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Mark Cavendish reunited with leadout king Mark Renshaw at Astana Qazaqstan for Tour de France

Australian joins team as 'sprint and leadout consultant'

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Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw are to be reunited at Astana Qazaqstan, as the latter joins the team as a sprint consultant for the Tour de France . Renshaw said he cancelled other jobs in July to take the chance to make history.

Cavendish will head to the Tour next week, his 14th, hoping to break the record for stage wins; his record currently stands at 34, tied with Eddy Merckx. Just one more victory would see the Manxman top the standings.

To help with this goal, his Astana Qazaqstan team has brought in Renshaw, Cavendish's long-term former leadout man to consult on sprint finishes. He led Cavendish to many of his famous wins, including helping him to six in 2009, when both rode for Columbia HTC.

The pair rode for HTC Highroad together, and then rejoined forces at Etixx Quick-Step and then latterly Dimension Data. Renshaw retired in 2019, while Cavendish is still riding.

“I am really thrilled to return to the Tour de France with Astana Qazaqstan Team and Mark Cavendish as a sprint and lead-out consultant," the 40-year-old said in a statement from Astana. 

"After discussing the possibility to join Astana Qazaqstan Team with Alexandr Vinokurov and my ex-teammate Dmitriy Fofonov, I am really looking forward to bringing my skillset to help the team chase success. 

"Our goal is to secure victories in the sprint stages, and I am eager to share my knowledge and experience gained as a lead-out rider and teammate of Mark Cavendish."

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Cavendish's first - and only - win of the season came in May at the Giro d'Italia , where the 38-year-old won the final stage in Rome . He only needs a single similar opportunity to go top in the all-time stage win ranking.

“Mark’s recent victory in the Giro d'Italia is proof that he still possesses the speed, power, and determination needed to win Grand Tour stages," Renshaw continued. "With the support of Astana Qazaqstan Team and the talented riders selected for the race, I am confident that he has what it takes to win in this year’s Tour de France. 

"I cancelled other jobs in July which shows my confidence in him. As we prepare for the important sprint stages, I am excited to work with the team’s Sports Directors to develop effective tactics and strategies, analysing and breaking down sprint stages is something I absolutely love to do.

"Mark’s career is already a big success, but I am excited to have the opportunity to help Mark finish his career on an absolute high and chase his 35th victory in the Grand Boucle ."

Cavendish wrote on Instagram : "Sooo buzzing about this.... Apart from so many years together, so many victories & so many memories, the analytical view that Mark has on sprinting is ridiculously valuable. With the added bonus of knowing first hand how both my legs and mind work. Myself and everyone at Astana are proud and excited to have you on board mate."

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Adam is Cycling Weekly ’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

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Home Explore France Official Tourism Board Website

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The Tour de France

Cycling Tourism Sporting Activities

• date From 29 June to 21 July 2024
• place France

Reading time: 0 min Published on 22 March 2024, updated on 7 June 2024

It's a much-anticipated summer event. Every summer, the Tour thrills the roads of France to the rhythm of a peloton led by the yellow jersey! The 2024 edition promises to be a historic one, with a start in Florence, Italy, and an unprecedented finish in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais. See you on June 29!

For the first time in its history, the main start will take place in Florence, Italy. The riders will then criss-cross the southern Alps and the Occitan coastline before tackling the Pyrenees and then crossing Brittany along part of the Atlantic Coast .

The race promises to be a spectacular affair, with 3,586 kilometres to be covered in 21 stages. Riders will face a number of challenges along the way: more than 20 2nd, 1st or Hors Catégorie passes, 7 mountain stages and 4 high altitude finishes.

A grand finale... on the Côte d'Azur

Like every year, Paris will host a stage of the Tour de France, but it won't be the last or the least competitive. Quite the contrary, in fact... Just a few days before the opening ceremony of the Paris Games, the riders in the peloton will set off from the Château de Versailles on Bastille Day, 14 July, before parading through the streets of the capital in a 44km time trial that could well prove decisive in the battle for the yellow jersey.

After passing through the south of Burgundy , the Tour de France returned to its familiar route through the Alps before descending the Rhône Valley to Provence and the Côte d'Azur ...

For the first time in the history of the Tour de France, the 111th edition of the Grande Boucle will finish in Nice, on the iconic Promenade des Anglais, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A dream finale on the Côte d'Azur on 21 July. Emotion, suspense, adrenalin and thrills will all be on offer!

Initiated in 1903, the Tour de France is a legendary cycling race of international renown. Created by Henri Desgrange, director of the newspaper l'Auto, a visionary who wanted to create a sporting event to enhance his medium's standing and increase sales.

The Tour de France has become a beloved tradition, held every year for over a hundred years (apart from during the two world wars ). Cyclists from all over the world come to fight to win the famous (and famously coveted) yellow jersey! The event is broadcast in no less than 190 countries and followed by millions of people around the world.

Four riders have won the Tour de France five times: Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. Last year, in 2023, it was Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard who won for the second time.

The women's Tour de France

Voir cette publication sur Instagram Une publication partagée par Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (@letourfemmes)

Since 2022, the Grande Boucle has become a women's race again through the Tour de France Femmes, led by Marion Rousse, a former French road cycling champion and television consultant. On 12 August 2024, after the Paris Olympic Games, the top cyclists worldwide will start from Rotterdam in the Netherlands and cycle over a thousand kilometers.

Admire the inimitable beauty of the French countryside

The Tour is the ideal opportunity for spectators and supporters to admire the diversity and the beauty of French landscapes, from craggy coasts regions and charming coastlines, to soaring mountains, lush farms and its picturesque towns and villages. The Tour de France is more than just a tradition: it's a beautiful escape into the heart of France and its riches.

Le Tour, c'est aussi l'occasion pour les spectateurs et les supporters d'admirer la diversité et la beauté des paysages français, qu'il s'agisse des régions côtières, des montagnes et campagnes ou encore des villes et villages pittoresques... En 2024, une dizaine de nouveaux sites apercevront les coureurs pour la première fois dont Saint-Vulbas, Gevrey-Chambertin, Colombey-les-Deux-Églises, Évaux-les-Bains, Gruissan, Superdévoluy ou encore le col de la Couillole. Une échappée belle au cœur de la France !

7 events not to miss in France in 2024

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• Critérium du Dauphiné

A Beginner's Guide to the Tour de France

All you need to know about the biggest race in the world, from how the race works, and where you can watch all the action

Will Newton

Race news editor.

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The Tour de France is a bike race cut above all others

The biggest bike race on the planet, the Tour de France , is the pinnacle of the cycling calendar, but what is this race, why is it so famous and how on earth does one win it? If you’ve ever found yourself asking one of these questions then worry not, for this Newcomer’s Guide is going to help you decrypt and decipher this summer’s ‘Big Loop’ around France…

Ask somebody to name a bike race and nine times out of ten that person will reply, ‘the Tour de France’. Ask that same person to explain the Tour de France and you’ll be lucky to be given a coherent sentence devoid of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’. You see, while the Tour may be one of, if not the most, watched sporting events in the world - with 3.5 billion viewers annually - it’s also one of the most confusing with a rule book almost as long as the route itself.

