2023 Tour de France Stage 2 Results & Recap
Stage 2 of the 2023 Tour de France is in the books. The final results and standings are below, followed by our recap of how the race unfolded.
Race Recap
Lafay wins stage 2
Victor Lafay (Cofidis) outfoxed the stage favorites to win stage 2 after the longest stage of the Tour de France. Wout van Aert (Jumbo Visma) took second, and Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished third after 208.9 km of racing.
“When I attacked, I didn’t even evaluate if it was going to work or not," Lafay said. "Then I was seeing the finishing line getting closer and my power getting lower in numbers but it has worked out. It’s crazy. This was definitely planned. Yesterday it wasn’t planned when I accompanied Pogacar and Vingegaard at the top of the last climb. Today I didn’t want to do anything in the hill except for keeping up with the top guns. It’s a relief for Cofidis to finally get a stage win. I’ve been hearing about this for five years since I joined the team. I’m happy to free the team from this burden. We’ll keep going. We want more. Bryan Coquard is also very strong.”
Adam Yates (UAE) retains his yellow jersey by six seconds ahead of teammate Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates).
"It has been a really hectic day, up and down all day," Yates said after the race. "We went by several villages and that meant there were lots of roundabouts and road furniture. We had a bit of bad luck, with Matteo [Trentin] crashing on one corner. Anyway, the guys did a great job. We controlled the bunch all day long, as nobody wanted to help us. In Jaizkibel we wanted to set up Tadej for the bonus sprint, and he got the most seconds – so all in all, it’s gone well. As for me keeping the yellow jersey, all was down to the bonus seconds awarded in the final sprint. Had Tadej won the stage, he would have overtaken me. But as long as we had kept the yellow jersey in the team, it would have been good. It’s not easy to defend this jersey. The next two days are easier on paper, yet this is the Tour de France and every day is super hard and super technical. We’ll see what happens."
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