Tour de France

Dates: July 1 to July 24, 2022
Stages: 21
Length: 3,328 km
Grand Départ: Copenhagen, Denmark
Finish: Paris, France
TV coverage (UK): Discovery+, GCN+, ITV4
TV coverage (US): Peacock, NBC Sports

Tour de France 2022: key information

• Tour de France 2022 route
• Tour de France 2022 standings
• Tour de France 2022 start list
• Tour de France 2022 key stages
• How to watch the 2022 Tour de France
• Past winners of the Tour de France
• Tour de France leader's jerseys
• Tour de France winning bikes

Tour de France 2022 race information

Denmark is playing host to the Grand Départ of the 2022 Tour de France, with the opening stage taking place in Copenhagen before a further two stages in the Scandinavian country. 

The 109th edition began on Friday July 1 with a 13km time trial in the Danish capital which was won by Belgian rider Yves Lampaert (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl). 

On a wet day, which made conditions on the flat but technical route treacherous for the riders, Lampaert - who arguably benefited from a later start and improving weather - stormed to victory ahead of his compatriot Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), the defending champion aiming for a third straight win.

Adam Yates (Ineos Grenadiers) was the highest placed British rider in 12th - 23 seconds down on Lampaert, and one and two seconds ahead of team mates Tom Pidcock and Geraint Thomas respectively. 

Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) was the USA's fastest rider, finishing in 32nd place and 43 seconds down on the winner. Pogačar's Slovenian compatriot and general classification rival Primoz Roglič came in nine seconds behind him in 8th place.

Unsurprisingly all 176 riders were faster than our writers Chris and Adam who tested themselves against the opening stage course ahead of the pros on Thursday morning.

The race remains in Denmark for the following two stages. Stage two, on Saturday July 2, will see the peloton race a flat 202.2km between Roskilde and Nyborg. Some extra spice could come as riders head across the 18km Great Belt Bridge just before the finish. (Surely we're not the only cycling/Nordic Noir fans disappointed that it's not the Øresund Bridge from, erm, The Bridge.)

After stage three on Sunday July 3 - 182km between Vejle and Sønberborg - there'll be a rest day before the race heads to Dunkirk in France for the main bulk of the Tour, covering the country before finishing on its usual spot along the Champs-Élysées. 

In total, there are two individual time trials, six flat stages, six mountain stages and seven hilly stages, all broken up fairly evenly across the three weeks of racing. 

Tour de France 2022: Quote of the Day

2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas finished a respectable 18th in the opening time trial but would he have finished higher up the pecking order if he hadn't had a wardrobe malfunction or been a bit braver on the bends? The Ineos Grenadiers rider says that he forgot to remove the gilet he'd put on to keep warm before the stage - which would certainly have affected his aerodynamics. However in treacherous conditions the Welshman was cautious on corners, leading him to say "I was cornering like my wife – and she hasn't ridden a bike for 12 years."

Where is the Tour de France today?

Stage two: Roskilde to Nyborg (199km)

Start time: 11.15 (BST)

Estimated finish time: 15.59 (BST)

Terrain: Flat

It's unlikely that any sprinters will have snuck out of their hotels to catch Tyler the Creator's headline set at the famous Roskilde rock festival on the night before stage two: it represents an early chance for them to lay down a marker.

Obviously, the peloton won't stick around to see St Vincent on Saturday night either, as they'll be heading off around the island of Zealand before crossing the exposed 18km Great Belt Bridge on to another island - Funen - and the finish in Nyborg. 

Whilst the weather forecast looks reasonable, any crosswinds on Zealand's narrow coastal roads and the three Category 4 climbs before the intermediate sprint could make things interesting if any riders break away.

And, of course, if the wind picks up as the peloton crosses the Great Belt Bridge - which starts at 21km from the finish - the sprinters' teams will need to be switched on to ensure that their riders are in the mix for the relatively straightforward final 3km.

Tour de France 2022 classifications

Much like every year in recent memory, the jerseys and classifications are the yellow jersey for the overall leader, green jersey for the leader in the points standings, polka-dot jersey for the mountain classification, and the white jersey for the best young rider.

Along with the jersey prizes, there is an award for the most combative rider of each stage, with the winner wearing a red number on the following day. This is awarded each day with a Super Combativity award decided by a jury at the end of the race for the most active rider throughout the entire event.

There is also a team classification where the time of the first three riders from each team is put together to create a single time. This is then done in a similar way as the individual general classification.

In addition, there are plenty of bonus seconds up for grabs at the race. There are ten, six and four bonus seconds available at the end of each stage for the first three riders, as well as bonus sprints that are dotted throughout the race on key climbs to try and make the racing more entertaining for spectators.

Of course, there's also prize money up for grabs.  While the €610,000 (£526,000/$634,000) Tour de France prize money that last year's winner Tadej Pogačar collected is a tidy sum, it pales in comparison to the wages of many top professional sports stars. 

For example Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo is said to earn £510,000 ($615,000) a week.  And the Portuguese striker doesn't have to share that with his team-mates, something that has often been done by the Tour's individual winner.

Tour de France 2022 teams

All 18 of the 2022 WorldTour teams will be riding the Tour de France, with four ProTeams joining them to complete the peloton - that brings the total to 22 teams, each filding eight riders. In total, there are 176 riders on the Tour de France 2022 start list.

In addition to the WorldTour teams, French ProTeams Arkéa-Samsic, TotalEnergies and B&B Hotels-KTM are racing once again at the Tour, with Belgian squad Alpecin-Deceuninck also joining the start list after finishing top of the ProTeam standings in 2021. 

Tour de France 2022 general classification riders

Reigning champion Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) was on the start line in Copenhagen along with the man who finished second place in last year's race, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), who will compete the Grand Depart in his home country.