This confusing aspect of the Tour can be an obstacle to many, so to ease you in we’ve put together this handy guide explaining the basics behind the race - from what is the Tour de France, to how does one win it. Whether you’re a complete newcomer or perhaps an annual Tour watcher, there’ll be something in this guide for you and something that will finally give you an answer to - at least one of - your many questions about the race.

Velo Collection/Getty Images

The Tour is made up of 21 mini races called ‘stages’ - complete them all in the fastest cumulative time and you’ll be crowned the overall winner

What is the Tour de France?

The Tour de France is what’s known as a ‘stage race’, which is a collection of smaller races - or stages - ridden consecutively across a set period of time. In the case of the Tour, this time period encompasses three weeks, or 21 days (23 if we include the two rest days where there’s no racing). There are only two other stage races on the cycling calendar that last for three weeks and those are the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España. Together with the Tour, these races are known as the ‘Grand Tours’.

As its name suggests, the Tour takes place in France - although this comes with some caveats. While the majority of the three-week race takes place within mainland France, some stages do occasionally pass through neighbouring countries, like Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Belgium. The race is also known for hosting ‘Grand Départs’ - the term for the celebratory opening stages of the race - in foreign countries. For example, in 2023 the race began with three stages in the Basque Country, an autonomous community of Spain. The 2024 edition, on the other hand, will start with three stages in northern Italy taking in the cycling rich regions of Tuscany, Emilia Romagna, Lombardy and Piemonte.

With the race taking place across France, and across some other European countries, terrain can wildly differ between stages. Some stages stick to the flatlands along the coasts, while others head deep into the mountains. Several stages may also take the form of a ‘time trial’, where riders compete to set the fastest time over a set course after a staggered start. This changing of terrain between stages, and also within stages, is what poses the main challenge to the riders and ultimately dictates who wins the Tour de France overall, but more on that later!

Why is the Tour de France so famous?

Velo Collection (TDW)/Getty Images.

The maillot jaune is the most iconic jersey in all of cycling

The Tour is the oldest of the three Grand Tours, with its debut edition taking place way back in 1903. It’s also the race which inspired the likes of the Giro and the Vuelta. At 120-years-old, it’s the oldest still-running stage race on the international calendar. There are one-day events which are older, but no professional, multi-day stage race is older than the Tour de France - one of its many claims to fame.

Born from a newspaper marketing scheme, devised by French journalist Henri Desgrange, the first Tour took place in an attempt to boost sales of L’Auto - a nationwide daily newspaper dedicated to sport. This inaugural race only featured six stages, but with each stage covering ~400km it quickly made its way around the perimeter of France. Due to the length of these stages and the comparatively poor technology of the time riders often had to race through the night.

Home favourite Maurice Garin, a man affectionately known as ‘The Little Chimney Sweep’, won this first ever Tour de France, writing his name into cycling’s history books in the process. The race was a sudden hit so Desgrange decided to bring it back the following year, and then the next one, and the one after that. Before long it soon became the go-to event for masochists across Europe to attend and shed blood, sweat and tears over. This blood, sweat and tears made for great stories back in the day and now, fantastic TV.

The race’s longevity and the fact that it has been the site of some of sport’s greatest stories aren’t the only factors which make the Tour so famous, however. In recent decades the race has become truly global with riders from all six of Earth’s major continents not just taking part, but winning too. This globalisation of the Tour has helped it to expand to all four corners of the globe and reach billions of people.

According to the Tour’s organisers, ASO, around 12 million people line up along the route every single year, cheering on their heroes from the roadside. This figure pales in comparison to the race’s total viewers though, which is estimated to be as high as 3.5 billion annually. This mind-boggling figure makes the Tour de France the most watched sporting event in the world, more so even than the World Cup (3.3 billion), Summer Olympics (2 billion), UEFA Champions League (380 million) and Super Bowl (96.4 million).

How does one win the Tour de France?

Velo Collection (TDW) /Getty Images

Egan Bernal on his way to winning the Tour de France in 2019

To put it simply, only one rider can win the Tour de France. This is the rider who, once all is said and done, has completed all of the stages in the lowest cumulative time. They’re declared the overall, or general classification (GC), winner and they get to stand on the top step of the podium in Paris at the end of the race, receiving all of the plaudits - and prize money.

But there’s never just one rider who leaves the Tour as a ‘winner’, and this is where things can get quite confusing. First of all, a ‘stage winner’ is crowned at the end of every stage - this is the rider who simply crosses the finish line first. Some riders win multiple stages throughout the three weeks but get nowhere close to winning the race overall, while the overall winner could go the entire three weeks without ever winning a stage. Are you still with us?

And then there are the different coloured jerseys, individual prizes and team prizes. These are handed out to riders at the end of every stage to denote the rider who’s currently leading each respective classification, but they’re not officially ‘won’ until the three weeks is up and the riders cross the finish line on the final stage. Let’s go through each of those in turn now, from the iconic yellow jersey to the lesser-known combativity prize.

Yellow Jersey - The famous maillot jaune , or yellow jersey, denotes the leader of the general classification. As explained above, this is the rider who has completed all of the stages in the lowest cumulative time. This is the biggest prize in the Tour and something that every rider dreams of wearing, although only a handful ever will.

Green Jersey - The maillot vert , or green jersey, denotes the leader of the points classification. Points are accumulated at each stage finish, with a rider being awarded a certain number of points based on their finishing position. The higher they finish, the more points they score.

Different stages have different weightings of points on offer at the finish, with flatter stages offering more and mountain stages less. Points can also be scored at ‘intermediate sprints’ which are placed within a stage, usually around the midway point. In the Tour there’s one intermediate sprint per road stage (so not during time trials).

Polka-Dot Jersey - The maillot à pois , or polka-dot jersey, denotes the leader of the King of the Mountains classification. Like the green jersey, this is a points-based classification where riders score points for being one of the first few over the tops of hills/mountains. Only categorised hills/mountains count towards this classification and the number of points awarded depends on this categorisation.

Hills/mountains are ranked based on their difficulty and assigned either Cat-4, Cat-3, Cat-2, Cat-1 or HC ( hors categorie ) status. Cat-4 climbs offer fewer points, because they’re the easiest, while HC climbs offer the most points, because they’re the toughest. The winner of this jersey can be someone who’s specifically targeting the classification, but it can also go to the overall Tour winner by virtue of them often being at the front of the race day in, day out.

White Jersey - The maillot blanc , or white jersey, denotes the leader of the Young Rider classification, which - like the yellow jersey - is a time-based classification. It’s restricted to riders that are under the age of 26 when the Tour begins. From those riders who are eligible, the one who has completed the stages in the lowest cumulative time wears the jersey.

Team Prize - This prize is awarded to the winner of the team classification, which assesses teams by adding the times of their three best-placed riders each day - in other words, their first three riders across the finish line on each stage. The team with the lowest accumulated time over the three weeks wins. Unlike the classifications explained above, no jersey is awarded to the leaders of this classification - instead members of the leading team wear a yellow number on their backs.

Combativity Prize - The prix de la combativité , or combativity prize, is awarded to the rider who most animates the day’s racing. This is a subjective classification and one that is decided by the race officials. The winner is given a red number to wear the following day, which is then passed onto the next combativity prize winner. A Super Combativity award is also handed out at the end of the three weeks and goes to the rider who has animated the entire race, rather than just a single stage.

Where can I watch the Tour de France?

