Rate the 2022 Tour de France

[BigCoward]

Also Froome proving all the *** wrong (sort of). He did far better than he had any right or expectation to do so. He should have got to ride into Paris though.

 

[Jan the Man]

7 for me. May be a tad harsh because I enjoyed more stages of the Tour than I normally do.

 

[Avoriaz]

Surprised myself and gave it a 9. Although in the it was not close, there was non-stop action, and something was always about to happen. There have been too many “winning by numbers” editions over the last 30 years whether by winning TT and hang on, winning first mountain and control, and this Tour was a departure from that. The 1-2 attacking on Pogacar from so far out was as beautiful as it was cruel, and even had some comedy value as Thomas was usually there grinding away in the background.

I can only pick two faults: firstly, they need to fix the KOM which Vingegaard* won by default and almost apologetically, and second, I had no idea what was going on on the Hautacam stage - was there a peloton, which bit was the peloton, if the break was the peloton does this mean the favourites were dropped.

It’s been a great race. I even enjoyed the interview with Gilbert, Wright and Sagan on the Champs Elysees

*though he was the best climber…

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Objectively it was a good Tour edition. Hence i won't vote this time. I don't want to spoil the average.

You could always give it a 3 in honour of the position of Roglič's bike on the team car.


I gave it an 8. I would have liked some more breakaway wins for the riders I like, and the KOM going to someone who was actually targeting it. The GC fight was better than anyone could have expected it would be, The battle for green (and white) was non-existing.

 

[hayneplane]

Would have rated it 8.5 but rounded it up to 9.
We got several stages that will l long in the memory and lots of superb performances.

Only negatives being Roglic getting taken out of contention by a stupid haybale, the lack of any real action in Denmark and Pogacar being totally let down by his team management in bringing a flick knife to a pistol showdown.

The usual hyper controlled racing was turned on its head and the sprinters were made to earn their chances.

 

[Moondance]

8/10

Best Tour I can remember. Route was by far the best. Was a bit of a shame some of the more ambitious stages didn’t pan out as hoped (no echelons on stage 2, Roubaix stage a bit chaotic but not in a good way) the mountain stages were mostly great fun, with some epic performances like Pidcock to Alpe.

Underwhelming levels of excitement in GC after the second week, and points classification after day 0 keep it from being an all time great race. But with more routes like this one the Tour should be the race of the season again going forward

 

[KenFiamingo]

and props to covid-19 for not disturbing the race too much.

 

[Bavarianrider]

The riders made the best out of the route. You can`t really ask for much more.
Though, there is a serious lack of charismatic guys in the peleton these days.
They are all a bit boring to be honest in terms of personalities.

 

[GroupDK]

9/10

Finally happy to see Vingegaard's GC potency, as that was the biggest question I had after 2021..
as in TdF2021 - where Vingegaard ended nr 2 with 5.20min after Pogacar.

It was not intended for him to pursue his own TdF GC in 2021 - as I recall' Jonas VIngegaard was there to help his captain Roglic as a pure helped.
Also recall it was his team priority on the critical first mountain stage (stage 8) where he lost (+4.10min) and crashed, but first and foremost monitor & help his captain Roglic that lost 35 min. to Pogacar on this first TdF21 mountain stage..
Roglic did not start for stage9 ..he could likely also realize it would be a long tour being 35 min down, solely on the first mountain stage with just 3x 1cat, and he was also bruised from crashing on that rainy stage.

After that first critical stage8 in TdF21,- Jonas Vingegaard was +5.00 min after Pogacar where 4.10min were from Stage8.. while at the finish (stage21) - he was merely +5.20 minutes... so not a lot (+20sec) he lost throughout the remaining 2021 tour.. mainly the 2x10sec bonus seconds that Pogacar took at stage17, and 18, where Jonas came in as second - as Pogacar is definitely more explosive than Jonas Vingegaard.
Jonas needs to drop Pogacar on climbs as otherwise, he will lose at the finish line to Pogacar - as POgacar can mustard that explosive sprint finish.

Great for the entertainment' to see somebody being able to challenge Tatej' as Pogacar is a blast to watch when he is trying everything under the sun and searching for gains.
Jonas and Pogacar's fight was the highlight for me, in this Tour de France.
Jonas Vingegaard was the stronger rider, and even if you remove the team aspect...I still reckon Jonas would have won comfortably - simply because the stages were quite hard, and the European heatwave certainly didnt make it easier.

Jonas was able too to gain on Pogacar the 3 times he tried & should.. 11, 18, 20, and I did not notice any moment that Jonas was in serious trouble, he managed to grab Pogacar's wheel over and over when Pogacar went all out and Jonas Vingegaard looked extremely comfortable while doing it.
Jonas Vingegaard seemed stronger and kudos to Jumbo Visma' that they co-captain him with Roglic for TdF2022.

 

[Izzyeviel]

11/10. Greatest tour we'll ever see. We even had the guy in second attack on the champ elysees and put 51 seconds into yellow. Such craziness sums up the whole race.

