Jonas has had whale of a time
TOUR DE FRANCE
Stage 20 LaCapelle-Marival > Rocamadour
JONAS VINGEGAARD will win the 2022 Tour de France after finishing second to Wout van Aert in the stage 20 time trial on the penultimate day.
Van Aert finished 19 seconds ahead of his Jumbo-Visma team-mate – but Vingegaard now has an overall advantage of three minutes and 34 seconds on Tadej Pogacar.
It will be a first Tour crown for 25-year-old Vingegaard. The race set out from his native Denmark three weeks ago.
Vingegaard, second to Pogacar last year, wrestled the yellow jersey off the Slovenian when the UAE Team Emirates man suffered a crisis on the Col du Granon in the second week of the race.
And he successfully defended it through the Pyrenees, able to match every move made by the 23-year-old defending champion.
It means that JumboVisma, who lost one of the pre-race favourites
Primoz Roglic in the second week, and have only five riders left, head to Paris today boasting the yellow, green and polka-dot jerseys.
Van Aert – who became the first man to win a Tour time trial in the green jersey since Bernard Hinault in 1979 – cannot be caught in the points classification, while Vingegaard is top of both the general classification and the king of the mountains competition.
Vingegaard could not hold back the tears after being greeted at the finish line by his girlfriend and daughter. He said: “It means everything, it’s incredible. It’s the biggest thing in cycling and we did it. Having my two girls on the finish line means even more to me.”
British rider Geraint Thomas, 36, finished fourth in the time trial to effectively confirm his third place before today’s processional final stage.