Danish cyclist Jonas Wingegaard won his first Tour de France title at the famous Champs-Élysées in Paris on Sunday.
The 25-year-old jumbo-wisma rider defeated two-time defending champion Tadje Pogakar of Slovenia by three minutes and 34 seconds. Last year, Wingegaard finished second to Pogakar.
Wingegaard, winner of 11 and 18 stages, is also the second Dane to wear the yellow jersey, cycling’s most prestigious prize. Another Dane, Bjarne Riis, won in 1996, but was ordered to return his yellow number one jersey in 2007 after admitting to using performance-enhancing drugs to win his title.
2018 Tour champion Gerent Thomas rounded out the podium at this year’s three-week race.
The Tour de France is a prestigious multistage bike race held annually in France and sometimes in surrounding countries. The race, known as Le Tour or La Grande Boucle, has 21 stages and covers a distance of 3,328 kilometers in 2022.
Denmark’s Jonas Wingegaard, wearing the overall leader’s yellow jersey, competes in the 20th stage of the Tour de France cycling race.
Wingegaard survived a puncture in Stage 5 to make a solid start, breaking into the top three for the first time on the following stage as UAE Team Emirates’ Pogakar took the win to take the summit.
On stage 7, a late-stretch pogacar surge on stage 7 saw him woefully miss out on his first stage win.
Wingegaard took the Slovenian lead and the yellow jersey in stage 11, a blistering attack that saw Wingegaard win the first stage.
Disaster struck when Wingegaard was involved in a crash on stage 15, Pogakar added another win two stages later, but the Dane responded strongly with his second win on stage 18, extending his lead to almost three and a half minutes.
Wingegaard’s victory also secured Team Jumbo-Wisma’s first Tour Championship, winning an impressive six stages.
