With the 2023 season behind us, it is once again time to rank the best of the best – the top 10 climbing performances of the year. The climbing level this season was so exceptionally high, that performances that would have cracked the Top 10 in each of the last 20 years had to be left out (they will be listed as honourable mentions). This is mostly thanks to a certain Dane, who had what might be the most dominant climbing season we have ever seen.
Before we delve into the ranking, I would like to clarify the factors that were taken into account when creating this list. Firstly, the most important factor is obviously the estimated etalon power of the performance. However this alone does not tell the whole story of a performance, factors such as altitude were included with a mathematical model, while other limiting factors such as fatigue from the stage or previous stages were taken into account based on kilojoule data. It should also be noted that only efforts above 5 minutes fall into our definition of a climbing performance, so shorter efforts, like Pogacar on Mur de Huy will not be included.
Honourable Mentions
- Remco Evenepoel and Adam Yates on Jebel Hafeet (UAE Tour): 26’02min @ 6,78ᵉw/kg and 25’52min @ 6,72ᵉw/kg.
- Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic on Lo Port (Volta a Catalunya): 24’00min @ 6,90ᵉw/kg and 23’54 @ 6,87ᵉw/kg.
- Jonas Vingegaard on Alto de Arrate – Izua (Itzulia Basque Country): 11’17min @ 7,46ᵉw/kg.
- Adam Yates on Thyon 2000 (Tour de Romandie): 58’35min @ 5,95ᵉw/kg.
- Juan Ayuso on Albulapass (Tour de Suisse): 32’50min @ 6,15ᵉw/kg.
There are certainly a number of other worthy mentions during this season of incredible climbing level, but we will leave it at five performances so as not to extend this article too long.
10. Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar on Col de Joux Plane.
Tour de France Stage 14, Col de Joux Plane until Ruisseau du Plonet (first 10,10km; 8,51%; 860m)
28:22min @ 6,49ᵉw/kg
We are starting off with a performance that could have been much higher, after a very hard stage and a fierce battle on the first 28 minutes of the climb, which Pogacar and Vingegaard climbed as fast as Marco Pantani in 1997. However the two Tour de France superstars decided to have a coffee ride in the last 5’30min of the climb, averaging just 4,90ᵉw/kg for this time period, lowering the overall average watts.
Nonethless, this is a remarkable performance by both Jonas Vingegaard and Pogacar who were way ahead of the competition once again and proved that, even after hard stages, there are not many unbreakable climbing records for this new generation.
9. Jonas Vingegaard on Puerto de Bejes
La Vuelta a España Stage 16, Puerto de Bejes (4,90km; 8,69%; 426m)
13:11min @ 7,40ᵉw/kg
Due to the tactical racing on this climb it’s impossible to know how fast Vingegaard’s opponents could’ve climbed. What we do know however is that the Dane once again unleashed a generational performance, that can be considered one of the highest level single climb performances in the last 25 years.
The absolutely perfect conditions right after a rest day with cool weather and just 2,415 kj before the climb certainly aided this performance, but that still does not change how impressive this feat was. It would be very interesting to have seen how fast Roglic could have climbed up Bejes considering his level on Angliru the next day and the fact that a very impressive Finn Fisher Black lost ‘only’ 43 seconds. My guess is that he could’ve finished within 20-30 seconds of Vingegaard, but we will obviously never know.
8. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard on Puy de Dome.
Le Tour de France Stage 9, Puy de Dôme (13,35km; 7,73%; 1032m)
Tadej Pogacar: 35’11min @ 6,50ᵉw/kg
Jonas Vingegaard: 35’19min @ 6,47ᵉw/kg
The third showdown between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France was a close contest on the historically famous Puy de Dome ascent. Jumbo Visma set a high tempo from the start of the climb, but after their work was done it was Pogacar, not Vingegaard who attacked and obtained a gap. Vingegaard followed in close pursuit just a few meters behind, while the rest of the favourites lost 40 seconds or more in the last 2 kilometers.
Breaking the century old climbing records was not a surprise, but the dominance which Tadej Pogacar showed on this climb certainly was. This performance remains the highest level single climb performance in the Slovene’s career, while Jonas Vingegaard also worked at close to his peak level. The easy stage before the climb does relegate this performance to ‘just’ number 8 in the ranking.
