Jasper Philipsen, Jonas Vingegaard, Giulio Ciccone and Tadej Pogacar(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Victor Campenaerts won the super-combative prize(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Jonas Vingegaard celebrates his win(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Giulio Ciccone won the polka dot jersey(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Jasper Philipsen celebrates on the green jersey podium(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Tadej Pogacar finished as best young rider(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Tour de France: Jonas Vingegaard celebrates his second overall victory with Sepp Kuss early in the final stage(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Frederik Frison (Lotto Dstny) attacks on the Champs Elysees(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jonas Vingegaard heads past the Louvre(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
The pack cycles past the Arc de Triomphe on Place de l’Etoile(Image credit: Getty Images)
The pack of riders races pass the Louvre Pyramid(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen and Mattias Skjelmose gave a slow leadout for Giulio Ciccone to grap the lost KOM point of the day(Image credit: Getty Images)
The peloton rides through Versailles Village(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jonas Vingegaard celebrates his yellow jersey with his Jumbo-Visma teammates(Image credit: Getty Images)
Final jerseys: Green jersey Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck), White jersey Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates), Yellow jersey Joas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and polka-dot jersey Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) (Image credit: Getty Images)
Green jersey Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck) and White jersey Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) were all smiles at the start of stage 21(Image credit: Getty Images)
Cheers for Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo Visma) at the start of stage 21(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jumbo-Visma’s Jonas Vingegaard wearing the overall leaders yellow jersey awaits the start of stage 21(Image credit: Getty Images)
Ineos Grenadiers team signs in at the velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a nod to the upcoming 2024 Olympic Gamges(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tadej Pogacar went on the attack and was marked by Nathan van Hooydonck(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Frederik Frison, Nelson Oliveira and Simon Clarke were the last breakaway before the sprint(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Stage 21 of the Tour de France(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Tadej Pogacar on the move(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Stage 21 of the Tour de France(Image credit: Getty Images Sport)
Jordi Meeus (Bora hansgrohe) won stage 21 ahead of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla)(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) celebrates on the podium with the final best young riders white jersey(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) sailed through the final stage of the 2023 Tour de France to be crowned overall champion for the second year in a row.
Pogačar added to his reputation as the 'people's champion', attacking multiple times in the final 40 kilometres but the sprinters teams shut down the cheeky moves. As the rain started to fall on the Champs Elyseés, the race judges decided to take the general classification times with one lap to go.
He tops the final podium by 7:29 ahead of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in a duel that will go down in the history books. Pogačar’s teammate Yates finished third overall at 10:56 back.
“It's a feeling of being proud and happy - we're winning it for the second time now. It's really amazing. Today with all the Danish people here was really amazing. I have to say thanks not only to my team and family but to the whole of Denmark. They support me and I'm really grateful for this.”
“It's been a long journey but it also went by so fast. We race every day and one day takes the other. It's been a super hard race and a super good fight between me and Tadej. I enjoyed it all the way.”
Jordi Meeus (Bora-Hansgrohe) sprinted to victory on the Champs-Elysées, beating Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) to the line on stage 21 to take his first stage victory of the Tour de France.
Alpecin-Deceuninck may have led the way around the final corner, but Meeus was well positioned, surfing wheels. The neophyte Tour rider, edged out the green jersey at the line by less than a wheel length to win after a chaotic sprint.
“I knew in the previous sprints that there was more possible than the result I showed so far. Today everything went perfect and I'm super happy to finish it off,” said Meeus who finished top ten in three of the previous sprint stages this year.
“I felt quite good all day. The beginning was easy obviously but from the moment we went full gas my legs felt incredibly good. Then Marco Haller did a perfect job with positioning and he was also there. I had the wheel of Pedersen and I could come out of the slipstream and catch it on the line.”
“It's my first Tour and it was a super nice experience so far. To take the win today is just an indescribable feeling.”
For the third year in a row, Pogačar swept up the white jersey, with Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) finishing as runner-up in the young rider's classification.
Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) claimed the polka-dot jersey beating Felix Gall (AG2R Citroen) by 14 points to the climber's award.
Philipsen had nonetheless secured the green jersey before the final stage, beating Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) by 119 points at the top of the points standings. Finally, Jumbo-Visma won the team competition ahead of UAE Team Emirates, and Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) claimed the super-combativity award after an aggressive three weeks of racing.
How it unfolded
In what is effectively a two-wheeled photo shoot on the 115.1-kilometre stage starting from the velodrome in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a nod to the upcoming 2024 Olympic Games, to the usual finish on the Champs-Élysées, team after team took their turn on the front of the slowly pedalling bunch for the cameras.
Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny) jumped off the front at the flag drop to celebrate being awarded the super-combativity trophy. He quickly sat up with a smile and rejoined the peloton.
The opening 60.6 kilometres saw the peloton pass in front of the Château de Versailles before heading to Paris via Meudon and Issy-les-Moulineaux, tackling the final climb of the race, the fourth-category Côte du Pavé des Gardes, after 42.8 kilometres.
Celebrating his polka-dot jersey, Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) received a slow lead out from his Lidl-Trek teammates to take to the lone KOM point of the day.
After that – the final 54.5 kilometres of the stage once the riders pass through the finish line for the first time – the racing began in Paris, with eight laps of the finishing circuits left to decide the winner of stage 21.
The Jumbo-Visma team rode on the front gradually amping the pace as the peloton made its way to the final circuits.
The first two laps of the Champs-Élysées circuit saw a flurry of attacks from the peloton. First up the road was Pascal Eenkhoorn then his Lotto Dstny teammate Frederik Frison as each took their chance to escape.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) attacked multiple times in the final 40 kilometres. The first time, he was joined by Nathan Van Hooydonck (Jumbo-Visma) who sat on his wheel, refusing to work. More riders tried to jump across to the Slovenian's wheel but the lack of cooperation doomed the moves.
Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) launched the next big move, at 30 kilometers to go. He was soon joined by Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) and Frison. Working well together, the trio pushed their gap up to 18 seconds before being reeled in 20 kilometres later.
No organisation at the front of the peloton led to more short-lived attacks in the final lap, with speeds hitting 64 km per hour. The Jumbo-Visma team sat up to celebrate their overall victory with three kilometres to go, leaving the sprinters' teams to fight out the stage victory.
A mixture of teams – including Alpecin-Deceuninck, Lidl-Trek, Jayco-AlUla and Intermarché-Circus-Wanty – were up front heading into the final two kilometres, with no one team able to wrest control and establish a full lead out at the front.
Not done with racing, Pogačar led the final sprint onto the Champs Elysées. He was overtaken by Mathieu van der Poel leading out Philipsen. Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) went early and hit the front, forcing Philipsen to go along the barriers.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), meanwhile, went down the middle but Meeus was on his wheel and came late with a perfect bike throw to the line. He rode it perfectly, with a bike throw, while Philipsen was forced to come late and from behind.
Lyne has been involved in professional cycling for more than 15 years in both news reporting and sports marketing. She founded Podium Insight in 2008, quickly becoming a trusted source for news of the North American professional cycling world. She was the first to successfully use social media to consistently provide timely and live race updates for all fans. She is proud to have covered men's and women's news equally during her tenure at the helm of the site. Her writing has appeared on Cyclingnews and other news sites.
