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

After years of failed attempts and half-hearted gimmicks, women’s cycling will finally have a Tour de France worthy of the name when it begins in Paris on Sunday. The brand new Tour de France Femmes is the most lucrative ever women’s cycling race, bursting with talent on a varied and challenging eight-stage parcours built to entertain, and organiser ASO has perhaps finally planted the seeds of a race which will grow and blossom for many summers to come.

There have been several different incarnations of a women’s Tour de France stretching back to 1955. The race peaked during the 1980s but faded away, and when it returned under the guise of the one-day La Course in 2014, thanks to sustained pressure and campaigning, it always felt like a token gesture, an afterthought tacked on to the men’s race. ASO’s claim that it was unfeasible to have both a men’s and women’s Tour only ever seemed like an excuse.

Now the Tour de France Femmes stands alone as a multiple stage race in its own right, with the resources and the momentum to flourish. Virtual cycling giant Zwift is the lead sponsor, signing a four-year deal and helping fund a prize pot of more than £200,000, with around £40,000 for the winner. More significant is that TV coverage of the race will be wide-reaching, even if it is a shame ITV will not be showing the action free-to-air as it has done for the men’s edition. UK fans can watch via Eurosport, Discovery+ or Global Cycling Network.

The 2022 Tour de France comes to a close on Sunday with a 116km jaunt to the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

The traditional stage 21 truce means Jonas Vingegaard will get to enjoy the procession to the French capital alongside his Jumbo-Visma teammates at the end of a long, hard month, and modern tradition dictates the winning team drink champagne as they ride.

They may well have sore heads from Saturday’s celebrations after sealing the yellow jersey in style, earning a one-two on the stage 20 individual time trial with the green jersey of Wout van Aert pipping teammate Vingegaard to the victory.

It has been a sensational Tour for both riders and Van Aert will try to pick up his fourth stage win of the race when the pack arrive on the Champs-Elysees on Sunday afternoon for what is typically a bunch sprint.

The superstar Belgian may be the favourite for this one but he will face competition from those sprinters who struggled through the Alps and Pyrenees to get to this point, all desperate to win the prestigious Paris stage. Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Soudal), Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin) and Dylan Groenewegen (BikeEchange) are among those who will hope to challenge.

Geraint Thomas will ride to Paris to confirm the third podium position of his Tour de France career, the dethroned Tadej Pogacar will win the young rider’s white jersey, and Vingegaard will collect the polka dot jersey to go along with yellow, after his efforts in the Pyrenees saw him rise to the top of the King of the Mountains classification.