In one of the hardest editions of the race in recent years, Jonas Vingegaard – once so puny that he shirked tackles in schoolboy football – lines up in Bilbao on Saturday to defend his Tour de France title as a more complete and confident rider.
Buoyed by recent wins in major races such as the Tour of the Basque Country and the Critérium du Dauphiné, Vingegaard goes into this year’s Tour with a new authority and a lot more confidence than in 2022, when the Dane’s undoubted climbing abilities had to be drawn out of him by his team.
Yet there is a major obstacle to his target of a second Tour win, albeit something of an unknown. How will his great rival, Tadej Pogacar, an unstoppable force of nature at his best and winner of the Tour in 2020 and 2021, perform after his enforced lay-off?
The Slovenian broke a wrist in April and while he has recently won time trial and road-race titles in his country, his endurance and resilience, particularly in a Tour that hits the high mountains after less than a week, are uncertain.
Pogacar keeps saying he is “not at 100%,” but there are some who think he is bluffing. Yet his enforced break in the buildup to this Tour, due to his wrist injury, may also open a door for others, such as David Gaudu of France, fourth last year, or the highly rated Australian Jai Hindley, winner of the Giro d’Italia in 2022, now starting his first Tour.
There are others too, and one of the most touted young riders is Vingegaard’s compatriot Mattias Skjelmose, recent winner of the Tour of Switzerland. Meanwhile, his fellow Tour debutant, the 23-year-old Eritrean Biniam Girmay, already a stage winner in the Giro d’Italia, is expected to shine in the sprint finishes.
The 2023 Tour is likely to be frenetic from the off, with an opening weekend of racing in the Basque Country peppered by short, sharp climbs and steep, narrow descents, and offering immediate opportunities for some sparring from the favourites.
The convoy enters France on Monday with a likely sprint finish in Bayonne and again the following day, in stage four to Nogaro. These stages will offer Mark Cavendish a welcome early chance to become the Tour’s record stage winner. He is tied on 34 stage wins with five-time winner Eddy Merckx.
Two tough Pyrenean stages then follow, including gruelling climbs such as the Col du Soudet, the Col de Marie-Blanque, the Col d’Aspin and the towering Col du Tourmalet, which at 2,115 metres, may prove a bridge too far for some contenders.
Jonas Vingegaard
Jumbo-Visma
Denmark, 26
Last year: 1st
Dominant wins in the Tour of the Basque Country and in the mountainous Critérium du Dauphiné already this season make the defending champion the favourite for this year’s maillot jaune. But his Slovenian teammate Primoz Roglic, winner of the Giro d’Italia and one of the key helpers in last year’s win, does not start. If the race becomes a duel between Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar, the Dane may miss him.
Tadej Pogacar
UAE Emirates
Slovenia, 24
Last year: 2nd
The Slovenian is the outstanding talent in the peloton and began this season as if fired by a cannon, winning race after race. But he was derailed by a crash in Liège–Bastogne–Liège in April, in which he broke his wrist, and has admitted that, physically, he has arrived in Bilbao at less than 100%. But if Pogacar can survive the first week and remain in contention, anything is possible.
Ben O’Connor
AG2R Citroen
Australia, 27
Last year: abandoned, stage 10
The French-speaking Australian climber is right in-form as the Tour starts, having finished third overall to Vingegaard in the recent Alpine race, the Critérium du Dauphiné. O’Connor finished fourth in the 2021 Tour, after winning an epic mountain stage to the ski resort of Tignes, and this July will be targeting the podium in Paris, having been forced out of last year’s race through injury.
Thibaut Pinot
Groupama FDJ
France, 33
Last year: 14th
Soulful and moody, sometimes arrogant, sometimes tearful, Pinot wears his angst on his sleeve, yet remains one of the most loved riders in the sport, as much for his heroic failures as his spectacular successes. He was fifth overall and winner of the King of the Mountains prize in this year’s Giro d’Italia, and this is his final hurrah in the Tour and all of France will be willing him on.
Mattias Skjelmose
Lidl-Trek
Denmark, 22
Last year: n/a (debutant this year)
The resilient 22-year-old from Amager in Copenhagen, winner of the Tour of Luxembourg last season, has been one of the breakthrough talents of 2023, winning the Tour of Switzerland and also finishing second in the coveted Ardennes classic, La Flèche Wallonne. He has been through a supplement-related doping ban as a teenager, and was grief-stricken by the loss of a close friend during a race, four years ago, but is a huge talent. Jeremy Whittle
The route then wends its way, via another sprint finish in Bordeaux, into the Massif Central and the long-awaited return of the volcanic climb of the Puy de Dôme, overlooking Clermont Ferrand. If Pogacar and Vingegaard are still jousting for supremacy, the brutally steep finale to this winding climb could be the setting for their first major head-to-head battle.
On Bastille Day the peloton will arrive in the Jura, with the finish to the Grand Colombier climb, and then head on, into the Haute Savoie, for four days of racing in the Alps. One of these days, stage 16, includes this year’s sole time trial, a 22km test from Passy to Combloux.
But there is a sting in the tail of this Tour, and it comes on the penultimate stage, in the Alsace, from Belfort to Le Markstein Fellering on 22 July. A similar route was employed in last year’s rejuvenated Tour de France Femmes and exhausted many in the peloton.
The trawl of climbs on the 133km stage will strike fear into the heart of exhausted sprinters, but offer one last chance for the favourites to restructure the hierarchy or to climb on to the podium. It will also be one last mountain to climb for Cavendish, as he races his final Tour.
Among the innovations in this year’s race, no doubt partly fuelled by the success of the Netflix series on last year’s Tour, TV viewers will be able to eavesdrop on delayed radio conversations between team cars and riders.
Most, but not all, of the Tour’s 22 teams signed up to the deal, in which their internal communications will be monitored – and given the propensity for potty-mouthed encouragement by some team managers – moderated, before going on air.
Five teams declined to participate. “We still have the right to some privacy,” Marc Madiot, manager of one of the five, Groupama FDJ, said.
In a peloton now haunted by the recent death of Gino Mäder, who crashed on a descent in the Tour of Switzerland, safety is an increasing worry. In memory of their teammate, Mäder’s Bahrain Victorious team will not have a rider wearing 61 – their team’s leadership number – during this year’s race.
Meanwhile, limited new safety measures have been introduced for the downhill finishes to stage 14 and 17, although ski netting, as advocated by the EF Education-EasyPost manager, Jonathan Vaughters, in the Guardian this week, is not one of them.
According to the former professional Adam Hansen, president of the riders’ union, the CPA, these finishes will now have “warning audio signs well before corners, new tarmac [which was a main concern for the riders] and barriers with padding on dangerous corners.” Hansen added that he will also ride and video both descents and upload them himself for the peloton to view.