Now you know what the Tour de France is all about you’re probably itching to start watching it. Fortunately, the 2023 edition is just around the corner with the opening stage set to take place on Saturday, July 1st. Following the Grand Départ in the Basque Country, Spain - which encompasses three stages this year - the race will head to France and take on stages in the perilous Pyrenees and infamous Alps before drawing to a close with a traditional final stage in Paris on Sunday, July 23rd.

We’ll be showing live coverage of every single stage, start-to-finish, in RaceTV on the GCN App. We’ll also have the daily Breakaway show for you to tune into before and after every stage, where our panel of talking heads discuss the upcoming day’s racing and break down the action afterwards. It’s going to be an incredible three weeks of action and a race that you won’t want to miss, so make sure you have an a ctive GCN+ subscription . There’ll also be a ton of additional stuff for you to get your teeth stuck into during the Tour on the GCN App. As well as live coverage of the race, we also have articles covering all of the action, stage-by-stage previews, daily polls and quizzes and much, much more. Scroll through our Home and Racing feeds now to start getting involved with all of that fantastic, additional content.

Tour de France

• Dates 1 Jul - 23 Jul
• Race Length 3,401 kms
• Race Category Elite Men

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Saturday, June 08, 2024 7:00 am (Paris)

• Tour de France

Tour de France: The new wave of American cycling

Seven riders from the United States were on the starting line for this year's Tour, the most since 2014. The new generation has finally freed itself from the shadow of Lance Armstrong.

By  Aude Lasjaunias

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When he was a child, Quinn Simmons wasn't really into cycling. The American from Durango, in the mountains of Colorado, was a little "annoyed" to see his father spending so much time in front of the television watching the Tour de France. Young Quinn was more into skiing and mountaineering.

Five years later, however, the 21-year-old is sporting a smile – rarely masked despite the threat of Covid-19 – as he takes part in road cycling's premier event for the first time. "The final decision was made during the Tour de Suisse [which he finished on June 21, with the polka-dot jersey of best climber]. In my head I had prepared as if I was going, but you are always a little nervous until the last yes," the Trek-Segafredo rider said.

Simmons is the youngest rider in this year's Tour de France, and one of seven Americans who left from the starting line in Copenhagen on July 1 – a first since 2014. "I'm convinced that this number will continue to grow," said Kevin Vermaerke (DSM), who was forced to pull out on the 8 th stage, between Dole (Jura) and Lausanne (Switzerland), on July 9.

'Less support in the US'

"There have been several American waves in the Tour: in the 1980s with Greg LeMond, then in the early 2000s with Lance Armstrong. We're on the third," said French-American photojournalist James Startt, the author of Tour de France/Tour de Force. A Visual History of the World's Greatest Bicycle Race (2000), who has 33 Tours under his belt.

What is striking about this new wave is both its youth and the fact that is shared throughout the peloton. Apart from climbers Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), 27, and Joe Dombrowski (Astana-Qazaqstan), 31, the other five riders are 25 years old or younger. Most importantly, they all ride for different teams, whereas in the past, the American contingent rode for US-based teams such as 7-Eleven, Motorola or US Postal.

Brent Bookwalter, who spent much of his career with one of them (BMC Racing), sees this as a sign of changing attitudes. "As a young rider, as an American, riding for a French or Spanish team means immersing yourself in a different culture, and that used to seem very intimidating," said the Albuquerque, N.M., native and Tour consultant for Flo TV.

There is another, more prosaic explanation: "There is less support for road cycling in the United States: fewer races, fewer teams, less infrastructure," he said. This is due to the economic situation, but also the doping cases that had a strong impact on sponsor engagement and the public's enthusiasm.

The ambiguous legacy of Armstrong

In the mid-2000s, the United States could boast of having won the Tour de France 11 times: Greg LeMond (1986, 1989 and 1990), Lance Armstrong (1999-2005), and Floyd Landis (2006), which at the time was more than Italy and Spain. But Floyd Landis was disqualified after being tested with a testosterone level 11 times higher than normal. He was followed by Lance Armstrong in 2012.

Former road rider Ian Boswell grew up watching the "boss." In his eyes, Armstrong's legacy remains ambiguous: "Lance is the reason why we have invested so much in cycling in the United States," said the 30-year-old. "This guy from Texas who managed to dominate the most prestigious event in the world showed us that it was possible."

His fall left a void and his countrymen have long been stereotyped as "dirty" riders. But the biggest problem, he insists, was that a good part of his generation wanted to be general classification riders, "when they would have been better on more specific terrain." Like Tejay Van Garderen, a time trial specialist, but rarely consistent over a three-week race.

Going forward, the ambitions are more subdued and varied. "I'll probably never be a general classification rider in a three-week race, but maybe after a few years on the road I can aim for the one-week races," said Simmons, for example.

'The image of the champion'

The results are starting to show. On July 7, 2021, Sepp Kuss crossed the finish line in Andorra la Vella solo, giving the United States its first Tour de France stage win since Tyler Farrar in Redon in 2011.

In the first week of the 2022 race, Neilson Powless (EF Education EasyPost) came within seconds of donning the yellow jersey. Not since Tejay Van Garderen in 2018 has an American been so close to the top of the overall standings, when Van Garderen was tied on time with Belgian teammate Greg Van Avermaet after the team time trial.

According to many followers, the Star-Spangled Banner of the United States is less visible on the roadside than during Armstrong's heyday. Throughout the country, "road cycling is still very much tied to the image of a champion," said James Startt. "I've seen it as a teammate of Tejay's, riding with him through the highs and lows of his career: the Americans loved him when he was doing well and booed him when he was doing poorly," said Brent Bookwalter. "This group, today, can share that burden. It's not as if any of them are being branded as 'the' new face of American cycling who is the focus of all hope." They will have time to find their strengths and build this new wave over time.

Aude Lasjaunias

Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr ; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.

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Tour de France: Unchained – Second series offers more emotions but also more crashes

The eight new episodes look back at the Vingegaard-Pogačar duel of the 2023 Tour

The second series of ‘Tour de France: Unchained’ will be released on June 11, and the Netflix documentary offers another intense, emotional and dramatic insider view of the biggest race in professional cycling.

Last year, we compared the slick editing and constant showing of crashes and suffering to eating too much Haribo on a hot day . The second series offers more of the same, with the eight 45-minute episodes packed with best moments of racing, the crashes, the heartache and joy that the Tour always produces.

Tadej Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates teams struck a deal to be filmed alongside the eight official teams, and so this year’s series tells a more complete story of his battle with Vingegaard and how Pogačar lost out in the time trial and then cracked on stage 17 over the  Col de la Loze.

Mark Cavendish also features across several episodes that highlight the dangers of sprinting, including the moment when he crashed out on stage 8 after going close to victory on stage 7 in Bordeaux.

The tragic death of Gino Mäder at the Tour de Suisse is weaved into the narrative Tour de France Unchained, with a tearful interview with Pello Bilbao highlighting the fears and emotions in the peloton after the loss of the Swiss rider.

One of the most moving moments of series 2 captures the moment Ben O'Connor is told of Mäder’s death during a training ride. Julian Alaphilippe also reflects on the dangers of pro racing. "We are nothing on earth and even less on a bike. Just to evoke Gino gives me chills everywhere," he said.