Pogačar's compatriot Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) is also among those starting the race, with David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) and Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech) their respective team's likely GC contender. 

Expect a strong challenge for the overall, as Pogačar has a target on his back following his two wins in successive years. 

Tour de France 2022 sprinters

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl have opted to choose Fabio Jakobsen as their main sprinter at the Tour de France this year, meaning Mark Cavendish won't have the opportunity to surpass Eddy Merckx's record of 34 stage wins at the Tour de France in 2022. 

Among the teams announced, Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) stand out as the race's most likely green jersey contenders thus far, with both riders set to challenge for race wins. 

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) has also expressed his desire to win more stages at this year's Tour de France, while Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies) and Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) will all fancy their chances when a stage comes down to a straight sprint. 

Tour de France 2022 on TV

If you are in the UK then you will be able to watch every stage live from start to finish on Discovery+, GCN+ and ITV4, with each broadcaster offering highlights too. There will be uninterrupted coverage on Eurosport Player online and on the GCN+ app.

In the USA you can catch the race on Peacock and NBC Sports.

Tour de France 2022 route

For more information on this year's parcours, head to our Tour de France 2022 route page where you can find all the race profiles and in-depth descriptions.

Tour de France past winners in the last 10 years

2012: Bradley Wiggins (GBr)
2013: Chris Froome (GBr)
2014: Vincenzo Nibali (Ita)
2015: Chris Froome (GBr)
2016: Chris Froome (GBr)
2017: Chris Froome (GBr)
2018: Geraint Thomas (GBr)
2019: Egan Bernal (Col)
2020: Tadej Pogačar (Slo)
2021: Tadej Pogačar (Slo) 

How does the Tour de France work?

The Tour de France is one of three races that are three weeks long, known as the Grand Tours, alongside the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España. The Tour is the best known and arguably the most prestigious.

It is the second of the three races in the calendar with the Giro taking place in May, the Tour usually in July, and the Vuelta in August and September.

The Tour, like all Grand Tours, takes on varying terrain with flat days for sprinters, hilly days for punchers and mountains for the climbers and GC riders, along with time trials, so that a winner of the race has to be able to perform on all types of road.

The main prize in the race, known as the general classification, is based on time with the overall leader wearing the yellow jersey. The race leader and eventual winner is the rider who has the lowest accumulated time over the 21 days of racing. Riders can win the Tour de France without winning a stage, as Chris Froome did in 2017. Time bonuses of 10, six, and four seconds are given to stage winners though, creating incentive for those general classification riders to chase individual victories and lower their overall time.

In 2020 it took race winner Tadej Pogačar 87-20-05 to complete the race with the second-place rider overall 59 seconds slower. That continues all the way down to the last place rider, which was Roger Kluge (Lotto-Soudal) who finished over six hours behind at a time of 6-07-02.

The white best young rider's jersey is worked out in the same way but only riders under the age of 26 are eligible for the jersey.

The polka-dot mountains jersey and the green points jersey are based on a points system and not time. The only reason time would come into account would be if riders are tied on points, then it would go to who is the best placed in the general classification.

The team classification is based on the general classification times of the first three riders of a team on each stage. The time of those three riders is added up and put onto their team's time, creating a GC list much like in the individual classifications. The leading team get to wear yellow numbers and helmets on each stage.

The final classification available is the combativity prize. This is decided by a race jury or, in more recent years, Twitter. This takes place just before the end of each stage and often goes to a rider from the breakaway who has put in a daring performance or attempted to liven up the stage by attacking. The winner of the combativity award gets to wear a special red race number on the following day's stage.

There is a final prize added to this with the Super Combativity prize being awarded on the podium in Paris. This is decided in a similar fashion to pick out the most aggressive, entertaining, and daring rider of the whole three weeks. Again, usually going to a rider who has featured regularly in the breakaway.

Stage winners do not wear anything special the day after apart from getting a small yellow jersey to stick on their number on their bike, this can be replaced if they win multiple stages.

Teams used to come to the race with nine riders but the UCI, cycling's governing body, decided that nine riders from each team was too dangerous and dropped it to eight, however more teams are riding now riding.

How long is the Tour de France?

The Tour de France takes place over 23 days with 21 of those days race days. The riders get two days of resting; they usually fall on the second and third Monday of the race.

This year's race is 3,328km long, which is 2,068 miles, around the same distance from Washington DC to Las Vegas, or Helsinki to Lisbon. 

Road stages can range from anything around 100km to something approaching 250km, sometimes more. This year the shortest road stage is the last stage around the streets of Paris at 108.4km with the longest being 249.1km on stage seven, Vierzon to Le Creusot.

Road stages often take around four to five hours with the longer days sometimes nudging over seven hours.

Time trials are always much shorter. Team time trials have long since gone out of fashion in the world of road racing so individual time trials are the main focus these days. 

In 2021 the Tour has two individual time trials for the riders to tackle, one on stage five which is 27.2km long from Changé to Laval, and the second on stage 20 over 30.8km from Libourne to Saint-Emilion.

It is a whole day of coverage for the spectators, but for a rider it is not yet known how long it will take to ride these distances, but it should be around 30-40 minutes.

When does the Tour de France start?

The 2022 Tour de France started on July 1 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a 13km individual time trial. There will be three stages overall in the Scandinavian country, before heading to Dunkirk for the main part of the Tour, finishing in Paris three weeks later.

The race returns to its usual slot in the calendar in July, after 2020 featured a delayed event while 2021 was two weeks earlier than usual due to the road cycling, track cycling and mountain biking events in the Olympic Games. 

The Tour runs from July 1-24, covering 21 stages.