If WvA is healthy, yes. Have you seen any updates on his injury? If he's not 100% I wouldn't make him a favorite no matter how great he is.

https://www.velonews.com/events/tour...-injury-upset/

Sounds like he's fine.

Summer will officially begin tomorrow, as Tour de France 2022 is almost upon us. Time to, once again, spend the summer sitting inside in front of the television.Who needs sun when you can watch sweaty men in lycra riding their bikes around France - and Denmark? Not me!
This edition of the Tour is pretty special, at least for me, as the first three stages will be raced in my country, Denmark. Watching yesterday's presentation gave me goosebumps, and I almost shed a tear at how emotional Vingegaard was, it was truly special. Danish cycling has been on a climb for many years and it feels like this could be the culmination of it all, I for one cannot wait.


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The three stages in Denmark:

The first stage of this year's race is a time trial (not a prologue, as prologues are 8 km or less) through the beautiful center of Copenhagen, with both the stage win and the yellow jersey on the line for the winner, which every time trial capable rider is surely eyeing.
I dare say the second stage will be unlike anything we have ever seen at the Tour, as the finish is after 17 km across the Great Belt Bridge above the sea between Zealand and Funen. It is likely to be a windy stage, and if that takes the form of crosswinds, this stage could have a huge impact on the race on the whole, because, as we all know, a lot of GC guys are seemingly impervious to learning from their mistakes in crosswinds. If the wind gods are in our favor (and not the riders') this could be utter mayhem.
The third stage will probably not be all that eventful - but I'll be on the side of the road somewhere near the start so obviously it is still going to be a great watch, and the fans at all three stages will be incredible (hopefully not too many drunk clowns crashing riders, though).


The favorite(s):

There is one favorite to rule them all, and that is of course Tadej Pogacar, who'll be looking to win three straight Tour de Frances - at the age of 23. I can't recall ever seeing a GC rider as dominant as Pogacar is, it is scary how much better than everyone else he is. Rolf Sørensen yesterday during his presentation that he is hands down the most talented rider he has ever seen, and it is difficult to argue, he is unbelivable.



It will be a monumental task for anyone to dethrone Pogacar, luckily there are two guys who will try to accomplish it by combining their powers. Jumbo Visma's Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic hydra (Roggaard) will be looking to make Pogacar bleed, and hoping that in unison they can match the indominable Slovenian. They have been the two runners-up during Pogacar's wins, and they hope to be able to combine their forces for one of them to take the final step toward the top of the podium.




But (how) can Pogacar be stopped? Hewas untouchable last year, and two years ago he was also sublime.

Other than crashes, illness or poor form (as if) it seems like there's nothing that can stop Pogacar. But as I am hoping to witness an exciting Tour I'm trying to come up with arguments for how Pogacar could, theoretically, struggle this year.

- In 2020 the only time Pogacar looked like he was struggling was when he lost 15 seconds to Roglic was on the high altitude stage (Col de la Loze) won by MA Lopez. Last year the only sign of weakness was on Tourmalet, also a rather high climb. He did win the high altitude stage to Col du Portet, but he came to the finish line with Carapaz and Vingegaard, who he were levels above on most other clims. He is obviously still absurdly strong in tall mountains, but he has looked less superhuman than elsewhere. This year the peloton is crossing Galibier twice, which is a very high altitude climb and one of these stages ends on another climb in 2400m altitude. Stage 11 and 12 look like stages that could potentially be difficult for Pogacar if Roggaard are flying, if he really is vulnerable in the thin air.

- Speaking of Roggaard, assuming both are in great form, this will undoubtedly be the strongest competition Pogacar has had to deal with yet. He "only" had 1 minute in 2020 to Roglic, and Vingegaard last year dropped some time early in the race to support Roglic before he became the GC hope. Peak Roglic is also a phenomenal rider, and Vingegaard seemingly just gets better and better. So maybe Pogacar will look a bit more human when the opposition is the best there is - and they are working together.

- The second stage with echelons could be a day where, if Pogacar is caught off guard, he could lose time. Everyone else will have an interest in dropping him if there is even a moment where he is out of position, and the positioning will be insane on the bridge if it is windy. There is also the cobbled stage in France which will certainly cause disruption. They may not be going on the most difficult pavees of Roubaix, but they are still treacherous, and depending on the weather it could be another chaotic stage. Ofc Pogacar showed in Flanders that he is not afraid of cobbles, but these cobbles are a different gravy and will cause problems for many.

I'm a little sad that there is no team time trial, which imo seems like the most obvious way Jumbo could gain time on Pogacar (not to mention TTTs are cool as ****), but other than that, imo the route is the most challenging it has been in Pogacar's time and the competition is stronger than it has been before, assuming Roggaard are in form. Hopefully it will be a great Tour de France!

Let us Allez Opi-Omi!

Nice post Viggorous, I hope you enjoy the next few days

Feels fairly likely that one of the top GC riders gets eliminated through COVID or at least loses key teammates. Maybe that makes it more interesting than just watching Pogacar dominate, but would hate to see it decided that way.

