After a glorious parade around Paris, the sun set on a vintage edition of the race which provided action and variety across three weeks. Where to begin? A roundabout in Andorra where Egan Bernal crashed and had to skip the Giro?
The start in Brussels was a celebration of Eddy Merckx and more than a theme, the warmth of the public towards him was palpable. It was a jackpot for Jumbo-Visma with Mike Teunissen taking a surprise stage win and they won the team time trial stage win. In the moment the story was just how close gaps were but with hindsight it gave Steven Kruijswijk a head start over Emanuel Buchmann and his Bora-Hansgrohe team of 46 seconds and come Paris the Dutchman was third overall and on the podium some 25 seconds ahead.
The race returned to France and Julian Alaphilippe took the stage and the yellow jersey in Epernay and backstage once he saw the yellow jersey he burst into tears. Remember when we were asking if he could hold on to the jersey at the Planche des Belles Filles?
On the same day the field split and both Thibaut Pinot and Egan Bernal made it on the right side while Geraint Thomas just missed and lost five seconds.
Peter Sagan got his stage win in Colmar. He quickly built a lead and had no contest. Ewan took three sprint stages and was the most consistent of the trio of top sprinters. Dylan Groenewegen and Elia Viviani had a stage each but were more volatile — Viviani was pace-setting in the mountains — while Ewan never placed lower than third in any of the sprints and all three were reliable compared to the others.