Yet 'Tour de France: Unchained' also dramatizes numerous crashes in a jarring contradiction that could perhaps have been avoided. At the very least, the crashes could have been treated with more respect.

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The crashes and serious injuries of the 2024 season have confirmed that the riders’ pain and suffering should never be used to ‘sell’ the sport, even to a broader audience on Netflix.

Despite that, the documentary is addictive and entertaining to watch, whatever your level of understanding of the sport, showing moments that are rarely seen on television or video. 

The Netflix camera crews again had all-area access to the eight teams and captured rarely-seen moments on team buses and even intimate moments between directeur sportif and riders on the massage table.

Each of the eight episodes combines different storylines covering the AG2R Citroën, Alpecin-Deceuninck, EF Education-EasyPost, Groupama-FDJ, Ineos Grenadiers, Bora-Hansgrohe, Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep teams.

Their race tactics are studied in detail, with race commentary and scripted comments and considerations from French commentator Steve Chainel and Ireland’s Orla Chennaoui of Eurosport. Interviews at home, often done by their partners, reveal a more human face of the leading riders.

"Some of the eight episodes look like a dive into a pack of mixed feelings. Almost like being on a psychiatrist's couch, it's about grief, fear, anger, betrayal and pride," Christophe Bérard suggested in the French newspaper Le Parisien in one of the early reviews.

Team managers Jonathan Vaughters, Patrick Lefevere, Marc Madiot and Richard Plugge also feature, as they fight with each other and try to guide their riders to victory. Madiot’s disdain for Plugge after he accuses his riders and staff of drinking beer is ‘peak Madiot,’ packed with venom and pride.

Jumbo-Visma directeur sportif Grischa Niermann and his many exclamations of ‘Fuck!” in the team car again star, as does Pogačar’s foul-mouthed acceptance that he was done and his Tour de France challenge over. Not surprisingly Tour de France Unchained is rated 13+. 

The official trailer included a question to Thibaut Pinot about Vingegaard’s crushing time trial performance but did not reveal his answer.

It turns out the Frenchman preferred to enjoy his final Tour.

“Phew… I don’t want to answer that question. I’m not interested in that,” Pinot said. 

Madiot was not so diplomatic.

“There’s always a moment when the truth comes out, so we’ll see,” he said.

Vingegaard has always insisted he races clean and spoke directly to the Netflix camera about the 2023 allegations. 

“There’s no reason to be speculating. The past (history of cycling) is the only reason to speculate,” Vingegaard said.

“I know I don’t take anything. I’m not doing anything that I'm not allowed to do. I’m clean and even when they test these samples in 100 years, they won't find anything.”

Eight carefully scripted episodes

The eight episodes are an excellent way to look back at the 2023 Tour de France and prepare for this year’s race.

Episode one sets up the series and the Vinggaard-Pogačar battle with interviews with both riders from their homes and training camps, recalling Pogačar’s return from his scaphoid fracture at Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

It also captures the riders during a minute’s silence to remember Gino Mäder in their pre-race meeting with race organisers ASO in Bilbao, to introduce the crash narrative and reveal riders’ fears but also their determination to win.

Richard Carapaz crashed on stage one and the episode focuses on his subsequent abandon and how it wrecked EF Education-Easypost’s ambitions at the 2023 Tour de France.   

Episode two recalls Ben O’Connor emotional and physical struggles in the early stages in the Basque Country, while fellow Perth native and natural rival Jai Hindley won stage 5 and pulled on the yellow jersey.

The first sprint battles, Jasper Philipsen’s dominance and the many crashes fill episode two.

Fabio Jakobsen’s Tour de Pologne crash is shown again, while his high-speed crash on stage 4 is dissected and analysed in all its gory detail. Jakobsen accuses Philipsen of sparking the crash but he says: “We're not here to make friends with other teams.”

Cavendish’s crash and abandon is covered in the same episode, but the series ends with him promising to return to the 2024 Tour. 

Stage 4 is simply titled ‘For Gino’ and tells how the Bahrain Victorious riders try to win a stage to honour his memory, with Bilbao taking stage 10. 

The struggles at Ineos Grenadiers fills episode five, as Tom Pidcock fails to fight for GC and Carlos Rodriguez steps up and confirms his Grand Tour potential, winning stage 14 just 24 hours after Michał Kwiatkowski won stage 13. 

The Vingegaard-Pogačar battle takes centre stage on episode six as the Dane dominates the time trial and then Pogačar cracks.

The episode covers the suspicions created by Vingegaard’s performance and reveals how team manager Richard Plugge accused Groupama-FDJ of drinking beers on the rest day as a dead cat distraction to take the media spotlight and pressure off Vingegaard.

Patrick Lefevere and his spats with Julian Alaphilippe about his salary and poor results fill episode seven. The French rider jokes that he is paid “a bit too much for Patrick….” but went on the attack on seven stages to try to win a stage. Kasper Asgreen eventually saves the team’s Tour de France.

Marc Madiot responds to Plugge’s beer accusations during episode eight, which also recalls Pinot’s ‘Last Dance’ solo attack on his home roads during stage 20. The Virage Pinot was packed with screaming fans but following a perfect Netflix script, Pinot did not win the stage.

Episode eight and the second series of Tour de France: Unchained ends in Paris with the Champs Elysees sprint, the final podium and Vingegaard’s second victory ahead of Pogačar.

In the final moments, Madiot raises a sarcastic glass of beer as Pinot ends his Tour de France career, emotional but happy that it is all over. 

It leaves us wishing for more. Fortunately, the start of the 2024 Tour de France is only a few weeks away. 

It's back! Netflix's Tour de France: Unchained documentary is set to return for season 2 on June 11 pic.twitter.com/pupvAYsiXB May 16, 2024

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Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters , Shift Active Media , and CyclingWeekly , among other publications.

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Can anyone beat them tadej pogačar confirms ‘scary’ uae tour de france support crew, 'yates is my righthand man, ayuso and almeida are super climbing domestiques': pogačar sees world-class support for giro-tour double bid..

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Tadej Pogačar revealed who will be his support crew at the Tour de France and the firepower is impressive.

Pogačar, speaking on the Watts Occurring podcast, confirmed who will be backing him at UAE Team Emirates as he takes on the yellow jersey just weeks after winning the Giro d’Italia.

According to Pogačar, here they are:

Adam Yates , Juan Ayuso , Joäo Almeida, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov, Nils Politt, and Tim Wellens will provide a mix of brawn and climbing finesse as the Slovenian moves toward the second act of the elusive Giro-Tour double .

“It scares me also,” Pogačar said of the names on the list. “Yates is my righthand man, and Ayuso and Almeida are super climbing domestiques.

“Soler, Sivakov are going to be the bigger climbers and they can do something on the flats. Nils Politt and Tim Wellens,” Pogačar said. “It’s a five-star team.”

UAE Team Emirates brass have to reveal the final official list, but Pogačar said these riders have been the A-list since December.

There are no real surprises.

This Le Tour team means business Tadej Pogačar named UAE Team Emirates’ provisional Tour de France line-up on the Watts Occurring podcast. The final team will be confirmed later this month, ahead of the opening stage on June 29. Getty Images pic.twitter.com/XvtuXrj3eC — Road Code (@RoadCode) June 4, 2024

Some have pointed that Brandon McNulty is missing, but the American — who raced the Tour in 2021 and 2022 — never had the Tour on his radar this season.