Thanks you! I hope everyone enjoys the Tour being in Denmark (although I do hope Danish cycling fans will have a little more than others to celebrate )

Spent a few hours somewhere around 275m from the finish line.

Rainy but nice atmosphere, thought WvA had it won but oh well, nice for lampaert

Looks like a great spot to be!

Surprising winner in Lampaert but what an insane ride. And watching grown men cry in their winner's interview is just manna for the soul.

Laid Pog **** it

Great crowds today, glad to see it. Makes for a fun ITT.

Higher than during the Bjarne Riis days? German cycling never got even remotely close to the Ulrich/Riis Team Telekom days.

Pretty cool that they do Alpe d'Huez on July 14th. At some point I want to do that in real life after having done the climb >100 times on Zwift.

Not a good day for the Aussies hope the high mountains treat them better - Pog seems extremely hard to beat

Perhaps culmination was a poor choice of word, Bjarne's win is no doubt still unrivaled by anything and will continue to be so until another Dane wins the Tour. I meant more in relation to the total talent mass of Danish cycling, which imo has never been higher. In addition to Bjarne, the 90's also had probably the greatest Danish rider ever, Rolf Sørensen, and other successful riders (Skibby, Hamburger), but right now Danish cycling is stacked with elite riders and talent, and most of them are still very young and others are also up and coming.

Next to Bjarne's win, the biggest results in Danish cycling history are the World Championship, and the 5 monument wins, and 4 of those have come in the past 3 seasons, and the best GT result after Bjarne is Vingegaard. I think this era is very likely to end up being considered greater than that of the 90's.

An incredible sprint by Fabio Jakobsen, who wins the first ever Tour de France sprint he takes part in.

Jakobsen's comeback is one of the most incredible stories in many years. After an absolute nightmare of a high speed crash in Tour of Poland, where his face was literally torn off, he broke every single bone in his face and lost ten teeth, it seemed unlikely he would survive.
Brian Holm, who is part of the team, said one of the doctors at the ICU fainted when he saw what was left of his face. The fact that he not only survived, but comes back to become the best sprinter in the world is just unbelievable. It's a miracle that he survived, it's another miracle that he can still ride a bike, and it's similarly incredible that he can do it so well. Not just physically, but to have the mental strength to keep going in with full risk in bunch sprints as sprinters have to do to have success after nearly losing your life in a crash takes something special.

Even though I was obviously hoping for Pedersen, it still warms the heart to see Jakobsen in a way complete his comeback back to the very top with a stage win at the Tour.

It didn't produce any crazy splits or anything but I enjoyed the trip across the bridge in stage 2.

Suprised to see WvA pipped at the line today, he was set up perfectly.

Maybe Groenewegen is/was a bit underrated. Before the Jakobsen accident he was the fastest man alive imo

I'd say he was set up well but not perfectly since him and Laporte went around Morkov on different sides when they started their sprint. I don't know whose fault that was but if they had been on the same side van Aert could have followed Laporte a bit longer which probably would have given him the win.

Overall getting 2 seconds in these sprints is better than I expected from van Aert, his positioning being his best weapon here because when it comes to top speed he's probably like 5th fastest? Jakobsen lost it in the corner yesterday, Ewan is super inconsistent because his positioning is terrible and he doesn't have his usual train here to help him with that. Philipsen usually has good positioning I think, he has started from too far back twice now for some reason but he's looking very fast. Groenewegen also obviously and surprisingly Sagan looked very good yesterday and actually maybe could have won if van Aert hadn't cut him off a bit.

Watched the race live yesterday, was great to see it live again, especially Magnus Cort did a lot for the Danish fans. So many people, it was crazy, felt like half of Jutland were there. We missed the caravan which was not a disaster, my navigation skills are dire and I was intending for us to reach the stage at a more southern point (my planned route involved us driving in our car on the course, I had failed to see the riders would come through where they did).

Still, we made it and only had to wait an hour for the riders, which was nice.
A couple of pics, one of the back of the peloton, one of Cort where he is barely visible behind some dude's phone. I wanted to clap and cheer for the riders so no pictures up close, can't have it all.

Omg I just came

Holy ****.

I really need to stop spoiling myself checking the sports news at 5pm when I'm bored at work

What a monster van Aert is, he really is something else.

Very excited for today's stage, will probably be quite eventful when they hit the cobbles.

Man I must say I was quite excited about this "can't win it but can lose it" stage but now watching some of the tour favorites getting unlucky with crashes or mechanical issues getting their hopes and work crushed is kinda not that fun

props to Pogacar, a monster on top of being relatively lucky

I don't want to overreact but Pogacar is winning Paris-Roubaix next year.

On one hand the stage is pretty entertaining and I like the idea that riding well over the cobbles can be a factor in winning the GC every few years but overall I feel like it's probably not worth it when it makes technical problems that screw over riders so much more likely.