Remco Evenepoel comes of age, Vingegaard-Pogacar handshake – 24 moments that shaped the 2022 cycling season

Our cycling correspondent Felix Lowe takes you on a chronological sweep through some of the outstanding exploits – from the astonishing to the sentimental via the downright dazzling.

Pogacar’s long range attack to win Strade Bianche

With victories in the UAE Tour and Tirreno-Adriatico, Tadej Pogacar certainly came out of the blocks flying. In between, the then 23-year-old decided to return to the gravel of Strade Bianche where his previous best finish was seventh. This time, Pogacar took the bull by the horns – attacking on the mythical Monte Sante Marie with 50km to go and never looking back. More than anything, he simply looked like he was having fun.

Jumbo-Visma 1-2-3 at Paris-Nice

On the opening stage of the Race to the Sun, Jumbo-Visma signalled their intent with an all-round performance of devastating brutality that put everyone else to the sword at Mantes-la-Ville. After the entire team came to the front on the final climb of the day, around 6km from the finish, the peloton was split to smithereens.

What many people had down as a sprint finale ended up with new arrival Christophe Laporte leading home a Jumbo 1-2-3 ahead of Primoz Roglic and Wout van Aert: three riders who would be instrumental in Jonas Vingegaard’s Tour win later in July. With the peloton coming home over 20 seconds down, Jumbo took control of a race which Roglic eventually won.

Interestingly, the result came just days after rivals UAE Team Emirates pulled off their own clean sweep in the Trofeo Laiguelglia, with Jan Polanc taking the spoils ahead of Alessandro Covi and Juan Ayuso.

Mohoric’s jaw-dropping descent of the Poggio

Pogacar’s early season form made him one of the favourites for the first Monument of the year, where Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel made his return from injury. A blistering finale kicked off on the Cipressa where a strong tailwind helped produce the fastest ascent since Marco Pantani’s famous attack in 1999.

But so strong was everyone on the Poggio that none of the expected attacks from Pogacar or Van der Poel stuck. And when Matej Mohoric threw caution to the wind on the descent – opening up a gap after almost skidding off the road at high-speed – fans could see the moment his compatriot Pogacar, with bigger fish to fry, decided the risk just wasn’t worth the candle.

Mohoric later told reporters that he had planned his attack since the off-season and that he had used a special mountain bike dropper post to help with cornering and aerodynamism. It was a remarkable performance and one that means Sean Kelly’s downhill exploits from 1992 will no longer remain the reference point as the perfect Poggio plunge.

Higuita and Carapaz light up Catalunya

How often do you see two GC guys go on the attack in a medium mountain stage in horrific conditions 130km from the finish? It sounds entirely fabricated but this is what happened in Stage 6 of the Volta a Catalunya. Australian champion Lucas Plapp set a ferocious tempo on the first climb of the day for Ineos Grenadiers, with only team-mate Richard Carapaz and Bora’s Sergio Higuita able to follow.

Those two then zipped clear to establish a gap of over three minutes as Higuita looked to put pressure on race leader Joao Almeida, whom he trailed by just seven seconds on GC. Olympic champion Carapaz outkicked the Colombian in the final sprint with Higuita settling for the yellow jersey and what would ultimately result in his first WorldTour GC win by 16 seconds over his Ecuadorian foil.

Kristoff soloes to Scheldeprijs glory

Such were the grim conditions that you could hardly blame Alexander Kristoff (Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert) for wanting to wrap things up as quick as possible. Part of the day’s breakaway after the race blew apart into exciting echelons, the Norwegian veteran may well have waited to contest the reduced sprint finale. Instead, he bulldozed clear around 3km from the finish to post – age 34 – the first solo win of his career, on a day only 30 riders managed to complete a sodden Scheldeprijs. Never before has one rider been so keen to have a hot bath.

Pogacar bungles Flanders finale

Proof that the Slovenian sensation is human after all came after Pogacar somehow contrived to finish fourth in a two-horse race in his eagerly anticipated Tour of Flanders debut. If Pog took to the cobbles like a duck to water, he was unable to distance Mathieu van der Poel on the final Kwaremont-Paterberg combo.

