Remco Evenepoel and Annemiek van Vleuten star in Blazin’ Saddles’ top 10 riders of the 2022 cycling season

Grand Tour winners, history makers, Monuments men, comeback kings, time trial tyros, sprint sensations, world champions past and present – our top 10 riders of 2022 include talents from all disciplines, of all ages and, for the first time, of both sexes. Six new entries make the cut – including two right at the head of the standings. And while one Grand Tour winner fails to get the nod, there’s still room at cycling’s top table for some who failed to hit their expected highs. Class, as they say, is permanent.

This year we have spread the net to include female cyclists for the first time, whereby bumping-up the new entries to this power pyramid.

Following the list, we discuss the plight of those who dropped out of the top 10 from last year, while highlighting other riders who put in a serious push for contention. For a reminder of previous selections, click the links below. But now, let’s bring you the best 10 riders of 2022 in reverse order.

10. Mathieu van der Poel (Down 7)

Off the back of a disappointing season by his lofty standards, the Dutchman scrapes into the top 10. But it’s not by reputation alone. He did more to liven up his debut Giro from start to finish than the overall winner did – even if Jai Hindley’s last-gasp win over Richard Carapaz was an historic moment for the Australian and a return to form for a rider who lost on the final day to Tao Geoghegan Hart back in 2020.

Victory in Visegrad on the opening day of the Giro saw Van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix/Deceuninck) don the first maglia rosa of the race. And although he failed to add another win, he was a constant fixture off the front, clocking up over 600 breakaway kilometres on the road to Verona.

Injury delayed his start to the year but a third place in Milano-Sanremo saw him get off to a blistering start. He denied the plucky Tadej Pogacar to take a second Tour of Flanders win, days after winning Dwars door Vlaanderen. A top five in Amstel Gold and top 10 in Paris-Roubaux were frustrating, but not as much as the 27-year-old’s calamitous Tour. Arriving overcooked from his Giro exploits, Van der Poel lasted little over a week.

If three one-day wins late in the season in Belgium was a timely reminder of his class, the less said about the controversy surrounding his World Championships performance in Wollongong the better.

9. Biniam Girmay (New Entry)

The emerging Eritrean sprinter and classics star ended up with two fewer wins than Van der Poel but comes out higher on these standings by virtue of the nature of his historic victories and the manner with which he went about his business.

After showing some promising early season form, Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) became the first black African rider to win a cobbled classic at Gent-Wevelgem. Six weeks later, he was denied the maglia rosa on his first ever day at the Giro by Van der Poel when the two went head-to-head on the ramped finish to the opening stage in Hungary.

Following five top-five finishes in the first eight days, Girmay finally got his maiden Grand Tour stage win in a pulsating Stage 10 to Jesi – battling back after taking the wrong corner in the final kilometres to beat that man Van der Poel in a slugfest of a sprint.

8. Primoz Roglic (Down 6)

The Slovenian superstar may be fated never to win the Tour de France but it will be some time before we see him stop trying. Victories in Paris-Nice and the Criterium du Dauphine saw Roglic enter the season’s main event as one of the pre-race favourites alongside compatriot Pogacar and Jumbo-Visma team-mate Jonas Vingegaard.

But the wheels came off Roglic’s challenge for yellow after Caleb Ewan clipped an errant haybale and send the former ski-jumper sprawling during the dramatic fifth stage over the cobblestones to Arenberg. A dislocated shoulder put paid to Roglic’s GC hopes – and even though he took third behind his two main rivals on the Super Planche des Belles Filles, the 33-year-old put himself to the service of Vingegaard on the Col du Galibier before withdrawing at the start of the third week.

Roglic didn’t return until the defence of his Vuelta crown, where he went into the red jersey after winning Stage 4. He never dropped below fifth in the standings but he still had it all to do to reel in Remco Evenepoel when, in Stage 16, he hit the deck hard after clipping the wheel of Fred Wright in the finale – all while the Belgian race leader grappled behind with a questionable mechanical.

Surgery followed and Roglic is currently recovering from an operation to his shoulder. His blaming of Wright for the incident was unsavoury and out of character – not doubt born from frustration after seeing his hopes go up in smoke again thanks to a needless crash. But despite the disappointment and the sour taste left in our mouths, Roglic was one of the main animators of the season.

7. Mads Pedersen (New Entry)

If Pedersen was already a star following his World Championships win in Yorkshire, this was the year the 26-year-old went stratospheric. Nine wins marks his best return to date – although the calibre of those wins, plus the performances leading up to them, sets him apart.

Pedersen put in podium appearances in four of his five stage races – most notably at Paris-Nice – before heading to Copenhagen as an early favourite to don yellow in his native Denmark. That didn’t happen, but the Trek-Segafredo rider kept plugging away until he took a maiden Tour stage win in Saint-Etienne.

