years the Tour de France belonged to a small constellation of names—Contador, Froome, Nibali, Dumoulin—and the 2022 edition is widely cited by fans as the year that constellation shifted. Vingegaard, a quiet, methodical Norwegian who had finished second to Pogačar in the 2021 Tour, arrived in Denmark with the tactical patience of a chess player and the climbing power of a mountain goat. Pogačar, the Slovenian prodigy who had already collected a yellow jersey at twenty-two, was expected to dominate. Instead, the race became a war of attrition fought across the Pyrenees and the Alps, with the two men trading attacks, suffering in silence, and ultimately separating on the final mountain stage to the Plateau de Beille.

The third wheel on the podium, Remco Evenepoel, brought a different kind of magic. In his very first Tour, the young Belgian rode with a fearlessness that reminded fans of the early years of riders like Wiggins or Contador—attacking from the front, taking time bonuses, and finishing third in a race where the two men ahead of him had a decade more Grand Tour mileage. His presence signalled to the wider cycling community that the next generation was not merely arriving; it was already racing.

The Copenhagen start itself was a statement. For the first time in decades the Tour left France for a non-traditional opening, and the team time trial on the Danish capital's waterfront set a tone of spectacle and tension that carried through all three weeks. Fans who followed the race on television or in cafés along the route often describe 2022 as the Tour that made them fall in love with the sport all over again.

In Their Own Story

The wind off the Øresund Strait carried the smell of salt and diesel as the peloton rolled through Copenhagen's harbour district, the team time trial's six-man formations slicing through the morning air in near silence. A fan on the seawall, a faded Jumbo-Visma jersey over a rain jacket, watched the Norwegian in the lead-out position and felt, for reasons he could not name, that something was different this year. Three weeks later, on a hairpin above the Plateau de Beille, that same fan would be screaming at a television in a small kitchen in Bergen, watching a man in red and white attack on the final climb while a Slovenian in sky blue looked back, just once, and then looked down at his own hands. The kitchen was quiet after that. The yellow jersey was his. It had always been his, the fan thought, even if no one else had known yet.

Reader's Guide

The 2022 Tour de France was unforgettable because it delivered a three-week GC battle between two riders who had never truly separated before, and it ended with a final mountain stage that felt scripted by fate. The race opened in Copenhagen with a team time trial that set early time gaps and a tone of controlled aggression. Through the flat and rolling stages of France, the breakaway hunters and sprinters had their moments, but the story always circled back to the two men in the yellow and pink jerseys, Vingegaard and Pogačar, trading small attacks and watching each other's wheels with predatory patience.

The Pyrenees brought the first real separation, with both riders attacking in the final climbs and the gap between them swinging by minutes. In the Alps, the race's centre of gravity shifted. A high-speed crash on a descent cost Pogačar precious minutes, and the psychological weight of that moment was felt by everyone watching. Vingegaard, characteristically unflappable, did not celebrate. He simply rode on.

The final mountain stage, a long climb to the Plateau de Beille, became the race's defining image. Vingegaard launched his attack on the steepest gradient, and Pogačar, exhausted from the previous day's misfortune, could not match the pace. The gap grew to over four minutes. The yellow jersey was sealed. Evenepoel, who had been a constant presence in breakaways throughout the race, held third and gave the podium a generational glow that fans still talk about. Three weeks, twenty-one stages, and a new order had been written in the mountains.

Did You Know?

• The 2022 Tour was the 109th edition of the race and the first to begin in Denmark, with the opening team time trial staged on the streets and waterfront of Copenhagen.
• Remco Evenepoel finished third in the general classification of his very first Tour de France, a result that placed him ahead of several multi-time Grand Tour winners in the same race.
• The decisive final mountain stage climbed to the Plateau de Beille, a summit that had also featured in previous Tours and became the backdrop for Vingegaard's winning attack.
• Jonas Vingegaard had finished second to Tadej Pogačar in the 2021 Tour, making the 2022 head-to-head a direct rematch that cycling fans had been anticipating for a full year.