The Winners and Losers of Week 1 of the Tour de France
With so much drama crammed into just nine stages, it’s hard to believe that we’re only a little more than a week into the 2023 Tour de France. What we expected to be a challenging and exciting race hasn’t failed to disappoint, with some amazing stage-winning performances, an intense battle at the top of the Tour’s General Classification, and a little bit (make that, a lot) of heartbreak as well. So as the race heads into its first rest day, here’s a look at some of the Tour’s first week winners and losers.
Winners
UAE Team Emirates
If you’re UAE Team Emirates, you can’t be happier about how the Tour has started. Things kicked-off with a stage win and the yellow jersey for Great Britain’s Adam Yates, after the 30-year-old out-kicked his twin brother Simon (Team Jayco AlUla) to win Stage 1 in Bilbao.
Behind him, Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar looked like the rider who won back-to-back Tours in 2020 and 2021–not someone who had his Tour preparation interrupted after breaking his wrist in a crash in late-April and came to the race having competed just twice since.
And while Pogačar lost more than a minute to his biggest rival, Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), at the end of Stage 5, the 24-year-old rebounded quickly, dropping Vingegaard on the climb to Cauterets on his way to winning Stage 6 and then gapping him near the top of the Puy de Dôme at the end of Stage 9. Heading into the second week, Pogačar now sits second overall, just 17 seconds behind Vingegaard, and seems to be getting better each day.
What’s more important is the fact that his team is sitting back and letting Jumbo-Visma do all the work, which seems to be playing right into Pog’s hands. And with Yates sitting fifth overall, he has something he’s never had at the Tour de France: a lieutenant capable of a high Tour finish of his own, which gives UAE one more tactical card to play if and when it needs to. Even though they’re not wearing yellow (anymore), UAE is sitting pretty.
Cofidis
France’s Victor Lafay (Cofidis) made a name for himself when he was the only rider able to follow Pogačar and Vingegaard on the Côte de Pike near the end of Stage 1 last Saturday. But on Sunday he made himself a national hero, attacking an elite group of riders near the finish of Stage 2 in San Sebastián on Sunday, winning the stage and breaking his team’s 15-year Tour de France winless streak. At this point, anything else Cofidis achieves is gravy. Lafay has already made their Tour a success.
Jai Hindley
The winner of the 2022 Giro d’Italia, Australia’s Jai Hindley (BORA-hansgrohe) enters the Tour’s second week in third place overall, having already pulled-off a stage win and spent a day in the yellow jersey. Currently 2:40 behind Vingegaard and 2:23 behind Pogačar, it’s unlikely that he’ll wear the yellow jersey again this year, but with a lead of 1:42 over the Tour’s fourth place rider (Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez) and a strong team supporting him, a podium finish in his first Tour de France (to go with what he’s already accomplished) would be a fantastic result.
Jasper Philipsen
Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is currently the fastest man in the world, with three stage wins in the Tour so far and a commanding 110-point lead in the Tour’s green jersey competition. Simply put: he’s crushing it. Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel deserves at least some of the credit. The Classics superstar has proven to be the Tour’s best lead-out man, expertly setting-up Philipsen to win each of his stages. With a handful of sprint stages left, we can easily see the Belgian leaving the Tour with five or six victories–and the green jersey.
North Americans
So far, it looks like it’s going to be a banner year for North American riders. [link to Mike’s North American round-up] with American Neilson Powless currently wearing the polka dot jersey as the leader of the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition and Canada’s Mike Woods (Israel-PremierTech) taking a fantastic stage win atop the Puy de Dôme on Stage 9.
Fans Hoping for an Aggressive Tour
With just 17 seconds separating Vingegaard and Pogačar at the top of the Tour’s General Classification–and seemingly no end in sight to the mental game they’re playing with one another, we’re in for an exciting two weeks of racing. The two champions wasted no time in reigniting their battle from last year, attacking on the final climb of Stage 1–and then again on Stage 2. And Stage 5. And Stage 6. And Stage 9. (You get the idea.)
The Tour’s organizers have created one of the most challenging routes in decades, with lots of stages built for opportunistic riding–and ambushes. Both riders–and their teams–have brought their A-game to the race, and as fans we’re all in for a treat.