Three consecutive runner-up spots saw Pedersen channel his inner Wout van Aert in the Vuelta. He soon got into his stride, notching three wins and securing the green jersey in Madrid. A stage win in the Giro next May will see Pedersen join the elusive club of riders with wins in all three of cycling’s Grand Tours – all within a space of 10 months.

Now Pedersen just needs to replicate this form in the one-day classics and he’ll be an all-round force to be reckoned with. We know he can do it – as we saw with his runner-up spot in his Flanders debut, and subsequent Worlds win. Approaching his best years having just turned 27, it’s up to Pedersen to make things click.

6. Lorena Wiebes (New Entry)

With 22 wins throughout the season, no male of female rider had a better win ratio than the Dutch 23-year-old sprint specialist. The Team DSM rider only finished outside the top 10 of a race on 11 occasions from 50 race days – three of which came on her first three days of the season.

GC wins in the RideLondon Classic and the Simac Ladies Tour – as well as two stage wins on the inaugural Tour de France Femmes, including the first yellow jersey of the revamped race – showed Wiebes’ versatility. She also finished on the podium in 30 races for a hit rate of 60%.

Yet to test herself in any of the major classics, Wiebes was a DNF in her debut Ronde this spring. But with her calibre and skillset, and the expert lead-out train around her at DSM, you get the impression that she could go from strength to strength in 2023.

5. Jonas Vingegaard (New Entry)

Only fifth place for the winner of the world’s biggest bike race may sound a touch unfair – until you wait and see who lies ahead. Runner-up in both Tirreno-Adriatico and the Dauphine suggested another bridesmaid finish in the Tour – either that or playing second fiddle to team-mate Roglic. But the latter’s crash opened the door to the former fish-packer from Denmark – and the rest is history.

Stage wins on the Col du Granon and at Hautacam secured the yellow and polka dot jersey for the 26-year-old, who missed out on the white jersey only by virtue of being born a few weeks too soon. Vingegaard’s seven wins for the year marked more than he’d notched in his entire career previously – and so impressive was his Tour triumph that we can easily forgive him going a little AWOL in the aftermath.

Beyond his killer instinct and ice-cool demeanour on the bike, Vingegaard’s sense of fair play was apparent when he waited after rival Pogacar crashed in the Pyrenees. Meanwhile, his own infallibility was on display when he almost came a cropper in the final descent of the Tour during the pulsating time trial to Rocamadour. It’s now up to him to prove he’s no one-hit wonder.

4. Tadej Pogacar (Down 4)

That a rider of Pogacar’s quality still managed to finish fourth in an apparent two-horse race in the Tour of Flanders was testament to the gung-ho style of riding we have come to expect from the swashbuckling Slovenian.

Before that Belgian blunder, Pog had already won two stage races (UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico) plus Strade Bianche (with a 50km solo attack). He even came close to winning on the via Roma – but perhaps wisely let compatriot Matej Mohoric go clear with a daredevil descent of the Poggio.

Two wins in the opening week of the Tour put Pogacar in pole position to complete his yellow hat-trick. But the 23-year-old came undone on the Granon and Galibier when put under the cosh by Jumbo-Visma – and a third win, in Peyragudes, wasn’t enough to reel in Vingegaard. Pog ended the season with 15 wins after adding a second Il Lombardia crown to his name and cementing his position as perhaps the best all-rounder of his generation.

3. Wout van Aert (Up 1)

Was it the Belgian who ultimately made the difference in the Tour? Quite possibly. After all, there could be no denying that had Van Aert been riding for UAE Team Emirates, then nothing would have stopped Pogacar from completing his hat-trick.

But as it was, Van Aert did the business for Jumbo-Visma – cantering to three stage wins and the green jersey, as well as guiding his team-mate Vingegaard to glory, all while riding off the front of the peloton for over 650km.

For his Tour de France performances alone Van Aert did enough to merit inclusion in the top 10. But he added six wins elsewhere – most notably at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and E3 Saxo Bank Classic – as well as an astonishing 11 runner-up spots and five third place finishes.

After proving he can climb with the best, Van Aert set tongues wagging regarding his future ability to win a Grand Tour. With the likes of Vingegaard and Roglic on his team that may prove difficult – and the 28-year-old would have to radically alter the way he rides, trains and eats. But after seeing a certain compatriot walk away with the Vuelta and World title this autumn, Van Aert may feel that the gauntlet has been laid.

2. Annemiek van Vleuten (New Entry)

No male cyclist can say they have won the Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same season. But Annemiek van Vleuten can. Throw in a Monument plus the World Championships road race – despite riding with a broken elbow – and you get a season unparalleled in modern cycling.

The Dutch veteran came runner-up in Strade Bianche, Flanders and La Fleche before swooping to victory at Liege to bookend her classics season nicely after earlier success at Omloop. Two wins put her in control at the Giro d’Italia Donne before she left it to the final mountainous weekend of the inaugural Tour de France Femmes to secure the yellow jersey after a bout of illness.