Mikkel Bjerg, who raced the Tour from 2021-23, rode in support for Pogačar at the Giro. One key rider in previous Tours for UAE who is missing is Vegard Stake Laengen, who raced the Tour from 2019 through 2023, but he also raced the Giro.

Filling into those key domestique spots are newcomers Politt, who have added responsibility on the flats, and Sivakov.

Yates and Soler are the only riders returning from the 2023 Tour lineup alongside Pogačar .

Ayuso, racing this week at Critérium du Dauphiné, said he’s relishing the chance to race to support Pogačar in what will the Spaniard’s Tour debut.

“There’s no one better to learn about the Tour than riding for Tadej,” Ayuso said. “Everyone is excited to try to help him make history.”

Almeida also makes his Tour debut and will also provide massive horsepower for Pogačar in the approaches to the climbs.

Yates, who rode the vapors to finish third overall in last year’s Tour, will also be back in the marquee “super domestique” role that he played perfectly in 2023.

“There are so many rock stars,” Pogačar said on the podcast. “Maybe the Giro was not super famous riders, but the level of everybody was super high.”

‘The Tour de France start is very hard’

Pogačar also revealed that he wanted to race the Giro as soon as his debut season in 2019, but his surprise win in the 2020 Tour forever changed his trajectory.

“I wanted to do the Giro already in 2019 and 2020, but then there was COVID, and I did the Tour and I won it, and no one expected that,” Pogačar said. “After that, it was all about the Tour.

“At some point I needed to do something else, and I cannot do the same calendar every year, it gets a bit tiring,” he said. “I wanted to do the Giro really bad, and I spoke to them about it after the Tour last year.”

After a week off the bike, Pogačar will head to altitude at Isola 2000 to begin his final touches heading toward the June 29 start of the Tour in Florence, Italy.

Pogačar also confirmed he’s working with a new coach Javier Solana, who will join him Saturday high in the French Alps.

Tadej Pogacar confirmed the UAE Team Emirates Tour de France roster on the Watts Occurring, Powered by Eurosport podcast Can anyone stop this team? pic.twitter.com/NLw9eTT7Id — Eurosport (@eurosport) June 4, 2024

Any hints on tactics?

The opening four stages are explosive and on paper favor Pogačar’s style of racing. The opening stage features 4000m of climbing and Sunday’s stage tackles the famed San Luca above Bologna twice before finishing on the flats.

Stage 4 tackles the Col du Galibier, site of Pogačar’s famous “crack” in the 2022 Tour that opened the door for Jonas Vingegaard to win the yellow jersey.

“The Tour start is hard,” Pogačar said. “In Bilbao we were super-aggressive and it backfired a bit, but the shape wasn’t super good last year. I don’t know, we’ll see about the tactics.”

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The Tour de France is a business tour de force

Without question the Tour de France is one of the biggest sporting events of the year. From Berlin to Bahrain and stateside to Down Under, billions from around the world follow the Tour every summer. That viewership is growing is even more impressive when considering it was nearly derailed altogether by the doping scandal of the late 90s and early 00s. It’s not only overcome the scandal, but it’s now hitting its stride. Today, we’re taking a look at how some clever companies are getting their marketing into gear, just how intense audience engagement with the Tour is and why we could be on the verge of a new golden age of cycling thanks to Netflix.

In the late-90s and early 00s, coverage of the Tour was booming. Aerial shots of riders snaking through the French countryside or scaling the alps dominated televisions around the world. However, rumblings of widespread doping grew louder, eventually coming to a head in a widespread doping scandal that saw previous winners stripped of their titles, issued lifetime bans and forced into disgraced exile. The most-prominent figure was Lance Armstrong , who forfeited all seven of his titles, but other cycling stars including Floyd Landis, Alberto Contador and Jan Ulrich , were also caught and banned. In short, from the late 90s to the mid-00s, doping was widespread and systematic—and cycling’s, and the Tour’s, reputations were tarnished.

On your marks, get set, Netflix

The Tour, however, kept plugging along and the business side of things did, too. And business is poised for a further boom: A Netflix team is currently riding along during this year’s race filming a “Drive to survive” style documentary. If the documentary is able to attract younger audiences and amplify the Tour’s profile and have anything near the impact on the Tour that its counterpart had on F1, then we could be on the cusp of a golden age of cycling.

Whether or not the Tour returns to its former stature, it was, is and remains among the top sporting events for marketers. Tour organizers have long-since implemented significant global expansion plans. This year, for example, the start of the tour, the Grand Départ, took place in Copenhagen—the furthest north in its history. The host city actually loses money on the event—but the media attention for politicians and the city make it a winning proposition. Usually, at least. In the case of Düsseldorf , they spent nearly EUR 16m to host the Grand Départ in 2017 and ended up losing EUR 8m, as fewer sponsors and companies in Germany wanted to participate than originally planned.

Not surprising when you consider that the prime real estate for sponsors is on the jerseys of cyclists. The Dr. Wolff Group recently renewed its role as sponsor of the Alpecin-Deceuninck cycling team for an additional four years. To further boost engagement with the sport and the team, Dr. Wolff launched the Ride Club platform, which is aimed at hobby cyclists. Furthermore, the Alpecin-Deceuninck team hopes to have a very important asset in its ranks: a star with social media power in Dutch cyclist Mathieu van der Poel.

PROS behind the mic

On Instagram alone, van der Poel has nearly 900,000 followers, all of whom can follow along as he races, trains and relaxes—all while wearing his Alpecin jersey. The marketing power of van der Poel is also a boon to people beyond Dr. Wolff HQ in Bielefeld. In nearly every post of van der Poel, you’ll not only see his jersey, but also his bike. By Canyon. Also a German brand, Canyon is the official bikemaker for three teams at this year’s Tour.

But even mediocre cyclists who’ve enjoyed only moderate success on the professional circuit have considerable reach on social media. One such example is Rick Zabel, a professional cyclist from Germany, whose primary role is that of “domestique” as opposed to a sprinter like his father, is one of the more-famous cyclists in Germany. At this year’s Tour de France, he’s not even competing, but commenting for German broadcaster ARD. That position has helped him amass a following of nearly 150k on Instagram. Furthermore, he has leveraged his fame into a successful podcast called Plan Z .

EUR 200m revenue from the Tour?

“Many individual athletes have begun achieving financial gain independent of any sporting success by building up their social media profiles and amassing a network,” Felix Appelfeller from “Jung von Matt Sports” recently told German daily FAZ . Jung von Matt Sports provides, among other things, consulting services on sponsoring matters. This reach not only helps the cyclists, but also the Tour itself, as here fans stay locked in and engaged with cyclists, their lives and the sport year-round, whereas they used to only pay attention for a few weeks during the Tour de France.

There are no signs of slowing either. Amaury Sport Organisation is rumored to generate between EUR 150m and 200m from the Tour de France alone. The organization, which also belongs to Amaury, who also owns French sports publication “L’Equipe,” declines to provide exact figures. The majority of growth on the Tour, like so many other things, is found in Asia —a fact a brand like Alpecin would figure to be well aware of. Then there is the not-so-small matter of 100 channels broadcasting the Tour in 190 countries. Per Tour, there are approximately 7800 hours of live footage broadcast around the world. There is no other sporting event that can claim that kind of footage intensity in such a small timeframe. The doping scandals of the past seem to be forgotten.

