Three weeks ago, when seven Americans and four Canadians rolled down the start ramp in Copenhagen to kick off the 2022 Tour de France, few would have expected the race to conclude as – depending on how you view Tour history – the best race from a North American perspective since the Greg LeMond years.
The USA had waited a decade for a Tour stage win since Tyler Farrar’s Redon sprint win in 2011 before Jumbo-Visma’s Sepp Kuss soared to victory in Andorra last year. This time around, Israel-Premier Tech rider Hugo Houle broke a Canadian stage win duck stretching back to Steve Bauer in 1988.
There was GC success, too, as EF Education-EasyPost climber Neilson Powless – who lay four seconds off the yellow jersey at one point in the race – took either country’s best result in seven years with 13th place in Paris.
After a nadir of just three North American starters in 2017, the numbers are also looking up, with the 11 men taking on the Tour the joint-most since the days of LeMond, Hampsten, Bauer and 7-Eleven at the 1986 race.
Away from Houle’s emotional win in Foix and Powless’ GC battling, the likes of Kuss and Brandon McNulty played vital roles for GC contenders Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar in the high mountains, while numerous others – Quinn Simmons (Trek-Segafredo), Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech), Matteo Jorgenson (Movistar) – were mainstays in the breakaway.
Over the closing stages of this year’s Tour, Cyclingnews spoke to several of the riders involved in what has been a very successful three weeks in France for the USA and Canada to find out what they thought of their own achievements at the race.
“It was a good Tour for North America, for sure,” Powless told Cyclingnews outside the EF Education-EasyPost bus as the post-Tour celebrations were ramping up on the Champs-Elysées.
“It feels like we’ve come a long way from just Sepp and I a few years ago. So, it’s really good to see and I think that the USA definitely deserves it. We have a lot of really strong riders.
“We don’t have like the most riders in the peloton, but they’re guys that are there are all really quality guys. So, hopefully, we can continue to race at the top level and hopefully inspire more Americans to do the same.”
Powless, the first Native American to race the Tour on making his debut two years ago, made the break four times during the race and fought for the stage win on two of the most prestigious stage finishes – Arenberg and L’Alpe d’Huez.
He finished…
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