Key Points
- An introduction to the green jersey
- How versatile and dominant sprinters score points
- Stages 5, 6 and 8 the key stages for versatile riders
- Intermediate sprints less impactful than past years
- A very close battle on paper
The green jersey is most people’s pick for the second-most prestigious in the entire race, and in the past two Tours de France that has definitely been the case as it’s been the only jersey not won by Tadej Pogačar. It’s won by the rider who accumulates the most points throughout the 21 stages. Points are won for placing in the top 15 positions on stage finishes and on one intermediate sprint per stage, with first place getting the most and a scale dropping off from there for subsequent finishers.
Long gone are the days when it was a head-to-head battle between the top fast men in the race. The arrival of Peter Sagan on the scene transformed the fight for the green jersey from a straight battle in the sprints to one of poaching points where others were unable, building up unassailable leads, and other times simply getting ahead and demoralising his opponents into accepting defeat.
Flat sprints, uphill sprints, medium mountains stages, cobbled stages, crosswinds... the Slovakian did it all, his versatility was the calling card of his seven green jersey wins. He gets over mountains to access the points at intermediate sprints in a manner that other sprinters can't manage. Some years, that adds up to 200 extra points that only he really has access to.
This year, many are awaiting the arrival of a new Sagan-like contender, Wout van Aert, arguably more versatile than the three-time world champion and almost as good in bunch sprints. I’ll analyse the bids for victory using past performances in the versatile sprinter archetype and dominant bunch sprinter archetype for ease of working with the numbers, but the idea of this article is just to give you an idea of the dynamics of the race, the numbers themselves are easily shiftable depending on what factors you weigh as more important than others.
This article won't talk about sprinter's form, it's long enough already, you can check out the below video of my conversation with SBS analyst and veteran of 10 Tours de France Mark Renshaw for that insight.
2022 Tour de France potential dominant sprinters: Fabio Jakobsen, Caleb Ewan, Dylan Groenewegen, Jasper Philipsen.
2022 Tour de France potential versatile sprinters: Wout van Aert, Peter Sagan, Mathieu van der Poel, Mads Pedersen, Michael Matthews.
Mass bunch sprints
A dominant sprinter normally bags a lot of points in these and they do need to be consistently at the top of the standings in these stages to beat the more versatile riders these days. 50 points are on the line for the winner, 30 for second, and 20 for third, so the scale drops away quite quickly.
Caleb Ewan averaged 34.5 points in these stage finishes in 2019, Sam Bennett averaged 33 points in his green jersey-winning effort in 2020, while Mark Cavendish absolutely blew out the averages with a 36.66 mean in 2021.
So that 30-35 point range seems like the top likely mark, though if you're a believer in a particular sprinter's current form, then you might want to revise that number upwards a tick.
These are important stages for versatile sprinters as well, if you’re not placing well here then you quickly drop down the overall standings. The most underrated aspect of Peter Sagan’s performances was his relentless consistency on those finishes.
Here are the big bunch sprint results (ie. stages where pure sprinters made the finish) from his seven green jersey wins over eight Tours. I have no hesitation in saying that it would have been eight from eight if he wasn’t disqualified in 2017.
Big bunch sprint finishes for Sagan (2012-2019):
1st - 3 times
2nd - 15 times
3rd - 11 times
4th or 5th - 11 times
6th to 10th - 8 times
Worse than 10th - 3 times
He accomplished this with a good sprint speed and power for certain, but it was his positioning, instinct and preternatural bike handling skills that really separated him from the pack. Wout van Aert is in a similar mould, he can handle sprints with a threadbare lead out, is more powerful than arguably even peak Sagan and cyclocross skills have placed him as one of the best bike handlers in the sport.
Sagan averaged 22.8 points per stage over that period, van Aert’s numbers are significantly lower from recent Tours, but you have to build in him working for his team leaders in some of those finishes, having zero support and not the same motivation to compete for the green jersey every stage.
We’ll use the Sagan historical average for the numbers, and those are very much the benchmark that he’ll need to reach as otherwise, it’s a big difference to make up with seven maximum point flat stages.
Dominant sprinter estimate for TDF 2022 pure sprint finishes: 231 points
Versatile sprinter estimate: 161 points
The three big stages for this year’s green jersey battle
Stages 5, 6, 8 are the big three for the versatile sprinter this year. They are all full 50-point stages that are hard enough to exclude pure sprinters scoring at all, but ones where the likes of van Aert, Sagan and Matheiu van der Poel will be favourites.
Stage 5 - Lille to Wallers Arenberg Porte du Hainaut (153.7km)
It’s not the hardest cobbles of the normal Paris-Roubaix, but van Aert will be best-suited and will be one of the favourites, especially if the race is fast or wet. The sprinters may hang in for minor points, especially on the shorter course, but van Aert could well win this stage.
