2022 season, Grand Tours, Race Analysis, Stage races, Tour de France

Tour de France 2022: Stage 2 – Feel-good win for Jakobsen while Wout slips into yellow

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The second stage of the 2022 Tour de France hit the open roads and bridges of Denmark. Much chaos was predicted, but the racing was quite straightforward, though marred by a number of nervous crashes. QuickStep Alpha Vinyl’s Fabio Jakobsen took a feel-good sprint win, while Jumbo Visma’s Wout van Aert came second on the stage, enough to bag him the leader’s yellow jersey.

How it went down

Oh, Denmark, you tried. You served up some potential peril at the start of this race. Yesterday, you treated the riders to a soggy and sinuous time trial course and today coastal roads, crosswinds and the biggest bridge known to (Danish) mankind was on offer. We should know better by now, shouldn’t we? The more a stage is hyped up to have epic potential, the more likely it is to be… well… a bit dull. The crosswinds didn’t cross hard enough, the bridge looked great but didn’t provide decisive action. It all came down to a fairly bog-standard sprint finish.

Things that did happen

There’s no sport like cycling for paying tribute to its own. It’s been less than a year since Chris Anker Sorensen was killed after being hit by a van while riding his bike

Magnus Cort (EF Education-Easy Post) took the first King of the Mountain jersey of this year’s Tour, much to the delight of the home fans, but mostly himself. Scenes, as the kids say.

Some random dude on the bike lane made the breakaway look quite pedestrian

If we fans were feeling the excitement of the hype, the riders were feeling nervy. The GC teams stayed alert all stage long, everyone had their own piece of the road and they wanted to keep it. Even if that means giving T-Pog a shove.

Stefan Kung (Groupama-FDJ) and Ruben Guerreiro (EF) also got up close and personal, although we’ve yet to find out why.

As the Great Belt Bridge approached, the tension rose and we started to see crashes. Rigoberto Uran (EF) came down on the run-in to the bridge, and he had to chase like the almighty for nearly half the bridge span to get back to the peloton.

Buit we didn’t turn on to see crashes, do we? We wanted to see the winds rip the race apart! Fans were hoping for echelons, the kind of echelons that have your favourite riders at the front, and your least favourite riders forlornly chasing at the back. That’s what we wanted.

Sadly, the bridge didn’t deliver. Yellow jersey wearer Yves Lampaert (QuickStep) came down with several others as the race hit the bridge and then… nothing. Eighteen kilometres of straightness. It looked pretty alright, but damn it, we’d been sold so much more.

Finale

Once off the bridge, a HUGE crash took out a whole stack of riders and blocked the road for half the peloton. That led to a final sprint contested by a smaller group, but one stacked full of potential winners.

At the time of writing, there are no reports of serious injuries from this crash but it’s bound to take a toll on some.

Anyway, back to the flamme rouge…

Yves Lampaert was back! After a mighty chase to catch the peloton over the bridge, he was in position to help QuickStep lead out Fabio Jakoben. Also present: Wout van Aert, Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Peter Sagan! (TotalEnergies), Danny van Poppel (Bora-hansgrohe) and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck). Any of those guys is capable of winning a stage like this but it was Mads Pedersen from Trek who made the running, powering clear of the pack in the closing metres.

You have to get up early to catch out Wout, though. He was alive to that move, closing the gap quickly and coming around the Dane. My eyes feasted on a meaty Classics-style tussle, a battle of wills as much as a battle of power. Whichever of these two took the stage would be a worthy winner.

And then, to their right, the flighty Fabio Jakobsen sailed on past – all pointed sprinter power compared to Mads’ and Wout’s brawn. His judgement was perfect and he was easily clear as he crossed the line. Considering two years ago, he was fighting for his life after a horrific crash in the Tour of Poland, this was an emotional win for team and fans alike.

I loved Fabio’s post-race interview. Listen to his first answer here, it brought a tear to my eye.

Is it even a VeloVoices stage report if we don’t show the hugs? [Team hug footage is obligatory, yes – ed]

Take it back to the bridge

Was it worth it? It looked all pretty.

 

But NOTHING HAPPENED

From now on, I’ll be adding “bridge stages” to my list of stages best avoided. (Time trials, sprints, last days of grand tours for those that need to know.)

We need to talk about Wout

It’s stage two. Wout wasn’t even the leader in the green jersey competition and yet.. he did this. The skinsuit I can just about allow – the bar-tape, the fork. Nope.

No. No. No. No. No. No. That’s what a small team would do. It was such a bad move that even Robbie McEwan, who is the jolliest man in cycling, criticised it.

And now he’s in yellow, I fear the worst tomorrow.

Does anyone have the contact details for the Mathieu van der Poel fan club? I may be switching allegiances.

OK, maybe Wout won back my heart a little with this …

Meanwhile Magnus Cort deserves a lifetime ban for this pox-n-crocs ensemble.

All the results

Stage results

1 Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) 04:34:34

2 Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) same time

3 Mads Pedersen (Trek Segafredo) s/t

4 Danny van Poppel (Bora-hansgrohe) s/t

5 Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) s/t

GC Top 10 

1. Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) 4:49:50

2 Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) +0:01

3. Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team-Emirates) +0:08

4 Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) +0:11

5 Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) +0:12

6 Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0:14

7 Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) +0:16

8 Promoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) +0:17

9 Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo)  +0:18

10 Dylan Teuns (Bahrain-Victorious) +0:21

All the Jerseys

Leader’s jersey : Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma)

Points jersey : Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma) (for real, this time)

King of the Mountains: Pox-n-Crocs Man (EF Education-Easy Post)

Best young rider: Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates)

Most Combative: Sven Erik Bystrom (Intermarche-Wanty-Goubert)

Team : Jumbo Visma 

For full race results, go to CyclingNews

Official Tour de France website is here

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