As the two approached the finish, the pendulum swung in favour of the more experienced Dutchman – a faster finisher and a previous winner (not to forget loser) in similar finales. With this in mind, and a duo of Dylan van Baarle and Valentin Madouas closing in, Pogacar panicked and made a complete hash of the home straight.

From pushing for a debut win, Pog ended up pushed off the podium. In the heated scenes that followed, he even demonstrated frustration and anger wholly out of sync from the happy-go-lucky rider we’d come to know. Which was quite reassuring, to be fair.

Van Baarle delivers the goods on the cobbles

Ineos Grenadiers came of age as a spring classics tour de force in 2022 with the likes of Magnus Sheffield, Ben Turner and Jhonatan Narvaez all performing with maturity beyond their years. Dylan van Baarle carried his fine form over from Flanders to the cobblestones of northern France, the rangy Dutchman finally delivering on his promise with a scintillating solo win in Paris-Roubaix after attacking inside the final 20km.

It’s a shame Van Baarle is not staying around to build on this solid platform with Ineos for he may become a bit-part player behind the rider he beat into second, Wout van Aert, at Jumbo-Visma. Time will tell. But from the evidence of the spring, Ineos have many other cards up their sleeves going forward.

Evenepoel’s thermonuclear attack on La Redoute

Just inside the final 30km of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Remco Evenepoel caught his rivals off-guard with an attack on La Redoute so savage that he had his own rear wheel jumping off the road in a spin. The decisive move came after Mikel Landa had made no fewer than six attacks on the same climb, with only Neilson Powless initially able to follow the Belgian at a distance.

Evenepoel plucked off the remaining escapees before going clear of the last-man standing, Bruno Armirail, on the Cote de la Roche aux Faucons with around 14km remaining. An uncoordinated chase behind played into Evenepoel’s hands and the Belgian tyro swooped to the first Monument of his career. We didn’t know it back then, but even better things were to come.

Girmay gets Van der Poel’s seal of approval

If becoming the first African winner of a cobbled classic at Gent-Wevelgem wasn’t enough, Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay became the first black African rider to win a stage of a Grand Tour at the Giro. And he did it the hard way: taking the wrong corner in the business end of Stage 10 to Jesi, Girmay had to fight back into contention before going head-to-head with the in-form swashbuckler, Mathieu van der Poel.

The duo was inseparable on the home straight until the Dutchman finally cracked. As Girmay zipped clear to write his name in the history books, Van der Poel offered his rival the thumbs-up – a powerful gesture that would become one of the enduring images of the Giro, perhaps the entire season.

Sadly the celebrations did not last, nor could Girmay build-on his landmark moment: a Prosecco cork to the eye on the podium cruelly ended his race. It only added to the mythical nature of the 22-year-old’s achievement.

Bora-Hansgrohe make Carapaz pay on Giro

Entering a decisive day in the Dolomites just three seconds down on the maglia rosa of Richard Carapaz, Jai Hindley put on a dominant display on the Passo Fedaia in Stage 20 of the Giro. Having himself lost the pink jersey at the eleventh Tao Geoghegan Hart two years previously, Hindley turned the tables on Ineos and put to rest some demons after Bora-Hansgrohe reaped the rewards of solid teamwork.

After three weeks of attritional racing between the top two, Hindley put in the second ever fastest ascent of the Fedaia to blow the race apart and put Carapaz to the sword. Foregoing his chances of a second stage win, Germany’s Lennard Kamna dropped back from the break to help his team-mate Hindley inflict the killer blow on his Ecuadorian rival, who conceded almost a minute and a half to his biggest challenger.

Hindley held on in the final time trial to become Australia’s first Giro winner and to give his Bora team their first Grand Tour triumph. For Ineos, it was back to the drawing board after letting victory slip through their fingers.

Jakobsen and Groenewegen turn a page

With Mark Cavendish’s stab at becoming the Tour’s outright leading stage winner put on ice for at least another year – perhaps indefinitely – the subplot to the sprints this July surrounded the dual returns of Fabio Jakobsen and Dylan Groenewegen, the man whose high-speed nudge into the barriers almost cost his compatriot his career, if not his life, in the Tour de Pologne one year earlier.