Florian Rinke is responsible for the "OMR Podcast" in the OMR editorial department. Before joining OMR in early 2022, he reported for more than seven years on startups and digital policy for the Rheinische Post and built up the "RP-Gründerzeit" department. In 2020, his book "Silicon Rheinland" was published.

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Exclusive: Nathan van Hooydonck pinpoints 'where Jonas Vingegaard makes the difference', tips him for Tour hat-trick

Updated 02/03/2024 at 08:59 GMT

In an exclusive interview with Eurosport, Nathan van Hooydonck discussed what makes Jonas Vingegaard so good and tipped his former Visma-Lease a Bike team-mate to make it three Tour de France wins in a row. Vingegaard will begin his quest for a third yellow jersey on June 21 and you can follow all the action as it happens of Eurosport and discovery+.

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The Favourites Prep for the Tour de France

Who's doing what.

The Top Riders Prepare: There are four weeks to go before the start of the behemoth that is the biggest bike race on the calendar: the Tour de France. The top favourites are now either on an altitude training camp or racing in the Criterium du Dauphiné. We look at the plans of the top riders with 24 days to go.

Remco Evenepoel The last weeks to the Tour start for Remco Evenepoel includes the Critérium du Dauphiné where he is on stage 4 today (Wednesday). The Soudal-Quick-Step leader says he still has some work to do and is taking the French race ‘day-by-day’. He is returns to competition after his crash in the Itzulia Basque Country, where he suffered several fractures. “This is more of a race to gain some race rhythm,” the World time trial champion said cautiously. He said he isn’t interested in the overall. The Belgian spent three weeks on an altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada in May. He went to the Spanish mountains with his climbing right-hand man, Mikel Landa and Ilan Van Wilder. All three are riding the Critérium du Dauphiné and then will go on another camp at altitude. After that, he may miss out the Belgian time trial championship, but will defend his road title. That will be his the last race before the Tour.

Schedule: Criterium du Dauphiné Altitude training camp Belgian road championship Tour de France.

Tadej Pogačar For Tadej Pogačar, the preparation for La Grande Boucle has only just started. The 25-year-old Slovenian has had a week off after dominating the Giro d’Italia and is taking a different route to this year’s French Grand Tour. We will soon find out if this plan suits him. During the Giro, the UAE Team Emirates Tour squad were on an altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada. They then split between the Critérium du Dauphiné with Juan Ayuso and the Tour of Switzerland with João Almeida. Adam Yates, 3rd in last year’s Tour, was also on the training camp, but his calendar empty in June. Pogačar will be at altitude in Isola 2000 for three weeks. He will follow the Mathieu van der Poel route to the Tour: Only training at altitude and then go straight to the Tour.

Giro winner, Tadej Pogačar, has been in Isola 2000 for an altitude training camp since Tuesday. Before traveling to the ski resort in the French Alps, he was a guest on the Geraint Thomas Cycling Club Podcast , hosted by Geraint Thomas and Luke Rowe. Pogačar will will be backed up by Adam Yates, Juan Ayuso, Joao Almeida, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov, Tim Wellens and Nils Politt in the Tour. “Yates is my right hand, Ayuso and Almeida will be like super domestiques in the mountains,” said Pogačar. “Soler and Sivakov are the big men for the mountains, who can also do something on the flat. And then you have Wellens and Politt. It also scares me a bit!”

Pogačar lost to Jonas Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023, but the Dane is still a doubt for the Tour de France after his crash in the Itzulia Basque Country, but he is preparing for the Tour. Will he be ready on time? “I think so,” said Pogačar. “He was able to ride again quite quickly after leaving the hospital. If he is comfortable on the bike again, I think he can start in good shape. He has to reach his race weight, but I don’t think that is a problem.” Pogacar also has Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglič to watch in the Tour. “Evenepoel will fly. He will also be very motivated, just like Roglič. It looks like they will be more than 100% ready for the start of the Tour this year.”

The Tour starts in Italy this year, with a difficult opening stage to Rimini. Will Pogačar go from the gun? “It’s a tough start, but I haven’t really thought about it yet. We were very aggressive in Bilbao last year, but we may have had a bit of a boomerang in return. The shape wasn’t great then either. We have to think again about what we are going to do. The first day is 210 kilometres with four consecutive climbs, and on day two we have San Luca from the Giro dell’Emilia. After that, the Galibier is in stage four. That’s a nice stage. Do I want to take revenge there for the 2022 Tour? That would be nice, but the finish line is below. The end of the Tour is also very tough. It’s brutal.”

“Evenepoel will mainly have to make his move in the beginning,” Pogačar thinks. “But Roglič will first just look at it and then fly in the last days. It’s nice to finally see Remco in the Tour. When he became World champion, I thought: ‘fuck, you have to do the Tour’. But he didn’t do it.”

Schedule: Altitude training camp in Isola 2000 Tour de France.

Primož Roglič Since that crash in the Itzulia Basque Country at the beginning of April, we have not seen anything of Primož Roglič. The 34-year-old Slovenian wasn’t as injured as the other Tour top favourites and we must assume that he is on schedule for the Tour de France. He was also training in the Sierra Nevada last month. In Spain, Roglič rode to the top of Pico Veleta, the highest paved road in Europe. We should see how his form is in the Critérium du Dauphiné. So far it’s looking good, he took second place on stage 2 behind Magnus Cort. “Everyone is so fit here and there was only one who got to the line faster,” he is more than satisfied with his own level of form. “I am still a bit disappointed that I couldn’t finish it.” (Red Bull) BORA-hansgrohe will have Jai Hindley and Aleksandr Vlasov in the Tour line up, but Vlasov was disappointment after the team announced Roglič’s sole leadership in the Tour. After the Dauphiné, the Slovenian will be at altitude in Tignes.

Schedule: Criterium du Dauphiné High altitude Tignes Tour de France.

Jonas Vingegaard From Sunday, part of the intended Visma | Lease a Bike Tour team will be in Tignes for a three-week training camp. Jonas Vingegaard arrived a few days earlier to get his body used to the altitude. In the Itzulia Basque Country crash, the double Tour winner broke several ribs, his collarbone, suffered a perforated lung and was kept in hospital for a long time. So we have to wonder if Vingegaard has enough time to recover and get into Tour shape. Part of his Visma | Lease a Bike Tour squad are racing in the Critérium du Dauphiné, including possible team leader, Sepp Kuss, as are Dylan van Baarle, Tiesj Benoot, Matteo Jorgenson and Steven Kruijswijk. After the French stage race, they will also go to Tignes and then we should know whether Vingegaard will make it to the Tour or not. Wout van Aert is also in Tignes working on his Tour preparation.

Schedule: Altitude training camp in Tignes Tour de France.

