The Tour de France 2023 ended on Sunday with the victory of Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) in the general classification.
In a Tour de France traveled at full speed, the final victory formalized on Sunday July 23 was undecided for a long time, before the gap widened between Jonas Vingegaard and his runner-up Tadej Pogacar. The two riders animated the race, as did several French teams full of panache, rewarded by stage victories or beautiful places of honor.
We liked
The panache of the French teams
He managed to follow the Vingegaard-Pogacar duo on the first stage and confirmed his good legs the next day. Victor Lafay offered Cofidis its first stage victory since 2008 and French spectators, the only French success of this Tour de France. The northern formation, whose sprinter Bryan Coquard has entered the top 10 five times, even had a second victory thanks to Ion Izaguirre. Another French team to shine, AG2R-Citroën won the queen stage, in Courchevel, thanks to the Austrian Felix Gall, thus chaining a 4th Grande Boucle with at least one success.
If it did not triumph, the Vendée team TotalEnergies did not go far, with second place for Pierre Latour at Puy de Dôme, then second and third place for Mathieu Burgaudeau at Belleville-en-Beaujolais and Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc. As for Groupama-FDJ, the best French team in the world ranking, the balance sheet is not ideal, with no podium on a stage. But, there is a but”. Its star rider and future retiree, Thibaut Pinot, offered spectators the most beautiful emotions of this Tour de France, unless it was the other way around, on its last mountain stage. Finally, if he is not part of a French team, Julian Alaphilippe has also been very often seen at the front, since he is the second runner in the number of kilometers covered in the breakaway.
Unpredictable stages with many different winners
Jasper Philipsen (4) and Tadej Pogacar (2) are the only two riders to have won more than one stage on this Tour de France. Apart from the sprint stages, which very often went to the Belgian from the Alpecin-Deceuninck team, those of transitions, rather intended for backpackers, all had different winners, such as Victor Lafay (in San Sebastian), Pello Bilbao (in Issoire), Ion Izagirre (in Belleville-en-Beaujolais), or Matej Mohoric (in Poligny). Even in the high mountains, the leaders were more concerned with their competitors in the general classification than with stage victories, allowing Jai Hindley (in Laruns), Michael Woods (in Puy de Dôme), Wout Poels (in Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc) or Felix Gall (in Courchevel) to pocket prestigious successes.
The Vingegaard-Pogacar duel which electrified the Tour
They were the two big favorites and assumed their status. Jonas Vingegaard, winner in 2022, and Tadej Pogacar, double winner in 2020 and 2021, fought from the first stages. And despite the lead of almost a minute taken by the Dane in Laruns, Tadej Pogacar was one of the great animators of the Tour by constantly attacking to grab time and return to seven small seconds of the yellow jersey before the third week. Unfortunately for the suspense, Jonas Vingegaard completed a supersonic time trial, relegating his opponent to nearly two minutes. Stunned, Tadej Pogacar suffered a failure the next day in the Col de la Loze, losing all hope of final victory in Paris. For the honor, the Slovenian attacked again on the eve of the finish on the Champs-Elysées and offered himself a second stage victory.
We didn’t like
The indiscipline of the spectators
Each week of the Tour de France its overflow of spectators. On the third stage, several riders complained of nails thrown on the road. “Know that you can fall and hurt yourself very badly with your bullshit”, got angry Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) on Twitter, before falling due to flags caught in his wheels a few days later. Other spectators, reckless, caused falls by hitting riders with their arms to take pictures, as on the fifteenth stage, during which Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma), embarrassed by a spectator, found himself on the ground and caused the fall of other riders. Finally on the 20th stage, a spectator, too close to the riders, caused the fall of Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) with his flag, which hung on the handlebars of the Frenchman.
The abyssal gaps in the general classification
There was Vingegaard, Pogacar, and then… the others. If the first two gave us a good duel for two weeks, before the gap widened between them, the one with the other riders is abysmal. Their competitors could not fight, as the statistics show: the gap between the first and the tenth in the general classification, Guillaume Martin, amounts to 26 minutes and 30 seconds, the second largest gap between the yellow jersey and the tenth in the 21st century, behind the 35 minutes and 59 seconds of the 2022 edition. a rider already one hour behind Jonas Vingegaard.