Anyone who sees the whole sorry affair in simple shades of black and white clearly has no grasp on what it is to be a human. For Jakobsen, the journey has been long, painful, and no doubt harder than anything he has had to face in life. But for all his culpability in the situation, Groenewegen had hardly had an easy run – having to deal with his own injuries on top of the abuse and guilt that came hand in hand.

It was fitting, then, that one day after Jakobsen marked his comeback with a maiden Tour de France stage win at Nyborg, Groenewegen sprinted to his first win on the Tour since 2019. Both riders were able to draw a line under the darkest periods of their careers before the race left Denmark and entered France. A positive story for all those concerned.

Clarke wins in Arenberg on day Jumbo implode and rally

Aussie veteran Simon Clarke channelled his inner Mat Hayman with a maiden Tour stage win over the cobbles of northern France on a day the race exploded into life. Even before the first section of pavé, race leader Vn Aert – one day after his phenomenal solo win in Calais ended his run of three second places – had hit the deck.

No sooner did Van Aert battle back than Jumbo-Visma played out a bizarre game of musical bikes after Jonas Vingegaard was forced onto someone else’s steed after a mechanical. And all this while Primoz Roglic was floored by an errant hay bale. If Jumbo-Visma recovered to keep Van Aert in yellow and snuff out the danger for Vingegaard, Roglic dropped 37 places after dislocating his shoulder – all but ending his chances of a high finish in Paris.

With such drama playing out, Clarke’s win in Arenberg – to deny fellow escapee Taco van der Hoorn what would have been an equally impressive triumph – was understandably overlooked. But it will go down as the crowning moment of the 36-year-old’s career, and rivalled compatriot Hayman’s 2016 Roubaix triumph in pulling at the heart strings.

Vingegaard goes into yellow after Galibier chaos

The yellow jersey on his back since the first of his two consecutive stage wins, Pogacar seemed to be in cruise control after the opening week of the Tour. If the double defending champion almost tactically conceded the maillot jaune to escapee Lennard Kamna in Stage 10, then he would lose it definitively one day later to his main rival after Jumbo-Visma put on a masterclass on the dual ascents of the Galibier and Granon.

In the 152km Stage 11 from Albertville, Vingegaard’s team isolated Pogacar and then rained down the attacks from as early as the Col du Telegraph. Despite being outnumbered, Pogacar fought fire with fire, responding with a series of digs on the mighty Galibier when he would have been better served conserving his energy.

Unable to let compatriot Roglic ride up the road, Pogacar went far too deep – then exploded on the Col du Granon where the former fish-packer from Denmark came of age with a maiden Tour stage win that saw him prise the yellow jersey from Pogacar’s back after putting in three minutes on his empty rival. It was one of the best day’s racing we’d see all year and a day that Vingegaard lay down the foundations for his historic win.

Pidcock’s zippy descent of the Galibier

With Geraint Thomas enjoying something of a renaissance on his way to third place in Paris, two other British riders were in the thick of the action in Stage 12 to Alpe d’Huez. Four years after Thomas’ famous win on the Alpe in yellow, team-mate Tom Pidcock signalled his in the Tour with a sumptuous victory after starring in the same breakaway as another British rider, the four-time champion Chris Froome.

But having missed out on joining the break on the Galibier – tackled in the opposite direction as the previous day – Pidcock needed to make up ground on the long descent towards the Col du Telegraph. He did so in electrifying fashion – at one point sweeping past a struggling escapee on the outside of a bend as if they were in different time zones.

Imagine Mohoric on the Poggio and multiply it by 20 – that was how jaw-dropping Pidcock’s descent was. And perhaps he just needed to answer a call of nature – for the first thing he did once joining the breakaway in the valley was zip ahead, then peel off for a pee. Two weeks before his 23rd birthday, Pidcock still needed to prove he had the legs going up one of the Tour’s most legendary climbs – but he got the better of the likes of Froome, Louis Meintjes and Neilson Powless to take a maiden Grand Tour stage win in style.