Carlos Rodriguez Part of INEOS Grenadiers Tour team was on the volcano of El Teide in May, including Carlos Rodríguez. Last year the young Spaniard showed his climber’s legs in the final week, behind Pogačar and Vingegaard. This year he will be aiming at a better final overall than his fifth place. His 2024 has been going well as he won the Tour de Romandie and was second in the Itzulia Basque Country. The Spaniard was on Mount Teide for three weeks and is now racing against Evenepoel and Roglič in the Critérium du Dauphiné. This year’s Tour could be Rodríguez’s big chance to be a team leader, of course this depends on Geraint Thomas who is supposed not to be at the start of the Tour due to riding the Giro d’Italia and that Egan Bernal is training in Colombia. After the Dauphiné, Rodríguez will be at altitude again, but where that will be is not public knowledge as yet

Schedule: Critérium du Dauphiné Altitude training camp Tour de France.

Tom Pidcock Tom Pidcock is also a leader of the INEOS Grenadiers team in the Tour. The mountain bike World champion won the MTB World Cup in Nové Mesto for the fourth time in a row last week. The next day he drove from the airport in Barcelona back home to Andorra. It is not clear whether he will complete his Tour training there or will go to an altitude training camp with the team. Thymen Arensman is training in France, he called his training ride on Strava ‘Clermond-Ferrand tourist’ .

Pidcock will ride the Mountain Bike World Cup in Crans Montana on June 23, six days before the start of the Tour de France, he told CyclingWeekly . After ending his spring Classics at the end of April with a tenth place in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he was at the start of the Mountain Bike World Cup in Nové Město in May. Next Sunday he will be at the start of the Tour de Suisse (9-16 June) and on June 23rd, he will be on the mountain bike again in Crans Montana. A week later, Pidcock will start the Tour de France (June 29-July 21), where he says he is aiming at the GC. Then he moves on the Olympic mountain bike race in Paris (July 29), where he will defend the title he won in Tokyo. Five days after the mountain bike race, Pidcock will ride the Olympic road race (August 3).

“I don’t train as much on my mountain bike as I should, but it’s easy to alternate between road bike and mountain bike,” Pidcock said to CyclingWeekly . “Of course in this part of the year, in preparation for the Tour, I do longer intervals and more volume. But they complement each other.”

Schedule: Training at home in Andorra Tour of Switzerland (Possibly) Training at home in Andorra Tour de France.

David Gaudu “I dream of the podium,” David Gaudu told l’Equipe . The Groupama-FDJ climber is the French hope for the home Tour. Two years ago he finished fourth overall and last year he was ninth in the Tour. Also in the 2023 Paris-Nice he was second behind Pogačar, but ahead of Vingegaard. In May, Gaudu was training on Teide in Tenerife. At the moment he is racing in the Dauphiné, he will then ride in the French road championships.

Schedule: Critérium du Dauphiné French road championship Tour de France.

# Stay PEZ for all the 2024 Tour de France news and daily stage reports. #

*Thanks to WielerFlits and ProCyclingStats for the facts.

Alastair Hamilton has been a pro team mechanic on the road, track and mountain bike and worked for the Great Britain team at the World championships in all disciplines. Since moving to Spain and finding out how to use a computer, he has gone from contributor of Daily Distractions at the 2002 Vuelta a España to editor at PezCyclingNews.

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Tour de France 2024 Rider Power Rankings

Less than a month out from the start of the men’s Tour de France, we ranked the top yellow jersey threats in the peloton.

This is the latest edition of Bicycling’ s Power Rankings for the 2024 Men’s Tour de France, where we rank the top contenders leading up to July’s race. This continuously updated list will give you an in-depth look at the riders that have the best shot to stand atop the podium at the end of the Tour—and how they’re performing in the races leading up to July.

These rankings will be constantly refreshed, so you can see who’s up and who’s down on the road to the 2024 Tour de France.

The 2024 Tour de France was expected to bring together the sport’s four best grand tour riders: Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), winner of the last two Tours de France; Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), winner of the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France and the recent Giro d’Italia; Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), winner of the 2022 Vuelta a España; and Slovenia’s Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe), a 3-time winner of the Vuelta and the champion at last year’s Giro d’Italia.

Each rider was taking a different route to the Tour de France, with each choosing to mix race days with extended periods of time spent at training camps. And while some of their paths crossed at select races throughout the first few months of the season, they weren’t expected to all race together until the Tour. For fans, it was a dream scenario.

But the dream became a nightmare in early-April after a scary, high-speed crash during Stage 4 of Spain’s Tour of the Basque Country took down several riders, including Vingegaard, Roglič, and Evenepoel. Two of them–Vingegaard and Evenepoel–suffered serious injuries, and all of them had their Tour preparations interrupted.

That was almost eight weeks ago, and they’re all back on their bikes and training again. But with the Tour de France beginning in Florence, Italy just four weeks from Saturday, one big question still remains: Will Vingegaard–who suffered the worst injuries of the three–be on the starting line, and if he is will he have the form he needs to defend his title? This storyline is the one we’ll be watching the most in the month leading up to the start of the Tour, but it’s not the only one.

We’re also excited to see if Pogačar can become the first rider since 1998 to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same season (spoiler alert: we think he can). And last but definitely not least, we’re eager to learn which other contenders–if any–will be ready to challenge him.

So with four weeks left before the Tour’s “Grand Depart,” here’s our latest–and perhaps most optimistic–Tour de France contender Power Ranking.

Tadej Pogačar

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Previous Ranking : 1

Race Days : 31

Race Wins : 14

Best Result : 1st-place, General Classification - Giro d’Italia

Next Race: Tour de France, June 29-July 21

With about four weeks until the start of the Tour de France, there are still no questions about who the Tour’s top contender is. Pogačar just wrapped-up a three-week training camp in Italy. You may have heard it–it’s called the Giro d’Italia.

We’re kidding, right? Well, not really. Pog absolutely dominated the Italian grand tour, winning the maglia rosa by almost ten minutes over the next-closest rider on the Giro’s General Classification. Along the way he won six stages–finished second or third on three more–and won the Giro’s King of the Mountains prize. But more importantly, he finished the race healthy and reasonably fresh for a rider who just won a three-week grand tour. 

He only crashed once–near the end of Stage 2 when he flatted and his front wheel slipped out from him. It was a minor fall, and Pogačar quickly quickly got back on his bike and promptly won the stage. Otherwise, he escaped the race injury-free.

He also stayed healthy, which–considering the terrible weather that the race encountered at the beginning of the third week–was another blessing for the Slovenian. Staying safe and healthy during a three-week is often a greater challenge than overcoming the competition, and Pog came through that battle unscathed. 

And speaking of the competition, between a relatively gentle course and a rather weak (sorry, guys) start list, Pogačar was never really pushed to defend his lead. With the exception of the Giro’s two individual time trials, he basically won the race with a series of quick, uphill accelerations that no one else could follow. Then he simply rode a steady tempo to the finish line, extending his advantage as he pedaled. 

Pogačar’s near-perfect Giro–plus the fact that he raced minimally in the months before it–means that he probably ended the Giro stronger than he was when he started it. That’s bad news for the men he’ll be racing against at the Tour de France. 

With the Giro behind him, Pogačar will rest for a week and then head to a ski station in the French Alps for nineteen days of altitude training. He won’t race before the Tour de France, but with a grand tour in his legs, he doesn’t need to. 

At this rate, we’ll be eating some humble pie in late-July. At the beginning of the season, we didn’t have much faith in his chances of winning the Giro and the Tour in the same season. But given the way things are shaping up, now we’ll be more surprised if he doesn’t. 

Primož Roglič

Read the complete analysis.

