Annemiek van Vleuten is the first ever winner of the 2022 Vélo d’Or Femmes award, with fellow world champion Remco Evenepoel scooping the prize as the outstanding rider of the men’s peloton.
The Vélo d’Or was created in 1992 and aims to emulate football’s Ballon d’Or award to crown the world’s best rider at the end of each season.
Run by the French magazine Vélo, which is owned by the same company that runs the Tour de France (ASO), votes are cast on a selection of nominees by a group of international journalists.
Van Vleuten has been nominated for the Vélo d’Or in the past but 2022 saw the creation of a separate women’s award, following the return of a women’s Tour de France this year.
Van Vleuten won by a landslide, a reward for a season that saw her win the Giro d’Italia Donne, Tour de France Femmes, and Vuelta Challenge, along with Liège-Bastogne-Liège and a second world road race title.
Lotte Kopecky, who beat Van Vleuten to win Strade Bianche, finished runner-up in the Velo d’Or voting, with 69 points to the world champion’s 145. In third place was Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who enhanced her collection of rainbow jerseys with four more world titles across mountain biking and gravel.
Following up behind were Elisa Longo Borghini, Lorena Wiebes, Marianne Vos, Marta Cavalli, Demi Vollering, Elisa Balsamo, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Silvia Persico, Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Mathilde Gros, Juliette Labous, and Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio.
On the men’s side, Evenepoel was the outstanding favourite and duly walked off with his first Vélo d’Or.
Jonas Vingegaard may have won the Tour de France but Evenepoel’s combination of a first Monument in the spring at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, a first Grand Tour in the summer at the Vuelta a España, and a first elite rainbow jersey in the autumn at the World Championships swung things in his favour.
In fact, Vingegaard, who was relatively quiet outside the Tour, could only manage fourth place in the voting. Wout van Aert, the all-action Belgian who won three stages at the Tour – while helping Vingegaard to victory – was runner-up with 88 points to Evenepoel’s 139. In third place was Tadej Pogačar, who may have missed out on a third straight Tour title but still finished runner-up with three stage wins, while elsewhere winning Il Lombardia, Strade Bianche, GP Montréal, Tirreno-Adriatico, and the UAE Tour.
Vingegaard was fourth, followed by Filippo Ganna, Fabio Jakobsen, Mathieu van der Poel, Harrie Lavreysen, Jay…
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