Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar's Tour de France duels will become one of sport's great rivalries for the ages.
As the Dane denied Pogacar a hat-trick of Yellow Jerseys and rode into the Champs Elysees sunset in triumph, it brought the curtain down on the equivalent of Formula One dukes Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost settling their feud on a bike.
After finishing runner-up 12 months ago, Vingegaard's maiden Grand Tour win established his battle with the Slovenian as cycling's headline act, while Jasper Philipsen won the final stage. The Dane beat Pogacar by two minutes 43 seconds in the general classification and even had time for a glass of champagne on the final stage.
Mercifully, sportsmanship has not become a casualty of their face-off, as their handshake on stage 17 after they hit the deck within seconds of each other on a tricky descent proved. But if Jumbo-Visma powerhouse Vingegaard, 25, has been catapulted into worldwide celebrity after three weeks of raging intensity on the road, Pogacar warned the sequels will be just as gripping.
He said: "It's been a good three weeks, with many ups and downs, but the battle between me and Jonas for the Yellow Jersey has been very special. I think we have some very interesting next two or three years ahead of us. Jonas has stepped up his game this year. I'm motivated and looking forward to the next challenges."
If Pogacar cracking on the Col du Grandon, and Vingegaard surging into the leader's maillot jaune – as Greg Le Mond had done, at five-times winner Bernard Hinault's expense, 36 years earlier – proved decisive, Geraint Thomas deserves huge credit for his third podium finish in five years.
British interest was sustained from the moment Ineos Grenadiers kingpin Thomas forgot to remove his gilet before the start of the Grand Depart time trial in Copenhagen. Five years earlier, the Welshman's blistered skinsuit had been the source of much rancour and envy, with bitter rivals complaining it gave him an unfair advantage as he rode into the Yellow Jersey in Dusseldorf.
This time, Thomas rendered the multi-million pound research into aerodynamics and wind tunnel experiments obsolete by launching his crusade effectively in a life jacket. To his credit, Le Tour's 2018 champion saw the funny side and invited fans to take the gilet to Paris in a relay orchestrated on social media and, in fairness, the seconds Thomas lost in Copenhagen would not have made any difference to the final outcome.
Third place on the general classification, after winning the race in 2018 and being runner-up the following year, was a fine effort.
“It was a tough end to last year, so to come back from that and prove a few doubters wrong has been really enjoyable,” he said. “I'm much closer to the end of my Tour de France career than the start, but I've done some of my best numbers.”
Ineos team-mate Tom Pidcock's sensational stage win on the Alpe d'Huez was surely a glimpse of the Tokyo 2020 mountain bike champion turning Olympic gold into Yellow Jersey glory in future. And after his catalogue of near misses on breakaways, surely it is only a matter of time before Fred Wright is first under the transponder.
As Philipsen won a thin bunch sprint on the final stage, QuickStep Alpha-Vinyl were left to ponder whether picking Fabio Jakobsen ahead of Mark Cavendish, and denying the Manx missile a shot at immortality by passing Eddy Merckx's record 34 stage wins, had worked out. Jakobsen won an early sprint in Denmark but was cooked by the time he reached Paris.
If Cavendish had been picked – as he deserved to be – and delivered a single stage win, his team would have got far more bang for their buck. Their loss. Cavendish is likely to seek a new team this winter and make an encore in the peloton in 2023.
