Okay, maybe that’s a bit much, but here’s the point: while the battle to win the maillot jaune is always the main focal point of the Tour, there are also races within the race, races that take place on each stage each day.
That’s why for many riders, a single stage win is an achievement that defines their careers, forever making them known as “Such-and-Such, Tour de France Stage Winner,” a moniker that will follow them for the rest of their lives.
And there’s no more exciting way to win a stage than from a breakaway. Luckily, the 2023 Tour de France is filled with stages that look to be the perfect playgrounds for opportunists and a few chances for riders looking to end their Tour de France careers with a bang.
Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step)
France’s Julian Alaphilippe won stages in four consecutive Tours from 2018 to 2021, and spent three stints in the yellow jersey. But he was left off his team’s roster last year after a crash-marred spring set him back in his preparation. His start to the 2023 season wasn’t the best (which is perhaps a bit unfair given how high he’s set the bar in previous years), but he looked to be his “old” self at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, where he won a stage and finished tenth overall.
Perhaps the living embodiment of the term puncheur, Alaphilippe most certainly has his eyes on Stages 1 and 2, which are filled with the short, steep climbs on which he excels. And while an early-stage win and a day or two in the yellow jersey is his main goal, we won’t rule out a bid for the green or polka dot jerseys as well. He’s that versatile of a rider.
Mathieu van der Poel had a fantastic spring, winning Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix to complete his set of spring Monuments. The Dutchman then took a break, perhaps hoping to avoid the mid-summer collapse he suffered last year after completing the Giro d’Italia following a full Classics campaign.
Like his arch-nemesis, Belgium’s Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), the 28-year-old is targeting stage wins this year, while building form the World Championships in early August. If things go right, we could see him contend for the green jersey as well, but we expect that to be too tall of an order for him this year–and he has a teammate in Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen who’s more up to the challenge.
Cort heads into this year’s Tour as one of several riders on EF Education-EasyPost with the freedom to hunt for stage victories, which suits the 30–year-old Dane just fine. Breakaway stage wins are often hard to predict, but this is a rider who always seems to pull one off.
Fred Wright (Bahrain-Victorious)
Sometimes winning begets more winning, and in the case of Great Britain’s Fred Wright, we think that’s gonna be the case in this year’s Tour. One of the revelations of the 2022 season, Wright was always up there, but just couldn’t get a win. Well, that changed this past weekend, when the 24-year-old won the road race at the British National Championships, his first professional victory.
Now Wright gets to show-off his new jersey at the Tour de France, where we expect him to animate the race in a way similar to what he did last year, when he finished in the top-10 five times. Only this year, we think he finally (which is an odd choice of words considering this is only his third Tour) gets his stage win.
Egan Bernal won the 2019 Tour de France at just 22-years-old and looked as if he would dominate the race for the next decade. But back pain from a crash ruined his title defense, and the Colombian abandoned the race in 2020–just as Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar was hitting his stride. Bernal skipped the race in 2021, and won the Giro d’Italia instead. Then crashed terribly in early February of 2022, almost ending his career–and his life.
So the fact that he’s even on the starting line in Bilbao this year is a big deal–and it’s even more exciting given the fact that he’s been slowly showing signs that he might get back to where he once was form-wise. We don’t expect him to shoot for a high GC finish, but a mountain stage win is a distinct possibility. Pulling it off would be a sign that his worst days are truly behind him.
Warren Barguil (Team Arkéa Samsic)
A former winner of the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition (in 2017), France’s Warren Barguil could have been on our list of polka dot jersey contenders. But we think the 31-year-old will be targeting stage wins instead, which are likely more important to his French team.
Barguil’s never quite reached the grand tour heights that were expected of him after that 2017 Tour de France (he won two mountain stages as well), he’s become quite an aggressive rider in recent years and is unafraid to stick his nose out at the pointy edge of the race–even if it means he loses. In other words, he’s the quintessential Frenchman, and a rider who will be a popular stage winner if manages to grab a victory this year.
An aggressive, punchy rider who excels in the mountains, he’s made for a hilly Tour like this one. And his team has one goal and one goal only: stage wins. So he’ll get lots of chances.
Simon Yates (Team Jayco AlUla)
A former winner of the Vuelta a España, Great Britain’s Simon Yates won two stages during the 2019 Tour de France after losing so much time during the opening stages that he was no longer viewed as a GC threat–and was given the freedom to join powerful breakaways during mountain stages, where his climbing talent came to the fore.
He’s most likely taking a similar approach this year, relaxing that winning a stage or two–and perhaps contending to win the Tour’s King of the Mountains competition–means more to his team than finishing fifth or sixth overall. His twin brother Adam is riding for UAE Team Emirates in support of yellow jersey contender Pogačar, and might wish he had the same amount of freedom as he’s never won a Tour stage of his own.
Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Pro Cycling Team)
Norway’s Alexander Kristoff is nearing the end of a terrific career that saw him take two single-day Monuments–Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders–along with four Tour de France stage wins.
Mark Cavendish (Astana)
In case you’ve missed it, Great Britain’s Mark Cavendish is just one win away from setting a new Tour de France stage win record. Riding his final Tour de France before retiring at the end of the season, the 38-year-old might be the most closely-watched rider in the entire race.
Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies)
Overshadowed by Cavendish and his last chance to set a historic record is that fact that Slovenia’s Peter Sagan, who set a record of his own with seven wins in the Tour’s green jersey competition, is riding his final Tour de France as well.
Sagan is far from the rider he used to be, having won just two races since the start of the 2022 season. But he’s still capable of pulling one last rabbit out of a hat in a Tour with several stage finishes that suit him. It’s been sad to see such a once flashy rider end his career on such an anonymous note, which is why we’re rooting for the former three-time World Champion to win one more stage at the Tour.
Anyone From Cofidis
It’s been 15 years since Cofidis–one of the longest-running teams in the sport–last won a stage at the Tour de France. To put that in perspective, consider this: Cofidis won its last Tour de France stage during the same Tour in which Mark Cavendish won his first.
But we like the team’s chances this year, they’ve loaded the roster with riders capable of winning in a variety of ways, with proven Tour de France stage winners like Germany’s Simon Geschke and Spain’s Ion Izagirre leading the way.
If we had our pick, we’d love to see Frenchman Guillaume Martin and Bryan Coquard break the team’s winless streak, because there’s nothing more poetic than French riders winning stages at the Tour.