Northerner said:
How many teams will consider this Tour a success I wonder?
Ineos came first and second, but somehow despite that weren't anywhere near as dominant as in the past.
Jumbo-Visma have a podium and four stages.
Bora: 4th, one stage and the green jersey
DQS 5th, three stages
Movistar 6th,8th,9th and the team classification and a stage, but still disappointing
EF and Arkea complete the top 10.
Lotto win three stsges.
MItchelton-Scott got 4 stages, Bahrain 2, FDJ 1, but their GC ambitions came to nothing.
AG2R didn't come for the dots.
Trek invisible bar Ciccone's stint in yellow.
There were 9 other teams in the race.
For mine:
Top tier:
Ineos - teams depth much weaker than ever before but job done with 1-2 on GC.
Jumbo Visma - stage wins with multiple riders, 1st yellow jersey and a podium finish in Paris.
DQS - sprint win, early hilly stage win and yellow jersey then the biggest story for French cycling in a generation. 5th still a massive result for them.
Bora - The expected green jersey procession and the bonus of a coming of age 4th for Buchmann.
Lotto Soudal - career defining performance from Caleb Ewan demonstrating the signifying was a great move by team and rider with De Gendt and his unique glorious victory plus a valiant challenge from Tim Wellens.
Mid pack:
FDJ - Did little wrong and their race fell apart through heartbreak not bad racing. Great stage win but the what if will linger for a long long time.
MS - Fabulous stage hunting haul and could have had the KoM as well without the truncated Alps stages but they came to ride GC for Adam Yates who had a terrible race.
Bahrain - two MTF wins was a highly respectable haul for a team without any riders likely to go high in GC.
Movistar - won the annual Movistar prize aka team classification but to have 3 in top ten GC but none in the top 5 shows they had strength but failed to harness it well. Good stage win.
AG2R - Flirted with the bottom tier for me as Bardet never got into the GC battle though showed good heart and spirit to reset and salvage a polka dot jersey.
Arkea-Samsic - no wins but Barguil returned to some lovely form and Gesbert got in plenty of breaks.
Wanty Gobert - given their budget they were more visible than you could expect and Meurisse was sensational for the first two weeks.
Bottom tier:
Katusha - Zakarin and Politt did their best to carve out a result but came up empty handed. For a world tour team more should have been delivered.
Trek - Early fun with Ciccone in yellow but Porte GC was the all in plan and while he avoided the bad luck that has plagued him the form was not quite there.
Total Direct Energie - never looked like winning and the punishment ride was almost cruel to watch when they missed a big breakaway.
Cofidis - Perichon deserves an honourable mention but they would have hoped for much more from Jesus Herrada.
Astana - Unlucky to lose Fuglsang to falls but their stage hunting never convinced and only Lutsenko really shone.
EF - Tried hard and prominent in breaks but Uran did not have the legs to challenge the best and Woods not able to hold the best in the breaks either.
Dimension Data - pound for pound the worst team in the race and so bad I nearly forgot their name.
UAE - Dan Martin failed in the mountains and the only real bright spot was a promising debut for Jasper Philipsen.
CCC - GVA did a very creditable GC position but ultimately meaningless and a team packed with stage hunters failed to bring home the bacon.