2023 Summary:

The 2023 edition of Tour de France has concluded, and I wanted to take the opportunity to summarize my view on the Tour. I’ll review some of the riders I believe over-performed as well as those I think under-performed compared to expectations. I have used multiple sources for the basis of my analyses and predictions. Stage profiles provided by LeTour.fr has given the fundamental data, different cycling blogs have added useful info, and Wikipedia has provided insights into starting and finishing towns. The source for the predictions and favorite lists, was bookies data. Bookmakers are reliant on staying objective and can’t afford to give a biased opinion, which creates a good starting point to find candidates for the stages.

Before I dig into the drivers, I would like to say that I have enjoyed the Tour this year, with an interesting calendar, and many interesting stage profiles. We started off in the Basque of northern Spain with a hilly few stages, in contrast to previous years where the normal openings are more flat and usually including a prologue early on. This offered interesting fights both for the yellow jersey as well as the polkadot jersey early on. Later on we had stage finishes on everything from Motorsport race track, Airport runways and a dormant volcano. All of this provided unique finishes and very scenic clips!

I have listed the riders I think over-performed as well as a list of riders I think under-performed below. I will try give a short review of a few of them, with my thoughts on why they performed the way they did.

Jonas Vingegaard: We can’t start off this list without mentioning the overall winner, Jonas Vingegaard. Although he was the leading favorite going into this years’ Tour de France, he didn’t disappoint and showed great consistency and form throughout the Tour. His dominant Time Trial secured him the Jellow Jersey and also gave him a stage win this year.

Jasper Philipsen: Jasper has dominated the bunch sprint this year, taking no less than 4 stage wins. He has looked solid the whole tour, and seem untouchable in the sprints, only narrowly being beat at Champs-Elysées. He took down the Green Jersey with good margin, and is well deserved in the top of over-performing riders.

Felix Gall: The young Austrian proved that he is a massive talent with many strong perfomances this Tour. He took down the hardest stage this year, and secured top results on multiple other stages. He finished a very solid 8th in General Classification as well as coming 2nd in the fight for the Polkadot Jersey. This will be a man too look out for in coming years!

Tadej Pogacar: I have decided to keep the ranking of Tadej Pogacar to neutral this year. Despite his loss of form on a couple of key stages that lost him any chance for the overall win, he still showed massive strenght on multiple other stages. After all he still took the White Jersey, finished 2nd place overall, secured two stage wins, and showed everyone that he has one of the best finishes of the climbers.

Julian Alaphilippe: The first underperformed of the Tour goes to Alaphilippe. A rider that has impressed everyone over the last few years with multiple stage wins and incredible racing, didn’t seem to have the form this year. He did try on a few stages to get something done in a few breakaways, but never seemed to have the legs or form to convert it to results. We hope that this is a short downturn in form and that we’ll see Alaphilippe back in the top next year!

Warren Barguil: Another rider who disappointed was Warren Barguil, he never seemed to be close whether in the overall classification or to take down a stage win. In the end he finished 22nd in the GC, 1h 17min behind Vingegaard.

Mathieu v.d. Poel: It’s hard to place this rider in the underperfom category, considering his efforts for Philipsen in the bunch sprint, and his all around contribution for the team. He suffered illness during the Tour and never had the health or legs to deliver a personal results. Given how big the expectation was for this rider going into the Tour, I have still decided to place him into the category of under-perform. I hope to see him back in top form next year!

Over-perfomed:
| +++ | Jasper Philipsen, Felix Gall, Jonas Vingegaard
| ++ | Giulio Ciccone, Adam Yates, Simon Yates, Pello Bilbao
| + | Mads Pedersen, Matej Mohoric, Kasper Asgreen, Tobias H. Johannesen

Under-perfomed:
| +++ | Julian Alaphilippe, Warren Barguil, Mikel Landa
| ++ | Matheiu v.d. Poel, Jasper Stuyven, Egan Bernal
| + | Dylan Teuns, Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen

Hope you have enjoyed this years’ Tour de France, and that you will be back for more analyses next year!