The Winners and Not-Quite-Winners of the 2023 Tour de France
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The 2023 Tour de France was one for the ages, with intense, aggressive racing from start to finish and a tight GC battle until the beginning of the Tour’s final week. So before we close the books on the men’s race and continue enjoying the Tour de France Femmes, here’s a look at some notable winning, almost-winning, and not-so-much-winning performances from the 2023 Tour de France.
“Winner, winner Poulet de Bresse dinner!”
The defending champion, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard entered the 2023 Tour de France as the top favorite, but we wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lost the race to Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar, who won back-to-back Tours in 2020 and 2021. And after the Dane lost almost all of his early advantage over Pogačar at the end of Stages 6 and 9 we wondered if our suspicions might come true.
But Vingegaard trusted the process, commenting several times during the first half of the Tour that the race would be decided in the Alps. And boy was he right! His win on Stage 16’s time trial was maybe the most dominant time trial victory we’ve seen in decades, and the way he and his team systematically ground down Pogačar on the Col de la Loze on Stage 17 is the stuff of legend.
And yes, he’s not the most swashbuckling rider in the peloton, but he is the most calculatingly cool, traits that certainly helped him this year. If last year’s victory proved that his runner-up finish in 2021 was no fluke, then this year’s established him as the best grand tour rider in the sport. Up next: the Tour of Spain, where he’ll join Tour of Italy champion Primož Roglič in trying to win all three of this season’s grand tours for Jumbo-Visma.
Tadej Pogačar
Even when he doesn’t win, Pogačar finds a way to come out on top. Yes, he “lost” the Tour–which says a lot about how high he’s set the bar given the fact that he won two stages, the white jersey, and finished second overall. But that’s quite an achievement considering he came to the race underprepared after crashing in April’s Liège–Bastogne–Liège.
And remember: Pogačar came into the Tour having already won Paris-Nice, the Tour of Flanders, the Amstel Gold Race, and Fleche Wallonne. That’s an incredible season in itself, one that we haven’t seen since the days when riders raced every race on the calendar–and raced them to win. He’s a true throwback and easily the sport’s most all-round talented–and exciting rider–so we can forgive him for “only” finishing second.
But more importantly, Pogačar never let his bad days get the best of him, maintaining his joie de vivre even after experiencing what will likely be his worst ever day on a bike (Stage 17). His win on Stage 20 completed his transformation and perhaps sent an important message to Vingegaard ahead of whenever their rivalry will be renewed.
He hasn’t yet revealed what’s next on his program, but we’re hoping it’s the World Championships in Glasgow and then the Tour of Spain, two events he has yet to win and races that–if he gets them–will make an already legendary season even more incredible.
And while we’re on the topic: let’s give a shout-out to Pog’s teammate, Adam Yates. The Briton won Stage 1, took the Tour’s first yellow jersey, then rode his heart out for Pogačar and still finished third overall (one spot ahead of his twin brother, Simon). Wow.
Bahrain Victorious
Just weeks after the team tragically lost Switzerland’s Gino Mäder due to a crash in the Tour de Suisse, Bahrain Victorious lived up to its name, winning three stages at the Tour with three different riders (Pello Bilbao, Woet Poels, and Matej Mohorič)–all in spectacular fashion on three of the Tour’s most intense and explosive stages (Stages 10, 15, and 19).
Even better: Bilbao rode his breakaway stage win–which shot him up the Tour’s General Classification–to a top-10 GC finish, following one of the most underrated yet consistent GC performances in this year’s Tour.
But the team’s most memorable contribution to this year’s Tour might have come after Mohorič won Stage 19 in a photo finish. His post-race interview is the stuff of legend, one of the most authentic, transparent, thoughtful, and emotional post-race reactions we’ve ever seen. Go ahead and watch it below—we’ll wait.
SRAM
When Jumbo-Visma switched from Shimano to SRAM components this past off-season, many of us wondered why. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, right? Well, the easy answer is that money was the answer–company’s pay big bucks to get their parts on the best teams’ bikes, and the agreement was surely lucrative for Jumbo-Visma.
But a team as calculating and as methodical as Jumbo-Visma doesn’t make such a switch unless it’s done its homework and truly believes there’s something to be gained by making the change. Well, the proof was in the pudding, with Vingegaard riding a trouble-free Tour on his way to bringing home SRAM’s first Tour de France victory since 2010–and the first Tour de France victory to be won on a wireless drivetrain.
Lidl-Trek
Formerly Trek-Segafredo, the squad signed a new title sponsor right before the Tour, rebranding itself as Lidl-Trek thanks to the addition of the German discount supermarket chain. Well, the team immediately rewarded the company’s investment: Denmark’s Mads Pedersen won Stage 8 in Limoges and Italy’s Giulio Ciccone took home the polka dot jersey as the Tour’s King of the Mountains. They also made a splash with some stunning bike paint jobs and a fantastic-looking kit (aside from Ciccone’s polka dot shorts).
The Tour’s Organizers—and Fans
When the route of the 2023 Tour de France was unveiled last autumn, we were excited by the jagged, mountainous route that we knew would benefit opportunistic riding and climbers. Well, the race didn’t disappoint and ASO, the Tour organizers, deserves the credit for putting together a race that offered a little something for everyone. There were few “boring” stages, and even the transitional stages that brought the race from one major GC battleground to another produced exciting racing–just go back and watch the replays of Stages 18 and 19 if you don’t believe us.
