Thibaut Pinot’s farewell and Sepp Kuss downing Cava – 28 moments that shaped the 2023 cycling season

After ranking the riders in our annual , it’s time to look at the best performances of 2023, the stand-out moments, and the events that shaped the season – for better or for worse.

Our cycling correspondent Felix Lowe takes you on a chronological sweep through the stories that made the headlines – from astonishing attacks to sensational saves via mind-boggling moments and one deeply sad farewell to a rider sorely missed by everyone since his tragic passing.

Despite admitting that the “accident” was “tremendously stupid and irresponsible,” Tiberi, the 2019 junior time trial world champion, was fined €4,000 and later sacked by Lidl-Trek. Six weeks later, the Italian 21-year-old joined Bahrain-Victorious.

So dominant was Tadej Pogacar during the Race to the Sun, he had time to play to the cameras while sandbagging his big rival Jonas Vingegaard in Stage 4. The Slovenian would go on to win the stage – his first of three – and beat the Dane by a whopping 1’39” in the GC. As early as it was in the season, Pogacar at this stage looked odds-on to wrestle the Tour de France yellow jersey back from Vingegaard in July – and his spring had only just got started.

Following the flurry of attacks from Tadej Pogacar in the wheels of Wout van Aert and Filippo Ganna, Van der Poel timed his move to perfection to zip clear near the summit of the Poggio to break the 28-year-old record of Maurizio Fondriest and Laurent Jalabert. The 28-year-old Dutchman then soloed down towards glory on the via Rome to become the 13th different winner in as many years.

Over the course of the season, Kopecky was one of the stand-out riders in the women’s peloton – picking up additional wins in Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Ronde van Vlaanderen in the spring, doing the double in the Belgian national championships, coming runner-up in the Tour de France Femmes after a super-solid ascent of the Tourmalet, and then securing the rainbow jersey in Glasgow.

After picking up a double flat in Dwars door Vlaanderen, Switzerland’s Noemi Ruegg used all her cyclo-cross experience to stay up on two wheels. Ruegg eventually finished 27th with her Jumbo-Visma team-mate Marianne Vos taking third place.

Pogacar became only the third rider in history to have won both the Tour de France and the Tour of Flanders. It was also the start of a stellar run that also saw the Slovenian win Amstel Gold and La Fleche Walloone. Perhaps he may think twice about skipping Paris-Roubaix in the future.

The Belgian may have done enough to secure his own maiden Roubaix cobblestone trophy were it not for a puncture just moments later, which allowed Van der Poel to soar past and solo the remaining 15km to glory.

Not only did it end Pogacar’s push for an Ardennes clean sweep – one that his female counterpart Demi Vollering herself secured in style – it disrupted his preparations for the Tour and slightly hindered his ability to ride out of the saddle during his July showdown with Vingegaard. A showdown which may have proved tighter had Pogacar not left Liege with a rare DNF.

At the Volta Comunitat Valenciana, Tao Geoghegan Hart showed his best form since his 2020 Giro d’Italia win to take a stage and achieve third place overall. Another third place followed in Tirreno-Adriatico before the 28-year-old won the Tour of the Alps off the back of two wins in as many days at the start of the race.

There was no denying that Geoghegan Hart had rediscovered his mojo as he entered the Giro as Ineos Grenadiers co-leader alongside Geraint Thomas. And it was all going so well at the start of the second half of the race, with Thomas in pink, Geoghegan Hart five seconds down in third, and three other Ineos riders – Sivakov, Arensman and De Plus – all in the top 11.

If Primoz Roglic posted early wins at Tirreno with hairy legs then the Slovenian all-rounder had certainly sharpened his razor by the time he returned to Italy for the Giro in May. While the Jumbo-Visma rider was never placed below sixth following his opening TT, he was never the favourite to win the maglia rosa either.

Remco Evenepoel looked odds-on to add pink to his Vuelta red jersey until the world champion was forced out with Covid. Welsh veteran Geraint Thomas then assumed control – and was a day away from becoming the oldest ever winner of the Giro until Roglic’s redemption at the death.

Cavendish’s triumph put the balls in motion for his return to the Tour de France after a two-year hiatus, the disappointment of a chain drop in Bordeaux when win #35 looked a certainty, and the heartbreak of crashing out a day later. And it’s a saga that will continue into 2024 with Cavendish signing an extension with Astana and getting old friend Michael Morkov on board for the final push to enter the record books.

Mader’s horrific accident was another reminder of the dangers of pro cycling. It cast the entire sport in a painful shadow of mourning and would go on to inspire some of the late climber’s team-mates to stirring victories – most notably Pello Bilbao and Matej Mohoric in the Tour de France. RIP Gino. One of the peloton’s good guys.

Chloe Dygert completed an emotional comeback from injury with her first World Tour victory in Stage 2 of the Ride London Classique. On a day of drama, the American battled into the break and won a reduced sprint ahead of Lizzie Deignan in Maldon to secure a first WWT race for Canyon-SRAM for nearly four years.

Not only did the team get that monkey off their back after a period of underachievement, it also spurred them on to greater things – including stage wins in both the Giro and Tour. For 26-year-old Dygert, it was a full-circle moment after her serious crash and numerous setbacks with injuries.