Previous Ranking : 2

Race Days : 11

Race Wins : 1

Best Result : 1st-place, Stage 1 - Tour of the Basque Country

Next Race : Critérium du Dauphiné, June 2-10

Roglič also went down in the crash that took out Vingegaard and Evenepoel, and like the other two, he abandoned the race immediately. But after a series of medical examinations, BORA-hansgrohe reported that the 34-year-old suffered no major injuries. Compared to the others, the Slovenian dodged bullet.

He was initially expected to take part in Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège last week, but the team changed plans to give him extra time to heal. That was a good call, as the weather in the Belgian Ardennes was atrocious that week, and the risk of getting sick or worse–another crash–just wasn’t worth it. In fact, he probably made more gains by training than he would have by racing. 

The Slovenian spent the past five weeks training–which was always the plan–and now he’s heading to the Critérium du Dauphiné–which starts this Sunday–for his last big test before the Tour de France.

The Dauphiné is essentially an 8-day mini-Tour de France with several stages that mimic key stages from the upcoming Tour. It’s also early enough in the month that riders have time for one more small block of training before the start of the Tour. That makes it a popular dress rehearsal for Tour contenders, and Roglič will be going head-to-head with several of his rivals. And it’s a race he knows well: he won it in 2022. 

That’s why anything worse than a top-5 finish would be bad news for the Slovenian. He doesn’t need to win it; after all, the Dauphiné ends four weeks before the start of the Tour, and he needs to be at his best in July not June. 

But a poor performance against many of the men he’ll be racing against at the Tour will raise some eyebrows, putting even more pressure on a 34-year-old rider who might be staring down his last reasonable chance to win the Tour de France. 

Remco Evenepoel

Previous Ranking : 3

Race Days : 17

Race Wins : 4

Best Result : 2nd place, General Classification - Paris-Nice

Another victim of the crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, Evenepoel broke his right clavicle and scapula in Spain and had surgery a few days later in Belgium to address the broken collarbone. The injury meant the Belgian missed a chance to become only the fourth rider to win Liège-Bastogne-Liège three years in a row. 

But his injuries have healed and he’s been on his bike for several weeks. He even attended a recent training camp with his team in Sierra Nevada. So he’s back on schedule in terms of his training for this summer’s Tour de France. 

This sets Evenepoel up for an important showdown with Roglič–and others–at the Critérium du Dauphiné–the Belgian’s last race before the Tour de France–and the pressure he’ll face there will be intense. 

The winner of the 2022 Vuelta a España, Evenepoel is Belgium’s best chance to win a Tour in several decades (a Belgian hasn’t won the Tour since 1976), so he already carries the weight of a nation of passionate cycling fans on his shoulders.

So there’s really no way for the 24-year-old to come out of the Dauphiné without facing even more pressure: if races well–let’s say, finishes on the podium–everyone will start talking about him as if he’s bound to win the Tour. But a bad Dauphiné will fire up the naysayers, putting the wrong kind of pressure on a rider who sometimes struggles to handle adversity. It’s an unenviable position, but that’s life as when you’re Belgium’s first grand tour winner since 1978. 

Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez

Previous Rankings : 4 (Bernal) and 5 (Rodríguez)

Race Days : 28 (Bernal) and 24 (Rodríguez)

Race Wins : 0 (Bernal) and 2 (Rodríguez)

Best Result : 3rd place, General Classficiation - Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (Bernal) and 1st-place, General Classification - Tour de Romandie (Rodríguez)

Next Race : Tour de France, June 29-July 21 (Bernal) and Critérium du Dauphiné, June 2-10 (Rodríguez) 

We’re hedging our bets with this one because–at the moment–we can’t find a reason to put one ahead of the other. But that could change after the Critérium du Dauphiné, which Rodríguez will be starting this weekend.

The Spaniard flew a bit under the radar at last year’s Dauphiné, but in hindsight he shouldn’t have: he finished ninth overall against some tough competition and won the white jersey as the race’s Best Young Rider. The then-22-year-old went on to finish fifth overall and win a stage at the Tour de France. Perhaps we should have seen it coming.

But Rodríguez won’t sneak up on anyone this year, and his performance will indicate if he’s ready to become a true Tour de France podium contender. If he is, he’ll likely bump Bernal–who last raced in late-April and is currently training in Colombia–down a notch in the team’s leadership hierarchy. And that might not be a bad thing: we like the chances of “Bernal the Dark Horse” better than those of “Bernal the Pre-Tour Podium Contender.” 

Jonas Vingegaard

Previous Ranking : Under Consideration

Race Days : 14

Race Wins : 7

Best Result : 1st-place, General Classification - Tirreno-Adriatico

Next Race : TBD

Given some recent news, we’re optimistically moving the Tour’s two-time defending champion back into our top-5—well, 6 if you consider the INEOS tandem above. 

One of the worst victims of the crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, Vingegaard lay motionless along the side of the road for a few minutes before finally being placed in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital, where tests revealed a broken collarbone and a few cracked ribs. Later the team shared that Vingegaard also suffered a pulmonary contusion and a collapsed lung. He stayed in the hospital for 12 days. 

At first, Visma-Lease a Bike wouldn’t discuss the Dane’s chances of racing the Tour de France. But now they are–albeit in uncertain terms–because Vingegaard is back on his bike and training. He was first spotted on a bike path in Denmark, and this week, he arrived in Tignes, France for altitude training camp.

At the Giro d’Italia last week, his team manager Richard Plugge confirmed that Vingegaard has indeed resumed training but would only head to the Tour if he is 100 percent ready to defend his title. And he didn’t sound as if the possibility of the Dane being ready in time was as far-fetched as it seemed a month ago.  

He won’t ride the Dauphiné, but his teammates racing it will meet him in Tignes afterwards. Things are clearly going better than they were in April for Vingegaard, and we think there’s about a 50% chance that he starts the Tour de France. 

Vingegaard started the season in dominating fashion. In fact, he was so strong that some wondered how he could possibly maintain such a high level of fitness all the way through the Tour. Assuming he’s able to get anywhere close to the form he had before the crash–and he starts the Tour–he’s good enough to break back into our Power Ranking. It’s an optimistic take, but we’re going with it–for now.

Under Consideration

If Vingegaard is ultimately unable to start the Tour de France, American Sepp Kuss (Visma Lease a Bike) –the winner of last year’s Vuelta a España–will likely lead the team instead. Kuss hasn’t raced since the Tour of the Basque Country, but he’s starting the Critérium du Dauphiné this Sunday. With three summit finishes to close out the race, it’s the perfect chance for Kuss to assert himself as a Tour de France contender.

Spain’s Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) is also riding the Dauphiné and likely racing to win it. The 21-year-old finished third at the 2022 Vuelta a España and is set to start his first Tour de France this summer. He’ll be riding in support of Pogačar, but the Spaniard could be a contender himself–both as a domestique (UAE put two riders on the podium last year) and as a back-up plan (should something happen to Pog).

Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) has been training since his last race, April’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The 31-year-old is racing the Tour de Suisse–which takes place one week after the Dauphiné–as his final race before the Tour. And he’ll be racing with a chip on his shoulder: the reigning Olympic champion was not selected to represent his country at the games this summer. Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS Grenadiers)–who won Stage 1 at the Giro d’Italia–was chosen instead.

Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.

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