Losers
Jumbo-Visma
Vingegaard currently wears the yellow jersey, but he’s losing his grip. It seems like weeks ago that the Dane dropped Pogačar at the end of Stage 5, gaining over a minute on his biggest rival. But the tide turned quickly, with Pogačar dropping Vingegaard to win Stage 6 and then again near the end of Stage 9. So what was once an advantage approaching a minute, has now shrunk to just 17 seconds.
To make matters worse, it seems like Vingegaard is getting worse while Pogačar is getting better, something we wondered about heading into the Tour. Vingegaard clearly entered the race at or near his best, fresh from winning two stages and overall at the Critérium du Dauphiné in early-June. Pogačar, on the other hand, came to Bilbao as a bit of a mystery after having his training interrupted by a broken wrist he sustained in a crash in late-April. If Vingegaard is to win the Tour, many opined, he needs to take advantage of Pogačar’s lack of top form during the Tour’s first week, for he’ll certainly get strong as the race progresses. Well, that didn’t happen.
Pogačar lives in Vingegaard’s head now, and he knows he can just ride away from the Dane whenever he wants to. Vingegaard has done well to not fall apart when Pog gets a gap, therefore minimizing his losses, but one can’t help but wonder how much longer he’ll get away with such tactics.
And speaking of tactics, it’s time for Jumbo-Visma to change their approach to the race. Easily the Tour’s strongest team, they’re experts at setting a hard tempo at the front of the race, but that tactic works best when you’re riding for the Tour’s strongest rider, which they aren’t anymore. For the past few days they’ve been giving Pogačar a free ride to the finale, without making him or his team do much of the work. With only a slender margin between the two of them–and with a large gap back to Hindley in third–Jumbo needs to find a way to force UAE into taking some of the initiative. If not, they’ll continue playing right into Pogačar’s hands.
Any GC Contender Not Named Vingegaard or Pogačar
Barring something catastrophic, the 2023 Tour de France is a two horse race. Sorry, everyone else, but you’re racing for third.
Movistar
Movistar can’t seem to catch a break. First they lost their GC captain, Spain’s Enric Mas, after a crash near the end of Stage 1, and on Sunday they lost Stage 9 in heartbreaking fashion after American Matteo Jorgenson was caught by Woods near the top of the Puy de Dôme.
The Tour can be cruel, but the best teams are able to pivot when bad fortune strikes. Take EF Education-EasyPost, for example. The team lost their GC contender, Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz, to the same crash that took out Mas, but the team shifted their focus to Powless and his bid for the polka dot jersey. Movistar needs to make a similar shift–taking more chances with Jorgenson is a good start–to try and salvage something from this year’s Tour.
Green Jersey Challengers
We thought the 2023 Tour and its challenging course would produce an exciting and possibly surprising race to win the green jersey as the winner of the Tour’s Points Classification, [link to green jersey contenders] but Philipsen’s blown that idea out the window. At this point, if you’re a sprinter and you’re still in the Tour, you’re racing for stage wins.
Soudal–Quick Step
Speaking of sprinters and stage wins (or lack thereof), Soudal–Quick Step has had a dreadful Tour, with no stage wins thus far. Now as Cofidis can tell you, stage wins aren’t easy to come by, but when you’re Quick Step, the bar is much, much higher. Case in point: during Cofidis’ 15-year Tour winless streak, Quick Step won 36 stages, two green jerseys, and a polka dot jersey.
But this year the team seems lost, with the Netherland’s Fabio Jakobsen failing to contend in the Tour’s field sprints (a crash at the end of Stage 4 hasn’t helped) and France’s Julian Alaphilippe coming up short on the Tour’s punchier finishes. At this rate the team looks like it could go winless at the Tour for the first time since 2012, which makes their decision to not Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel to this year’s race look all the more perplexing.
Fans Hoping to See History
We could never call one of the winningest riders in Tour history a “loser,” so we’re putting it this way: if like us you were jumping out of your seat and screaming at the top of your lungs when Cav hit the front at the end of Stage 7–only to tear up a little bit (okay, a lot) when he crashed and abandoned the race near the end of Stage 8–we feel you.
Cav, if you’re reading this, you’re one of cycling’s greatest champions–and the best sprinter in the history of the sport. You deserved better in your final Tour de France, and the race won’t be the same without you and your quest to break the record for the most stage wins in Tour history. We hope you’ll reconsider your retirement, and accept your team manager’s offer to come back for one more shot at history.
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