At the end of each season, Cyclingnews take a look back through every sprint of the season, using our unique points formula to objectively rank the top fast men of the season.
Last year, Jasper Philipsen came out on top of the rankings, just 165 points ahead Mark Cavendish despite missing out to the Manxman several times during the Tour de France. The pair, who racked up 19 wins between them in 2021, were well ahead of the rest in the race to be crowned the top sprinter of the season.
This year things have been very different, with one rider proving to be the undisputed fastest sprinter of the 2022 season.
We’ll leave further analysis until later on so we can get to those long-awaited top-ranking spots. Frist, a quick note on the formula used to calculate the Cyclingnews sprinter of the year. As usual, we’ve done our best to cut out results that weren’t achieved in large bunch sprints.
That means that wins like Mathieu van der Poel’s opener at the Giro d’Italia, Alexander Kristoff’s solo at Scheldeprijs, and Wout van Aert’s solo triumph in Calais at the Tour de France don’t count here.
Results from groups of around 20 riders and up do score points, with the focus being on mass bunch sprints. As ever, races from the .1 level all the way up to the WorldTour are counted, with points awarded on a sliding scale.
Without further ado, here are Cyclingnews‘ top sprinters of 2022.
Points system
| Race/race category | Points for 1st | Points for 2nd | Points for 3rd | Points for 4th | Points for 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tour de France (+ points jersey) | 250 | 125 | 75 | 50 | 25 |
| Giro d’Italia (+ points) | 200 | 100 | 60 | 30 | 15 |
| Vuelta a España (+ points) | 150 | 80 | 40 | 20 | 10 |
| WorldTour races (+ points) | 120 | 70 | 35 | 15 | 5 |
| .Pro races (+ points) | 75 | 40 | 20 | – | – |
| .1 races (+ points) | 40 | 20 | 10 | – | – |
The top two
- Points: 2,180
- Wins: 9
- Change from 2021: No change
For the second season in a row, Jasper Philipsen is the best sprinter in the world, according to the Cyclingnews ranking system.
The Belgian may not have reached double figures, and Fabio Jakobsen may have struck six more times, but Philipsen won where it mattered most and also collected a huge number of podiums, including 11 runner-up finishes.
The Tour de France swings things in Philipsen’s favour. He was the stand-out sprinter of this year’s race with two stage wins – the only sprinter to win more than one.
It was not a sprint-friendly Tour but after…
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