Van Vleuten then completed the grand slam in the Vuelta ahead of a Worlds campaign that quickly went downhill with a nasty crash in the mixed TT relay. Three days later she fought back and through the pain barrier to upset the escapees with a hard-fought solo drive in the final kilometre at Wollongong to complete an unprecedented haul of wins – just two weeks before her 40th birthday.

It would seem inconceivable that this *only* merits Van Vleuten second place in this list. But it also seems impossible to dislodge the next rider from the #1 spot.

1. Remco Evenepoel (New Entry)

If we have come to expect those levels of greatness from Van Vleuten then Evenepoel – 18 years younger and at the opposite spectrum of his career – still had it all to prove. Yes, the Belgian tyro had already won short stage races – as he indeed did again in 2022 with victory in the Volta ao Algarve.

But this was the year that Evenepoel took a huge leap forward in his development – not only winning a maiden Monument with a fine solo appearance in Liege-Bastogne-Liege but proving his doubters wrong by securing the red jersey in La Vuelta. Forget that the TT-heavy course lacked any serious mountain challenges, that his main rival crashed out, and that his interpretation of the 3km rule was rather liberal; Evenepoel still had to ride a mature race and not crack under the pressure.

And if that wasn’t enough of an indicator of his growth as a rider, then his rainbow ride Down Under provided the cherry on the cake. He’d already picked up a bronze medal for the TT when he attacked with 25km to go and soloed to glory to complete a famous hat-trick.

Evenepoel became the first Belgian to win the Giro in 44 years; the first rider since Greg LeMond to win both a Grand Tour and the World title in a single season; the first rider since Bernard Hinault in 1980 to do that, plus a Monument; and, at 22, the youngest rider in 29 years to win the rainbow bands. Next year he will sensibly target a Giro ideally suited to his strengths before, perhaps, making his long-awaited Tour debut in 2024, the year – aptly – the race ends with a time trial in Nice.

What about those absent from last year’s top 10?

A horrific training crash was also to blame for the absence of Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers). Eighth last year after winning the Giro, the Colombian missed most of the season, although made a comeback late on in the Tour of Denmark. Tenth in 2021, Italy’s Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) was unable to defend his Paris-Roubaix title after doctors diagnosed a heart condition following his collapse at the Volta a Catalunya. The 32-year-old was sadly forced to retire from the sport.

Despite his Tour stage winning heroics in 2021, Mark Cavendish (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) was omitted in favour of team-mate Fabio Jakobsen for the biggest race of the season. The veteran sprinter still notched five wins – including a first win in the Giro since 2013 – but that was not enough to see him make the selection after coming sixth last time round.

Finally, two Italians disappeared largely without a trace. His emphatic shattering of the Hour Record almost was not enough to see Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) improve on his seventh place – or even make the top 10 – in a season where all his six wins were in time trials. Meanwhile, the veteran Damiano Caruso (Bahrain Victorious), whose runner-up heroics in the 2021 Giro saw him take 10th, did very little other than win the Giro di Sicilia.

Special mention: Laporte, Vine, Carapaz, Hindley, De Lie, Van Baarle

Had Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) won the Giro, he’d almost certainly have made the cut. As it is, the Ecuadorian will be remembered more for failing to pull the trigger while in pink in Italy than for the superb hat-trick of wins and blue polka dot jersey he snared in Spain. Carapaz secured the KOM standings after Jay Vine (Alpecin-Deceuninck) crashed out while in control thanks to his own brace of uphill wins. Greater consistency across the season may have put the Australian former Zwifter in the shop window for inclusion.

Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) seized the maglia rosa at the eleventh hour from Carapaz but failed to do enough elsewhere to make the top 10, while the Olympic champion’s team-mate Dylan van Baarle was one of numerous Ineos riders who lit up the spring. The Dutchman’s Paris-Roubaix win was a highlight of the year, but the versatile Jumbo-bound Swiss army knife also misses out.

Most hard-done by, arguably, is Frenchman Christophe Laporte who managed to dazzle both as a domestique and a winner in his own right in a scintillating debut season for Jumbo-Visma. Belgium’s Arnaud de Lie almost saved Lotto Soudal from relegation with over a third of the team’s wins for the year – but misses out given the calibre of those races.

Fabio Jakobsen kept Mark Cavendish out of the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team and paid Patrick Lefevere back with an emotional maiden Tour stage win. If the Dutchman failed to add another triumph in France, his 12 wins for the season capped a fine return for a rider who has had to battle back from the brink.

Koen Bouwman (Jumbo-Visma) and Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe) both starred in the Giro, while Spanish youngsters Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) and Enric Mas (Movistar) all shone in the Vuelta. Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) won on Alpe d’Huez and Louis Meintjes (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) finally became a Grand Tour stage winner at the Vuelta.

None of the above, however, did enough to crack the top 10. Finally, Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) rolled back the years and proved himself to be one of the most consistent sprinters. But his maglia ciclamino and trio of Giro do not translate into a top 10 finish here for the suave Frenchman.

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