It was the first time that brothers have come first and second in a Tour stage for over a decade – and the first time ever that two brothers in different teams have achieved that feat. Three weeks after the one-two, the Yateses were at it again on the climb to Le Markstein in Stage 20 with a metronomic attack that had their swaying shoulders and gyrating hips in perfectly coordination to underline their two-peas-in-a-pod status. A thing of beautiful.

The same familial hierarchy was replicated three weeks later on GC with Adam pipping fourth-place Simon to the final spot on the podium in Paris.

It was clear from the outset of the Tour that the defending champion meant business. In Stage 5, he pulverised the previous climbing record of the Col du Marie-Blanque to take the best part of a minute from his chief rival Tadej Pogacar. This was clearly the Vingegaard from the 2022 Tour and not the Vingegaard who toiled on the roads of Paris-Nice five months earlier.

Vingegaard pressed on up the arduous Col de la Loze to take fourth place on a stage won by the impressive Felix Gall of AG2R. But it was the best part of six minutes before Pogacar, his head down, crossed the line alongside team-mate Marc Soler. If ever there was a man broken, it was he.

“It means a lot because it’s just hard and cruel to be a professional cyclist. You suffer a lot in preparation. You sacrifice your life, your family and you do everything you can to get here ready and then after a couple of days you realise everyone is just so incredibly strong, that it’s just hard to follow the wheels sometimes.”

If Mohoric’s latest Tour stage win was another tour de force from the Slovenian, his words really pulled at the heartstrings and gave an instant glimpse into the tough life professional cyclists lead, imbued in sacrifice and feelings of betrayal and hopelessness. It was a classy touch of Mohoric to pay tribute to the tireless efforts of the team staff and figures who work behind the scenes for long hours each day just to keep the show on the road. A class act.

The roar that accompanied the Frenchman’s last roll of the dice in his final Tour was one of the goosebump moments of the year, as Thibaut Pinot led the race through a sea of spectators on the Petit Ballon. Watching the reaction of the crowd camped out on a corner named after Pinot delivered the kind of emotional punch unmatched in most other sports.

What is more, the fact that Pinot didn’t hold on for the win in his own backyard in the Vosges kept it all perfectly, painfully, to script. Rather than a farewell Tour stage win or even his sixth second-place finish of the season, Pinot crossed the line in seventh. It would have been nothing to write home about were it not for that prolonged moment of magic on the Petit Ballon.

A similar scene went down on the so-called ‘Curva Pinot’ in Il Lombardia at the end of the season – underlining just how much we’re all going to miss the goat-loving, brittle but brilliant, mercurial climber and his knack of coming up short while wearing his heart on his sleeve.

It looked like the actions of a man who did not envisage two weeks coming up in the red jersey – or perhaps he was getting the celebrations out of his system so he could prepare for the task in hand. Either way, Sepp Kuss not only showed the world in September that he could win the Vuelta; he showed that no one else in the pro peloton can down Cava quite like him.

Vingegaard showcased the climbing legs that have spirited him to back-to-back Tour titles with an imperial display to win ahead of Jumbo-Visma team-mates Sepp Kuss and Primoz Roglic. The same three riders swept to all three spots on the podium with Vingegaard – having battled through illness in the opening week – up to third behind Kuss and Roglic.

The Dane’s huge 8km solo attack was almost enough to see him beat the record set by Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador on the Tourmalet – and came two months after Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar combined to break Tony Rominger and Zenon Jaskula’s record on the other, eastern side of the mythical climb.

If it was proof that Vingegaard has the capabilities of a Grand Tour double, this feat would not happen because of the growing pressure for Jumbo to back their super-domestique Kuss…

The will-they-won’t-they spectacle certainly added a bit of spice to what could have been a Jumbo-Visma cake walk in the Vuelta. In the end, instead of one of the reigning Giro or Tour champions doing the double, the team emerged to do an historic and unprecedented treble – with three different riders winning all three Grand Tours.

The cream came to the top in search of a rainbow in a Scottish deluge, with a starlit quartet of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Tadej Pogacar and Mads Pedersen coming together on the twisting ramped city circuit in Glasgow.

Van Aert, of course, took second place while Pogacar had enough in the tank to distance the fading 2019 champion Pedersen. A thrilling finale to an exhilarating race – and a worthy champion.

The women’s World Championships always promised to be a two-way battle between trade team-mates Demi Vollering and Lotte Kopecky. And when Vollering put in a stinging attack on the last lap to reel in the remnants of the break, it looked like the Dutch double was on its way. But cramps put the brakes on Vollering, and a select group formed on the front.

Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig zipped clear with Lizzie Deignan in pursuit with just over 7km remaining. And with Vollering still shaking some feeling back into her legs, Kopecky seized the opportunity with both hands. She pegged back Ludwig then made her clinical move near the top of the final climb with 5.6km to go.

The man they say could be soon as good as compatriot Wout van Aert demonstrated his power and grit with something you don’t see often. Indeed, on the evidence of his pedal-breaking win in the Lotto Famenne Ardenne Classic, the De Lie doesn’t need a leg-up to reach his potential.