Next year’s Tour will be interesting as well: with Paris hosting the Summer Olympics, the Tour can’t conclude in the French capital, so we’ll get three stages in Italy to start the Tour and mountainous final weekend in the hills around Nice–and an individual time trial on the final day–to end it. We won’t know what happens in between until late October, but we already can’t wait to see what the organizers have in store.
“Alright, we’ll call it a draw.”
Jasper Philipsen
Yes, Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen won four stages and the green jersey as the winner of the Tour’s Points Classification, but the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider was often criticized for his tactics at times, whether deviating from his line in sprints or blocking riders from going up the road in a breakaway. In the end, the commissaires found no fault with his actions, but in the court of public opinion, he came away with fewer warm fuzzies than his palmares might have deserved.
INEOS Grenadiers
INEOS won back-to-back stages during the Tour’s second weekend–which is better than most of the teams in this year’s Tour. But for a team that dominated the race for so many years, winning the Tour seven times with four different riders between 2012 and 2019, one can’t help but think they wanted to achieve more.
They entered the race with two young GC captains in Spain’s Carlos Rodríguez and Great Britain’s Tom Pidcock–and gave them both the freedom to ride their best races. But Rodríguez, who won Stage 14 in the Alps and looked to have a great chance of finishing third overall, “faded” in the third week and fell to fifth. And Pidcock, who won a stage atop Alpe d’Huez last year, cracked in the Alps and finished 13th–more than 47 minutes behind Vingegaard.
The team remains at a crossroads: Rodríguez is rumored to be leaving this off-season, and Pidcock, despite learning lots of valuable lessons in this year’s Tour, hasn’t shown he’s able to carry the team’s GC hopes all by himself. INEOS might have to look elsewhere for the answer: the team is rumored to be trying to sign Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel away from Soudal Quick-Step, which might be their best chance to make itself a true Tour contender once again.
“Well, there’s always the Vuelta.”
The French
Aside from Victor Lafay’s win on Stage 2, there wasn’t much for the French to celebrate during this year’s Tour. Stage-hunter Julian Alaphilippe tried to win a stage for Soudal-Quick Step, but faded every time there was a stage-winning selection. GC contender David Guadu fell short in trying to equal or better his fourth-place finish last year with Groupama-FDJ (he ended the Tour 9th overall). And Gaudu’s teammate, national hero Thibaut Pinot, failed to win a stage in his final Tour de France (despite making us all dream for a little bit on Stage 20).
And while Cofidis took a second stage victory (Stage 12) after ending its 15-year draught with Lafay’s win on Stage 2–and AG2R won a stage as well (Stage 17)–neither were won by Frenchman (Ion Izaguirre for Cofidis and Felix Gall for AG2R). All in all, it wasn’t a banner year for the French.
EF Education-EasyPost
The American team came to the Tour with a podium contender in Richard Carapaz, a former podium-finisher-turned-super-domestique in Rigoberto Uran, a proven grand tour stage winner in Magnus Cort, and one of the sport’s best up-and-coming all-rounders in Neilson Powless. In short: expectations were high.
Well, things didn’t go as planned: Carapaz crashed on Stage 1 and abandoned the Tour, Uran and Cort were rather anonymous until popping up in a couple of breakways during the third week, and Powless wore the polka dot jersey for 12 days but (in our humble opinion) should’ve focused his energy on winning a stage instead. The team maintained its fighting spirit throughout all three weeks, but they had to be disappointed with how things went in the end. Look for Carapaz to try and bounce back at the Tour of Spain, a race in which he finished second overall in 2020.
Movistar
Spain’s only WorldTour squad lost its GC leader, Enric Mas, in the same crash that ended the Tour for Carapaz. The team pivoted to hunting for stage wins instead, but never seemed to recover from American Matteo Jorgenson’s heartbreaking near-miss on the Puy de Dôme at the end of Stage 9. (He would later abandon the Tour after injuring his hamstring in a crash on Stage 15.) Overall, the team finished the race with just four riders and only one team–DSM-firmenich–earned less prize money in this year’s Tour.
There’s some good news, though: Mas, a three-time runner-up at the Tour of Spain, should be back at the Spanish grand tour, and the team is said to be signing Rodríguez away from INEOS. So more help is on the way.
Peter Sagan
Slovakia’s Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies), who holds the record for the most green jerseys in Tour history with seven, was racing his final Tour de France this year–but we forgive you if you didn’t realize that given the fact that his best result was eighth place on Stage 11 in Moulins.
Sagan deserves credit for the current style of racing, one that favors aggression and versatility. Seemingly unstoppable in his prime, the competition often had no answer to him. Before there was Wout van Aert, there was Peter Sagan.
The 33-year-old deserved a better send-off, but as Pinot showed when he went on the attack at the end of Stage 20 in the Vosges, there are indeed no gifts at the Tour. Sagan wanted more from his last one, then he needed to do it himself. Now he heads off to race his mountain bike, with the goal of competing at next summer’s Olympics. We’ll be rooting for him if he does, and wishing him peace and happiness as he transitions into life after professional cycling.
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