 

[Tonton]

2019 better

Could have been better...FTFY

 

[Devil's Elbow]

Gave it a 7, but it was really close to being an 8.

The positives - three big mountain stages with racing before the final climb - a rarity in any GT nowadays, let alone the Tour. Excluding the Danish sprints, pretty much every day was raced, the prolonged battles to make the break really helped and it's something we couldn't have gotten to enjoy every day until not too long ago. Those two are definitely enough to make it the best Tour of those I've watched, which is 2009 onwards.

So, why only a 7 for the best Tour in at least 14 editions? I'll start with a minor point - the 2019 Tour would likely have bested this one had it not fallen apart at the last due to freak accidents (Pinot's injury and landslides causing the penultimate mountain stage being called off and the final one to be castrated) so a better Tour than this one isn't far-fetched. However, my main criticism is that Vingegaard's yellow jersey was never in jeopardy after Granon. If Pogacar drops him in earnest on one of those Pyrenees stages and claws back at least a minute, I would probably have given a 9 (maybe even a 10 depending on how that would have affected the following stages) and we're talking best GT of a generation - as it is, we only need to go back four years to find a Giro that beats it. I also deducted some points for the lack of competition for minor jerseys - green and white were completely uncompetitive and the only person targeting the polkadots somehow failed to win it. And finally, Jumbo-Visma were a little too strong for my liking.

In other words, Van Aert was the one rider who unironically dragged this race down a bit for me, I wish he actually was a Belgian Pozzato

Oh, and finally - if I would be comparing this Tour only to other Tours rather than all GTs, it would be a full point higher - on the edge of 8 and 9.

 

[Ricco']

One of takeaways I think we can take from this Tour is that the KOM needs a serious overhaul. Pretty unremarkable fight for it and it's been like that for the majority of years.

I think the points system needs to change too, but I'm not so strong on that. It was completely redesigned in 2011 to give a chance for Cavendish to win one (imo) but the I think the old system provided more regularly strong clashes between the riders. But otoh we had some good editions in that competition so it could also be due to the field.

 

[Gigs_98]

OK so clearly I don't help my own case by giving very short posts and not explaining myself. Because I don have all day to sit and type. But I'm not trolling and I will try and explain.

First of all I don't know how I am rating this race

-As a Tour de France?
-As a grand tour?
-As a race?

If this is a 10/10, does the 2016 Giro get an 11 or 12?

Anyway, I think this tour is overrated here. Partially because of stage 11. Which was one of the best stages I have seen in the Tour. That will be what people remember.

And I have to say it was a good tour. Because on that stage we saw the invincible dethroned. But outside of that, there was not much going on.

We had 2 stratospheric robots dropping the rest, thomas flailing behind and then a bunch of other guys dripping across the line. There was 1 team that dominated the race, total lack of sprint drama, total inevitability of the gc result after alpe dhuez (which was not a very good stage), contenders crashing out on a demolition style cobble stage etc.

And of course for me personally, it felt like there was not a lot of character in the race. A lacking of narratives, of different riders coming and going as the days passed, just the same three thermonuclear robots.

I would say this tour is a 6.5 or a 7, and the 2019 tour is for me a 7.5, it had so much more going on. I can elaborate more

Tbh I think you are a little biased with your assesment of the 2016 Giro. I have great memories of 2016 too, but that's because I was rooting for Nibali. From a neutral standpoint that race absolutely f*cking sucked until the dolomites stage. One incredible week doesn't make up for that. Same reason why I think this Tour was better than the 2011 one despite 2011 having an insane finale.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

One of takeaways I think we can take from this Tour is that the KOM needs a serious overhaul. Pretty unremarkable fight for it and it's been like that for the majority of years.

I think the points system needs to change too, but I'm not so strong on that. It was completely redesigned in 2011 to give a chance for Cavendish to win one (imo) but the I think the old system provided more regularly strong clashes between the riders. But otoh we had some good editions in that competition so it could also be due to the field.

On a normal route, the points classification is simply going to go to Van Aert every single time no matter what the system is. Only way to stop him is to design a race with only sprint stages Kittel could have won and HC MTFs and even then he might find a way.

The KOM was already tweaked for this year with MTFs no longer handing out double. Obviously didn't change a thing.

Generally I think the better way to improve the minor classification battles is to rebalance the UCI points valuations. Green and polkadots each hand out 120 points for the winner, the same as a stage win and less than what twelfth on GC is worth. Especially now that UCI points matter a lot, that's going to impact their importance within the race. Sixth on GC is worth 400 points, bump up points and KOM to that and stages to half that and voilà, other things than GC are actually worth the time of someone like Enric Mas if he's going to help his team survive.

 

[CyclistAbi]

You could always give it a 3 in honour of the position of Roglič's bike on the team car.

I could do that. But as said it wouldn't do the race justice.

 

[YavorD]

I have it a 9, it should have been 10.
With a closer GT battle (say both within 20-30 seconds), no way we see so much action before the final climb, so "a closer battle to make the TT decisive" would make it for less interesting mountains.