To give you an idea of the type of finish here, Peter Sagan beat Michael Matthews at the last stage finale here in 2017. Arnaud Demare was the closest sprinter in 6th, no others in top 15. It was a harder stage finish that year though, with a lot more hills in the lead-up.
A very similar finish to Stage 1 of this year’s Giro and that finishing climb there, albeit with more climbing on the rest of the stage. Ewan was able to feature there, he was absolutely at his limit and ended up crashing, but he looked good for a top-three finish otherwise, as van der Poel won.
It’s also quite similar to Stage 3 of the Dauphine (that was a bit harder) where van Aert celebrated too early and David Gaudu just nabbed him on the line. This has the potential to be the decisive stage as pure sprinters could score nothing and WVA could win, also with a tricky intermediate early in the stage.
Estimation of versatile sprinter points: 80 points
Dominant sprinter estimate: 20 points
Mountain and intermediate stages
These stages are either worth 30 points for the winner with a flatter drop-off in points for the minor positions, or 20 points for the winner, but it’s really hard to see many situations where versatile sprinters will be able to take advantage in the mountains this year.
Stages 7, 10, 14, 16 are the 30 point stages, but if you’re riding from the peloton they are also general classification stages and as good as van Aert is uphill, he can’t match the top riders and he’ll probably be acting as a teammate for Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic those stages anyway.
If it’s from a breakaway then he’s going to have to get in it in the first place. Peter Sagan managed it a lot in his green jersey campaigns, but he had a whole team that was working to get him into each of those, van Aert won’t, and if it’s tight in the battle for green, he will be shut down.
Stages 9, 11, 12, 17, 18 are the 20 point stages, and really they are too hard for a rider contesting the green jersey to win. Yes, van Aert certainly has the capability as demonstrated on Mt Ventoux in 2021, but it’s a very different ask doing that in the midst of fighting for every bunch sprint and intermediate than from the free role he had last year.
Intermediate sprints
The one intermediate sprint on each stage offers 20 points for first across the line, but it drops away slowly, with 17 for second, 15 for third, etc. It’s very hard to get a big points swing in these as often there’s a breakaway up the road that takes the top positions and by the time the peloton gets there it’s the difference of one point between places.
It’s not worthwhile putting in a lot of effort to win these sprints unless you can ensure that other rivals you’re battling with don’t score points at all. This is where Sagan has excelled in the past, jumping into mountain stage breaks and early moves with only the goal of taking the maximum points at the intermediate sprint, taking 20 points while the other sprinters take nothing.
That’s going to be tough in this edition of the Tour, I’ve looked through the route and have it down as 12 easily accessible intermediate sprints where the pure sprinters should easily reach, four medium ones where it could be tricky and just two hard intermediates atop climbs or over the top of mountains.
Easy intermediates- Dominant sprinter estimate: 120 points
Versatile sprinter estimate: 96 points
Medium intermediates - Dominant sprinter estimate: 20 points
Versatile sprinter estimate: 50 points total.
Hard intermediates: Dominant sprinter estimate: 0 points
Versatile sprinter estimate: 35 points total.
Michael Matthews won the Green jersey for Team Sunweb in 2017, but happily flew the flag on the podium in Paris. Source: Getty
Time trial results
There’s a first for everything, I’ve never included time trial results as they are not normally relevant in the points competition, but van Aert is one of the best in the world, van der Poel is pretty handy as well. It’s a good chance to score points where sprinters are very unlikely to get any.
Dominant sprinter estimate: 0 points
Van Aert estimate: 30 points total.
If you total that all up, and I swear I didn’t fudge any of the numbers to get this final estimate, but you can see that it has the potential to be a very even battle on paper. Includes extra Wout van Aert TT points.
Dominant sprinter estimate: 451 points
Versatile sprinterestimate: 452 points
The X-factor
The Tour de France has so many moving parts and tactical considerations that it’s impossible to fully math out the possibilities. Probably the biggest is the mental aspect, riders often give up in the green jersey battle once they perceive that it’s out of reach. Caleb Ewan is one example, in 2019 he was the dominant sprinter per the above numbers, but didn’t contest a single intermediate sprint, so Sagan won easily.
The other is tactical considerations, and that’s relevant to Wout van Aert and Jumbo-Visma. Often a team goes all-in to help their chosen green jersey candidate to the win, but Jumbo-Visma can’t do that with yellow jersey hopefuls in Vingegaard and Roglic. If it looks like getting out of reach for van Aert, then he may be called back into or maybe even volunteer for a more team-focused role.
This could happen quite early, those first eight stages are going to be critical to determining the course of the green jersey battle.
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