Tour de France 2017 - The Awards

Tour de France 2017 - The Awards
16:12, 24 Jul 2017

Rider of the Tour

There have been a few outstanding individual performances this year, and none should be forgotten. Michal Kwiatkowski rode himself to a complete standstill for Chris Froome and also pushed himself to the limit against the clock whilst Mikel Landa was a second off the podium despite having gone through the whole Giro – and that with an injury; Warren Barguil took two stages to take the King of the Mountains Jersey; Marcel Kittel took five stages, and Michael Mathews two

Amongst the others, Jack Bauer supported two team leaders and has not gotten the credit that he deserves for his efforts, but most people couldn’t imagine riding 1,000km in a single year – and Thomas de Gendt wasn’t rewarded for his 1,000kms spent in the breakaway across all sorts of terrain come rain or shine. The super combatif award would have been deservedly his, but the judges gave it to Barguil which means he gets the Sportsman award for rider of the Tour.

A shout out to Tiesj Benoot, who took on his first Grand Tour – at the Tour de France - managed to finish with three Top 10’s and was 20th overall. A big future awaits and so does his first tour win.

Honourable Mentions: Tiesj Benoot (Lotto), Warren Barguil (Sunweb), Mikel Landa, Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky), Jack Bauer (Quick-Step)

Stage of the Tour 

This is an easy one. Many, yours truly included, felt that this year’s route sometimes left some a tad disappointed, but there wasn’t a single second of the two hours and thirty six minutes of Stage 13’s quickfire jaunt from Saint-Girons to Foix that wasn’t utterly captivating and it proved to be amongst the most consequential test even with for a downhill to a flat finish.

Honourable Mentions: Stage 9 (Nantua > Chambery), Stage 16 (Le Puy-En-Velay > Romans-sur-Isere)

Team of the Tour

Some teams have really excelled here. For once Sky have had some competition in the mountains with AG2R riding brilliantly in support of Romain Bardet, whilst Wanty-Groupe Gobert have made nearly every breakaway on their first ever tour, confirming the worth of their wildcard entry and also unearthing some nice talents - get ready to hear of Guillaume Martin a lot more in the future.

However, there can be no task more difficult than trying to support two objectives in a Grand Tour. Spare a thought for Quick-Step, who had Marcel Kittel taken out late on in the race, but who also saw Dan Martin record the best finish for an Irishman in a Grand Tour – but Team Sunweb managed to give equal support to Warren Barguil and Michael Matthews through the three weeks, with the Frenchman taking the polka dot jersey along with two stages, and the Australian taking the Green Jersey.

Honourable Mentions: Quick-Step, Wanty-Groupe Gobert, Team Sky

Moment of the Tour

There are many to choose from – and in an interesting note they all felt more consequential than recent years, perhaps down to the route. There were the disappointing moments too as well as the memorable ones – more on them later – but the one real sustained moment of weakness for Chris Froome was his broken spoke in the Massif Central when he was left with a deficit of 50 seconds on the climb of Peyra Taillade.

Thanks to the tireless work of Michal Kwiatkowski, Sergio Henao and Mikel Nieve, he managed to make it back to the front group that was being furiously driven by AG2R before the incident had occurred. In the end, he had enough in the tank to get back, climbing the 8.3 kilometre climb a full 40 seconds faster than the group of main favourites and keeping the yellow jersey.

Honourable Mentions: Kiwatkowski rolls to a stop, Marcel Kittel wins Photo Finish, Boasson Hagen takes the lead through the roundabout, Uran wins in big ring

Disappointment of the Tour

Staying on your bike is something that you must do to make the Tour but the race suffered badly due to crashes this year. Now, this does happen every year, come rain or shine, but Losing Alejandro Valverde and Ion Izaguirre on the opening day was a blow for the overall and attacking racing through and losing Richie Porte – although he’s thankfully OK – robbed the race of a major player.

Spare a thought too for Geraint Thomas, who crashed out when second and still riding super strongly, and Marcel Kittel, whose five sprint stage wins set up a tremendous battle with Michael Matthews that we never got to see come to a true end.

Photo of the Tour

There were many beautiful images but none sums up the chaos of the Peloton through the early days than Chris Auld’s image of a big crash in the rain at a roundabout on the second stage. The picture went viral when Chris Froome tweeted it, and the expressions of all involved should light up faces for years to come.

Honourable Mentions: Cavendish Goes out (Tim de Waele/Getty Images), Froome Looking at Horse on Stage 6 to Troyes (Yoan Valat/EPA), Froome celebrates his win in Paris with son Kellan (Thibault Camus/AP), Peloton goes through Eau Rouge (Sirotti/Steephill), Kittel and Greipel dead heat (Sirotti/Steephill) 

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