5 Vingeard wins the Tour de France, Belgian Philipsen wins the final stage

Jonas Vingaard has won the 109th edition of the Tour de France on Sunday evening. Not surprisingly, the 25-year-old Danish Jumbo-Visma rider’s leadership was never called into question during the final stage of his arrival on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The victory in the final stage was a hunt for the Belgian Jasper Philipsen.

Philipsen rushed to victory very convincingly. The Belgian from Alpecin-Deceuninck, who won the fifteenth stage, sent Dylan Groenewegen back to second place. Norway’s Alexander Kristoff finished third. Danny van Poppel finished seventh and Fabio Jakobsen thirteenth.

Traditionally, the pace of the first part of the final stage was extremely slow. It took a long time for the riders to chat and the porters to toast to champagne. The other five Jumbo-Visma drivers took the opportunity to take over the lead of the pack.

The pace only picked up as it went up the Champs-Élysées and several runners tried to escape. Stefan Bissegger and Jan Tratnik, among others, tried their luck, but failed to participate.

A group of five, including Maximilian Schachmann, was a time longer than the main force by more than ten seconds. This attempt was unsuccessful, just as a move by the always combative Tadej Pogacar just a few kilometers from the finish also failed. Then the countdown to the peloton sprint began.

Vingeard, second winner of the Tour of Denmark

Vingaard became the second Danish winner of the Tour de France after Bjarne Riis. Riis was victorious in 1996, but ten years later he admitted that he owed the victory to the use of banned substances.

Vingeard celebrated his Tour de France debut last year by finishing second, five minutes and twenty seconds behind Pogacar. The reigning champion started the stage race as the big favorite, a situation that he underlined from week one with two stage wins.

Vingeard continued to follow in the Slovenian’s footsteps. With Primoz Roglic as the lightning rod, thanks to a strong piece of team play, Dane seized the power in the eleventh stage on arrival at the Col du Granon.

Jonas Vingaard on his way to his victory at the Col du Granon.

Pogacar fails to close the gap

“Suddenly” the Jumbo-Visma driver had a lead of more than two minutes over Pogacar, who has since become more hunter than prey. The two-time winner attacked countless times, but Vingaard always had an answer.

On the mountain stage that ended last Thursday in Hautacam, the Slovenian lost time again and threw in the towel. In Saturday’s time trial, Vingaard recaptured ground from his opponent.

Geraint Thomas completes the podium, but the 2018 winner has to concede a whopping 7 minutes and 22 seconds to the overall winner. Among the top 10, the differences are quite large. There are no Dutch, by the way: Bauke Mollema is the highest-ranking citizen in 25th place.

Wout van Aert was one of the biggest trendsetters of the Tour.

Unparalleled success for Jumbo-Visma

Vingaard’s success is the first time since 1980 that a Dutch team has a Tour winner in their ranks. Joop Zoetemelk was victorious at the time in the service of TI-Raleigh. Jumbo-Visma also won the green jersey with Wout van Aert (for the leader in the points class), while Vingaard was the best in the mountains classification and was thus honored as the winner of the polka dot jersey.

The team has now achieved at least six stage victories: three for Van Aert, two for Vingaard and one for Christophe Laporte.

Vingegaard is in his fourth season with the driver’s Jumbo-Visma, which he received from the undervalued Danish team ColoQuick. The climber finished his first Grand Tour in the 2020 Vuelta a España in 46th position as Roglic’s assistant.

The next three-week stage race was the 2021 Tour, which only had to admit its dominance at Pogacar. In this year’s edition, which started in Copenhagen, Vingaard turned things around.

The latest news and background information can be found in our Tour de France file.