The route wasn't really exciting, but the riders and race situations made the race great.
When the only really boring stages were the first 2 (and they were a show on themselves with the crowd and Cort), we have very few reasons to complain. Plus weather didn't play a hand into the race.

First week was very good, good racing throughout the entire week.

Stage 11 was stuff for ages, thanks to (injured) Roglic and Pogacar's stupid racing. Aloe D'Huez was a bit anticlimactic, but I can live with that and afterwards you had to watch every stage, just in case Pogi makes a sneaky attack, and he indeed tried a few times.
3 of 4 (I don't count Foix) high mountain stages were raced hard from the penultimate climb WITHOUT actually having a stage that it seemed actually possible.
Jumbo were overpowered and UAE rather unlucky, but it happens sometimes.


I really don't understand people giving it less than 7. This is as good as a GT, especially TdF can get.
Especially because the route didn't exactly look inspiring pre-race.

 

[CyclistAbi]

Anyway, I think this tour is overrated here. Partially because of stage 11. Which was one of the best stages I have seen in the Tour. That will be what people remember.

And in the end this is what it is all about. The rest was only the consequence. And the consequence was still of such nature as for what people tend to crave for. In a GT race.

It delivered.

 

[Nick2413]

I gave it a 7. Great tour with tons of action and interesting stages, but a little anticlimactic and too one-sided with basically 3 guys having all the action. Overall better than average though.

 

[fbjim]

Two all-time great mountain stages (Granon and Hautacam, though Peyregaudes was also excellent) makes this an auto-10.

 

[Pistolas]

Gave an 8. I had the delusion we're watching an epic battle till stage 20. Then I realized it was scripted and Pogi never was a contender. It was Netflix ahead of the proper Netflix show, but still a good show.

 

[Savant12]

8/10 Can't beat it for pure fantasy entertainment.

Good points:
Denmark and MCN's polka dot quest.
The cobbles stage didn't disappoint. Pog's attack and Jumbo's ridiculous 2 x 4 TTT. And that sprint finish.
JV obliterating the race at will (See Clinic).
Wout angry! Wout smash the race!
Pog not obliterating the race.
Return of the Dawg.
G getting a podium riding a non-crash and steady race.

 

[Cookster15]

Jumbos team-wide strength versus Pogi’s valour. I look forward to round two when Pogi doesn’t fall for the setup on stage 11.

A special mention to Geraint Thomas. To snare a podium is a great result for him and Ineos.

But I am really struggling to understand the TT result. The only explanation I can think of is that Pogi burned all his matches and had nothing left. But on what planet does Vingo get close to a rampaging WvA on that course? Can’t be discussed here. And spare a thought for poor Roglic.

 

[JosefK]

I gave it a 9. It may be the best Tour I've seen. This year's Tour had dynamic combatants at the top, aggressive riding and thrilling attacks, and was elevated by the excellence not only of the guy who won it, but the guy who finished 2nd (and others). Often, when the Tour is over, there's the feeling that exciting future GC battles are more a distant wish than a realistic desire, but after this Tour I'm very hopeful of great battles in the next one. I did get a bit sour over the carnage of stage 5, with Primoz's GC hopes ended (though it wasn't immediately clear how badly he was hurt), but that stage was still a thriller. By chance or grace, the weather was consistently clear, and the route was beautiful.

 

[Big Doopie]

9/10

If you were either a Vingo or Pog fan, it should be a 10. The only reason I took a point off is simply for selfish reasons, I had absolutely no personal favorite in GC.

Observations:

1. Best TDF since 1989.

2. I hope this finally puts to rest that the best way to design a GT is to artificially make sure that the top ten are within one minute going into the final week. I have been calling BS on that forever. These were the biggest time differences in the top ten in like...how many years?! What you need is just two great champions fighting it out on a tough course. Let's be clear, Bardet, Quintana, Meinjes, Gaudu, Yates...these are not GC winners (or should not be), they are limited and too one-dimensional. Ruining the challenges of a course design so that these riders remain artificially in contention into the third week leads precisely to defensive racing and boredom. This TDF was a serious flashback to the 70s and 80s for me. I actually think that another ITT in the first or second week would have only heightened the combat. At that time Pog probably would have added a little more to his advantage or cut into Vingo's lead a bit. I know, I know, Vingo beat him in the final ITT, but I believe Pog would have been the better earlier in the race.

3. Vingo surprised me. And I am thrilled. I actually think he may recover better than even Pog! Why he has outperformed Pog in both final ITTs the last two years (tho I know Pog may not have been taking risks last year). The question going into 2023 is whether the reason for that lies in the fact that Pog was forced to attack so many times and had a lesser team. The best part of this is that at least we have a two-up race and they are head and shoulders over everyone else. It's Coppi-Bartali. It's Merckx-Ocana. It's Lemond-Fignon. Or could be. I had resolved to years of Pog domination. I was prepared to simply enjoy his exploits. Now, however, there can actually be a battle.

4. WvA...the second coming of Merckx, or Freddy Maertens? Nah, just WvA. Enjoy!

5. Bahrain and Astana completely nowhere. Hmmm. Why was that...? ;-)