It's Yer Incredibly Prestigious Tours (!) de France racejunkie Awards!

 Yes folks, the Tour Hommes is rather long gone, but the Tour de France Femmes Avec Swift has just wrapped up, so, thanks to the women *finally* getting a real show after umpteen years (and the riders, staff, organizers, journos, and fans who made it possible by endlessly pressing UCI for the obvious), it's time for our inaugural Incredibly Prestigious Tours (!) de France racejunkie Awards! Prizes--I swear on #landismo, so you know this is no bull!@#$--for those so desperate for low-rent notoriety to claim 'em: (1) a genuine sports statuary thingy with your name and award either (a) elegantly engraved on it or (b) written in nearabout the nicest darn penmanship you've ever encountered outside a doctor's prescription pad; (2) a dashing, custom-embroidered racejunkie cycling (not baseball, you heathens!) cap; (3) a passel of handsome genuine racejunkie stickers to deface yer bike, yer helmet, or Pat Lefevere; and (4) eternal (because you know whatever dumb!@#ery you get up to now is sticking around in perpetuity) internet glory (or shame).  So what was the good, the bad, and (for sure) the unspeakably ugly of this year's Tours (!)?  Well pop open that champagne, try not to kill yerself with the cork, get ready with that brie and a hunk o' baguette, and let's look!

Total Best Moment in the Entire Planetary History of Cycling: you know it. You dreamt it.  And she's deserved it for at least the last 15 years.  Marianne Vos, indisputably the GOAT, in the maillot jaune.  Now figure out how to wind back time you blowhard physicists and let her fight for it every damn year!

Self-Own o' (Not Quite) the Race: no, he *wasn't* in the Tour, but we love him anyway, so he still wins.  Biniam Girmay's bitchin' new Angry Exploding Cork Cartoon helmet.  Glad to see that his vision's intact from his Giro d'Italia Champagne Fisticuffs, *and* his sense of humor!

!@#$ Crash o' the Tour (GC-deciding): Oh, dear Primoz Roglic.  Before your willing acolyte Vingegaard could even smack you around on the road for undisputed leadership at Team Jumbo-Visma, you got taken out when Caleb Ewan got taken out by, of all stupidities, an errant bale of hay knocked out into the course by a race vehicle, which an adjacent gendarme didn't even bother to kick back onto the sidewalk.  That just *sucks*--can we please find out who's responsible, and encourage them to issue Primoz a deeply heartfelt apology?

Corollary Screw You People, What Is the Big Damn Deal? Award: Stage 15.  Who doesn't take the start? Roglic.  Why?  No, *not* because he's being a whiny-!@# !@#$% over losing team leadership to Jonas Vingegaard, when you *just* watched him Jonas hauling relentlessly up the mountains for most of the last *two weeks* while he struggled through excruciating pain--it's because he was *struggling through excruciating pain*, you jackwagons, and he finally needed to *stop.*  If he'd wanted to hose Vinegaard, he could've dropped out the day after his crash.  Give the guy some credit for sportsmanship, and let him take his well-earned Tylenol in peace!

Fan !@#$wit Award: holy moly, I think this is maybe the single year since I've been doing this that no-one caused any kind of GC-determining catastrophe, unless you count the crashes caused by agricultural protestors literally gluing their !@#es to the tarmac in front of the riders, and the usual "Y'know what riders like to climb through? Smoke flares!" eejits. The flags stayed out of the wheels, the signs stayed sensibly held overhead, and the camera-seeking exhibitionists didn't unduly distract the talent.  All in all, well done, people!

Fan *Fun*wit Award: well, this is new this year—but I had to give props to the Tour de France Femmes Hopping Inflatable Chicken Guy, who livened up not only the race but apparently also snagged an empty podium shot (with him on it). Allez allez next year—we hope!

I'm Not Crying, *You're* Crying Result o' the Race: Hugo Houle, stage 15, Tour Hommes, holding off his rampaging compatriots to take a decisive victory, which he desperately wanted to get for, and tearfully dedicated to, his late brother.  Now hand me a hanky before I drool on my yellow t-shirt--or yours!

All I Want for Christmas Is...Prize: Simon freakin' Clarke, people.  At Christmas, this spectacularly underrated but always incredibly reliable rider was out of a contract, and unwillingly considering his next steps towards a post-peloton career.  And while his team might be mocked as the final resting place for talent towards, well, the twilight of their pro riding days, Clarke roundly proved he was no mere money-making nostalgia-name with a beautiful, nail-nipping, right on the line perfect bike throw victory on Stage 5.  Hot damn--call the police and the fireman!  

Well That Was 3,328 Kilometers of My Life I'm Never Gonna Get Back Prize: Caleb Ewan.  Just an amazing sprinter, with just some crap placement and maybe just a little missing mojo, on an unusually sprint-stingy Tour de France Hommes.  Still, he stuck it out over hill, dale, and Alpe, with his loyal teammates shepherding him in pretty darn comfortably ahead of the time limit no matter how punishing the day's terrain.  Can the race organizers give this guy a nice wheel of cheese or something for effort, at least? 