Matthews wins with true grit in Mende

The rise of puncheurs in the mould of Pogacar, Pidcock, Van Aert and Van der Poel has made it all the more difficult for a rider of Michael Matthews’ skillset to win big. Denied twice by two of the above in the opening week, the Australian got into a stellar break in Stage 14 to Mende. Matthews was clearly fastest finisher on paper, but that counted for very little when the line is preceded by a 2km double-digit ramp and you’re surrounded by climbers like Marc Soler, Thibaut Pinot, Lennard Kamna and Rigo Uran.

Matthews took matters into his own hands with a long-range attack that was painful to watch – primarily because the gap seemed to hover around a futile 20 seconds for an eternity. When he did come onto the steep rise to the airstrip at Mende – the so-called Montee Laurent Jalabert – Matthews surely didn’t have a big enough cushion.

Alberto Bettiol proved the most adept of his chasers, the Italian reeling in the Australian but then, crucially, failing to deliver a killer blow. Instead of maintaining his pace and making Matthews suffer, Bettiol eased a little and allowed the battling BikeExchange-Jayco rider back into the fold. Against all odds, Matthews reeled Bettiol in and then went clear over the brow to take the most impressive victory of his career.

Further behind, Vingegaard and Pogacar were inseparable as they ditched the other GC favourites to equal the climbing record set in the mid-90s by the likes of Pantani, Indurain and Riis.

Houle remembers his brother

Everyone loves an underdog and outsider – especially when there’s a sentimental backstory to tell. In Stage 16 of the Tour, Israel-Premier Tech’s unexpected run of form continued with a win for one of their veteran journeymen.

Hugo Houle was one of the less feted names of a large breakaway that also boasted Groupama-FDJ duo Valentin Madouas and Michael Storer, Belgium’s Dylan Teuns and the Russian Aleksandr Vlasov. Surrounded by climbing talent, Houle struck out 39km from the finish on the Mur de Peguere in what most of us assumed to be a softener for compatriot and team-mate Michael Woods.

But when Woods crashed from a chasing trio on the descent, Houle started believing in his own chances – and proceeded to ride into Foix with over a minute on runner-up Madouas to complete the unlikeliest of wins. Houle poignantly dedicated his triumph to his brother Pierrick, who passed away 10 years earlier after a hit-and-run.

With only three domestic ITT wins to his name, Houle promised himself to win something big in memory of Pierrick – and managed to do so on the biggest platform of all to become only the second Canadian stage winner on the Tour de France. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Vingegaard waits for Pogacar ahead of Hautacam

With Pogacar pushing on the descent of the Col de Spandelles, Vingegaard almost overcooked a bend before his rival in white did just that and took a tumble. Rather than ride on, the Dane eased up and waited for Pogacar as they signalled a truce until the final major climb of the race. As Pogacar drew level with Vingegaard, the sight of yellow and white fist-pumping each other proved the most enduring of the race – two champions showing their respect for each other on the road despite the high stakes at play.

On the final climb to Hautacam, Vingegaard went on to hammer the final nail in Pogacar’s coffin – thanks to a little help from team-mate Van Aert up the road. Resplendent in green, Van Aert may have gone for the stage win himself – and with it the polka dot jersey. Instead, he waited for Vingegaard and Pogacar before combining with the Dane to destroy the chances of the man in white. That this happened on the favourite mountain of the only previous (and heavily asterisked) Danish Tour winner, Bjarne Riis, made it more significant.

A second stage win secured Vingegaard the polka dots as well as the green, while Van Aert was able to complete his astonishing hat-trick two days later with victory in the Rocamadour ITT.

Laporte saves France’s blushes on the Tour

Rather than let the sprinters have their say, one of the un-sung heroes of the Tour ended the domestic drought with a fine victory in Cahors. Frenchman Christophe Laporte proved to be a revelatory signing for Jumbo-Visma this past season and the win – soloing clear early to catch sprinters Philipsen and Dainese napping – proved a canny piece of work and ensured the hosts could breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Evenepoel soloes to San Sebastian glory

Less than a week after the Tour, Remco Evenepoel ramped up his preparations for the Vuelta with a magnificent victory in the Clasica San Sebastian. With 45km still left to ride, the Belgian went into turbo mode on the Erlaitz climb and almost nonchalantly rode everyone off his wheel. Displaying the kind of dominance from a certain compatriot some 55 years his senior, Evenepoel soloed all the way to the finish to win by almost two minutes on Pavel Sivakov. Terrifying.

