Tour de France 2022 stage 21 LIVE: Jonas Vingegaard celebrates title on Champs-Elysees after Jasper Philipsen wins sprint finish

Gladys Verhulst still just ahead of the peloton, less than 5k to go now...

Only 13 seconds ahead, this could be a fun finish.

There’s a battle for each jersey in the first stage here.

Three riders battling for the Polka Dot jersey; Marta Lach, Femke Markus, and Anne Dorthe Ysland.

Two points on offer for the first place and one for the next one through.

Meanwhile, Gladys Verhulst is 20 seconds clear.

What a Tour for Geraint Thomas, a sensational ride with smart tactics throughout.

A podium finish later today is his reward.

And don’t forget the gilet, it’ll take its prideful place in Paris.

If you want a piece of history, you can buy a raffle ticket for it here with the proceeds going towards the Geraint Thomas Cyling Trust.

Meanwhile in the women’s race, there are 32km to go.

Pauline Allin has a 12 second advantage, if she can negotiate the next 5km, it’s then the second intermediate sprint.

Henrietta Christie is now keeping her company.

• Jasper Philipsen 9/4
• Fabio Jakobsen 7/2
• Wout van Aert 7/2
• Dylan Groenewegen 5/1
• Caleb Ewan 8/1
• Mads Pedersen 10/1
• Alberto Dainese 25/1
• Peter Sagan 28/1
• Christophe Laporte 33/1
• Jasper Stuyven 50/1

lpe d’Huez is brutal. No, it’s not the longest climb in the world, nor is it the steepest, but it is relentless. It is 14.4km long and 1100m high and has an average gradient (or steepness) of around 7.9 per cent – a flat road being 0 per cent.

Jonas Vingegaard maintains every member of Jumbo-Visma is “totally clean” and nobody is “taking anything illegal” after clinching the Yellow Jersey at the Tour de France.

The Dane’s victory caps a dominant race for the Dutch team, who have picked off six stage victories, including three for Wout van Aert, who triumphed in Saturday’s Stage 20 time-trial to Rocamadour.

Vingegaard, who has two wins, while Christophe Laporte also has a stage victory, was asked following the Stage 20 whether Jumbo-Visma should be trusted, a question posed to each Tour winner since the Lance Armstrong scandal, which has contributed to much of cycling’s murky past.

And despite no implication or evidence of any wrongdoing, from either Vingegaard or his team, the rider answered candidly, explaining the team set-up and training philosophy.

Race favourite Annemiek van Vleuten has declared herself “ready” for Sunday’s start of inaugural edition of the Tour de France Femmes.

The former world champion will be one of 144 riders who will race down the Champs-Elysees when this long-awaited ‘proper’ women’s edition of the Tour gets under way.

The 82km sprint around Paris will be merely an hors d’oeuvres for the eight-day race, which will cover 1,029km on its way to a climax on La Super des Planche des Belles Filles on July 31.

Van Vleuten, the 2019 world champion who is in her penultimate season at the age of 39, goes into the race full of confidence after securing her third Giro Donne crown earlier this month.

One of the beauties of the Tour de France is the myriad ways in which it can be won. Sometimes a rider bullies from start to finish, like Bernard Hinault, who intimidated rivals with his presence and crushed them at every opportunity en route to Paris in 1981. Time-trial specialists mark rivals on the climbs and hurt them on the clock, as Miguel Indurain did so emphatically in 1992, and again in 1994. Chris Froome used Team Sky’s stranglehold on the peloton to suffocate his opponents, while Tadej Pogacar’s back-to-back wins in 2020 and 2021 displayed his individual, unpredictable brilliance.

Jonas Vingegaard is the latest man to win the Tour, and for all his unerring strength and resilience across these past three weeks, the race was won in a decisive hour in the Alps, when Jumbo-Visma’s team tactics isolated and outwitted Pogacar and stripped the yellow jersey from his back.

Head to head, there has not been much to choose between the two leading protagonists of this year’s compelling story. Both are capable time-triallists, both strong climbers, both clearly able to handle the unique pressures that come with leading a team in a grand tour. Pogacar had a slight burst of flat speed that helped him edge stages seven and 17, and the punchier legs that saw him surge to victory on stage 6, back when it seemed his race to lose. Vingegaard had the edge in the highest mountains, where he never cracked despite Pogacar’s best efforts.