Raise the Red Lantern (Rouge) Prize: yeah, save your snark, you wusses, the last freakin' finisher in the Tour de France is *still* one of the most bad-!@# athletes on the planet and can *still* drop you like a stone before you even finish getting your chamois cream on.  Caleb Ewan and Lone Meertens, take a bow—and a nap!

Tiiii-iiiiime Is On My Side (Yes It Is) Award: Look, we don't expect much of sprinters in the high passes, and even stage winner Fabio Jakobsen is no exception.  But making the time cut on Stage 17 by *15 seconds*?  *That* is cutting it close.  Nice save--and I trust your teammates all got a round of beers from you that night!

Breakout Star of the Tour(s)!: Not familiar with SD Worx's Marlen Ruesser, despite her Olympic silver in the time trial?  Well I'm ashamed to say I wasn't, because she smashed Stage 4 by over a minute and a half over her nearest (or more accurately, farthest) competitor. Way to stamp it on the newly most prestigious race in women's cycling--and we'll be looking for more next year! 

!@#$ Crash o' the Tour (Jaysus H. Christ You're Supposed to Be on My Side!) sure, the men had a coupla problems with one moto causing one guy to crash and the succeeding moto and team car pinching the next guy in and making *him* crash, but let's be honest, that's par for the course these days. What's *particularly* *not* supposed to happen is yer own team car running up yer !@# and knocking you over. UAE—Mavi Garcia’s supposed to ride ahead of you, not be pushed ahead *by* you!

Total Sexist Bull!@#$ o' the Race (Commentator Edition): Orla Chennaoui, or specifically, her !@#$wit troglodyte detractors, who somehow couldn't get over the fact that she wore, y'know, *clothes*, that apparently deviated just a little too much from the Official Commentator Bro Uniform of Short-Sleeve Button-Down with Slightly Wacky Pattern, Skinny Jeans, and Fashion Kicks, and accordingly, were incapable of paying attention to a !@#damn thing she said for three weeks in their outrage over something totally irrelevant.  Look, I don't give a crap if Robbie McEwen is up there in the GCN box wearing pasties and a G-string, I want to know what he thinks about the *race*.  Fly your freak flag, people, but for heck's sake fans, keep your eyes on the prize here!

Total Sexist Bull!@#$ o' the Race (Peloton Edition): oh my gerd, for the first time in the entire history of cycling on Earth, a buncha riders went down in a pile.  But it's the Tour de France Femmes Avec Swift, so of course, some asshat posted a pic with an apparent caption slagging how those wacky women drivers just can't even ride a bike without coming down.  Now, I don't read French, but I *do* read "Jackass", and by that guy's standards, the !@#$ing whole men's peloton shouldn't even be allowed to navigate a shopping cart in a supermarket, much less a bicycle at 50 kph an eyelash-width's away from other people.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure Van Vleuten could hunt you down within a millimeter like a starving raptor from 100k out going blindfolded over pave.  Jerk!

Domestique o' the Tour(s)!: It's not often that a, what, three time? stage winner grabs this one, but damn, Wout van Aert can do it all.  When anyone else would be crying on the massage table and begging his team doc for some fake stomach-ailment diagnosis, Wout not only broke free on most every stage and bagged a pile of them, but, sensing blood in the water like Jaws on swimmer, he absolutely broke any last resistance left in the legs of defending champion Tadej Pogacar to ensure his teammate Jonas Vingegaard the stage, *and* the overall win in Paris.  You could do worse for a worker bee, amiright?

Drama From Another Mama Award: okay, I'm personally much more interested in the occasional St. Bernard or livestock that they hand up to the riders, but in the broader scheme of adorable podium shots with adorable spawn in adorable tiny team kit, it *was* heck funny that Lorena Weibes hoisted someone else's baby entirely up there for the inaugural maillot jaune of the Tour.  Still prefer baby goats though!

And Last But Never Least, Punk-!@# Move o' the Race: Usually, this goes to an actual rider-on-rider deliberate cutoff or post-stage minor slapfest, but this year, it's different.  Y'know, there were about 7 Americans in the Tour de France Hommes this year, several of whom rode incredibly strongly but only one of whom was paraded all over NBC in a grotesque, fawning, context-less lovefest, Twitter racist ignoramus Quinn Simmons.  Yap, his team made him apologize, yap, he's surely since grown as a person, yap--you coulda been singing the praises of, say, Neilson Powless, who rode at least as strongly, for three weeks.  Hang your head in shame, NBC--and try a better pick next year!

All right folks, there's absolutely more I could cover, but frankly, I've wasted your time this long.  Congrats to the winners, consolation to the losers, and now, it's time for the Vuelta--aupa Mikeeeeeeeeeeeel!