Evenepoel takes control amid Meintjes magic at Les Praeres

Three days after taking the red jersey on the Pico Jano, Evenepoel underlined his status as race favourite by once again tearing a strip off all his rivals. Supposedly the inferior climber devoid of mountain support, the Quick-Step leader kicked clear on the final ascent to Les Praeres to distance further Enric Mas and Primoz Roglic at the top of the GC.

Evenepoel took fourth place that day, with the victory going to little Louis Meintjes from the break. In June, Meintjes had picked up his first pro win in 2,622 days at the Giro dell’Appennino – and the 30-year-old came close to a maiden Grand Tour win on Alpe d’Huez the following month. Meintjes was finally rewarded for his attacking enterprise in Spain, the stand-out result of a fine season for the pint-sized Intermarche climber.

Remco limits losses on Sierra de la Pandera

On a Vuelta lacking in serious double-digit ramps, Evenepoel was expected to come unstuck on the long, leg-sapping ascent of La Pandera. And when Miguel Angel Lopez and Primoz Roglic struck out early on the final climb of Stage 14, an earlier incarnation of the Belgian tyro may well have panicked and collapsed. Instead, Evenepoel rode his own tempo to limit his losses to a duo which ended up just five seconds shy of Robert Heras’s record ascent from 2002.

A day later, Evenepoel rallied again to keep the red jersey in the face of mounting pressure. Roglic managed to cut his deficit to 1’34” on Evenepoel to set up an exciting final week that, in the event, never materialised because of the dramatic events in the finale of Stage 16…

Roglic crashes out of Vuelta after Evenepoel’s timely mechanical

Fans were denied the final week fireworks, ironically enough, on a day when Roglic looked to wrest back control on a finish more suited to the sprinters and puncheurs. With the final mountain tests still ahead, Roglic threw down the hammer on the ramp into Tomares – only for the red jersey to signal a puncture most people agree he picked up well earlier than the magic 3km mark.

With Evenepoel soft-pedalling to the finish while conserving his energy, Roglic was trying his best to squeeze as much water from a stone. Coming to the home straight alongside four others, Roglic clipped Fred Wright and was sent sprawling as Mads Pedersen kicked clear of Pascal Ackermann and Danny van Poppel for the win.

The crash ruled Roglic out of the race and later saw the Slovenian and his Jumbo-Visma team take the bizarre decision of publicly doing their dirty washing – landing the blame firmly (not to mention erroneously) at the foot of Bahrain-Victorious rider Wright. If it was a sad – and uncharacteristic – way for Roglic to wrap up a frustrating season, it also all but handed a maiden Grand Tour title to Evenepoel.

Rainbow Remco’s winning streak continues Down Under

In the form of his life, the Belgian sensation sidestepped any leadership debate with team-mate Van Aert by simply avoiding any confrontation. After making it into the break with Alexey Lutsenko with 32km remaining, he went clear on the final lap of the World Championships road race with 26km to spare.

Evenepoel once again proved untouchable, the 22-year-old soloing home by over two minutes in Wollongong to become the youngest world champion since Lance Armstrong in 1993, and the first rider to win a Monument, Grand Tour and the World title in the same season since Bernard Hinault in 1980. No one had a better season all year except, arguably, Annemiek van Vleuten.

Ganna pulverises the Hour Record

And finally, one man actually managed to make this whole indoor-riding-around-in-circles thing quite fun. Take a bow, Filippo Ganna, who added more than an entire kilometre to the previous record set by Britain’s Dan Bigham. In the Velodrome Suisse in Grenchen, Ganna even beat Chris Boardman’s best human effort, his distance of 56.762km a whopping 2.236km more than Bradley Wiggins’ effort when he broke the then record back in 2015. Put simply, Ganna beat the Hour Record in 59 minutes. Remarkable.

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