7. Jonas Vingegaard on Col de la Croix de Fer.
Criterium du Dauphiné Stage 7, Col de Croix de Fer Top (6,80km; 8,01%; 545m)
17’59min @ 6,69ᵉw/kg
This performance was a clear sign that Jonas Vingegaard would be extremely hard to beat in the upcoming Tour de France. Considering the very difficult stage with two Hors Categorie climbs and 3,334kj spent before the Croix de Fer, the conditions were far from perfect for a high level climbing performance. But as Vingegaard has shown in the past, fatigue does not seem to impact him.
After a short leadout into the bottom, the Dane took off, immediately detaching a flying Adam Yates and eventually putting 41 seconds into him – a massive gap on such a short climb. This was only possible as the effort of Vingegaard at an altitude of over 2,000 meters was absolutely astronomical.
6. Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic on Alto de l’Angliru.
Vuelta a España Stage 17, Alto de l’Angliru (12,20km; 10,49%; 1280m)
41’24min @ 6,43ᵉw/kg
The climb of the Angliru has the perfect conditions for high climbing numbers due to the low altitude, short stages which it is featured on and consistently high gradient, which usually leads to a high tempo from the start of the climb. Therefore it was no suprise that also this year, many riders achieved personal best performances. This does not only go for the fastest riders but even for 10+ riders.
This performance was probably the hardest to rank as the pure watts are close to the best of the entire year, but the ideal conditions made nearly everyone perform at their best. What the conditions did not affect however was the Jumbo dominance on this climb. At one point Roglic, Vingegaard and Kuss were at the head of the race, before the Slovenian attacked, which ended up dropping Kuss, who retained the red jersey by just a few seconds. The closest challengers on the day were Bahrain’s Mikel Landa and Wout Poels who had career best performances as well.
5. Jonas Vingegaard on Col du Tourmalet.
La Vuelta a España Stage 13, Col du Tourmalet (18,74km; 7,47%; 1400m)
50’47min @ 6,09ᵉw/kg
After looking far from dominant in the lead up to this stage, Jonas Vingegaard cemented himself as the best climber in the race on the first multi-mountain summit finish, ending on Col du Tourmalet. The stage was ridden extremely hard right from the start, which led to favourites Remco Evenepoel and Joao Almeida already dropping on the first climb of the day. This was the Col d Aubisque ascent, which the Peloton climbed at 5,84ᵉw/kg for 44’07min – just 49 seconds slower than Michael Rasmussens legendary record established in 2007.
Vingegaard was even part of a group that attacked on the following descent, but was caught on the next climb, the Col de Spandelles. Vingegaard added another attack here, but as the tempo was not very high on this ascent, it did not lead to any visible results. The main action of the day happened on final climb to Tourmalet, which Team Jumbo Visma climbed at a consistent high tempo, before Vingegaard launched with just under eight kilometers to go. He held a large gap over the chasing group which included Kuss, Roglic, Ayuso and Uijtdebroeks and took the stage by 30 seconds ahead of Kuss and 33 seconds ahead of Roglic, who had slightly distanced the other chasers – a scary domination of strength by Jumbo, which would be repeated in the coming mountain stages as well.
4. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard on Col du Tourmalet and Cauterets.
Tour de France Stage 6:
Col du Tourmalet (Last 4,81km; 9,02%; 434m)
Jonas Vingegaard: 13’27min @ 6,91ᵉw/kg
Tadej Pogacar: 13’27min @ 6,83ᵉw/kg
Côte de Cauterets – Route de Cambasque (5,20km; 7,60%; 395m)
Tadej Pogacar: 12’58min @ 6,75ᵉw/kg
Jonas Vingegaard: 13’22min @ 6,64ᵉw/kg
After Jonas Vingegaard dominated the previous stage over Marie Blanque, Jumbo Visma tried to end the Tour de France for good with a long range move on the Tourmalet. However the tempo in the first 30min of the climb was very slow, in order to keep the breakaway containing Van Aert ahead, so that he might be able to help in the valley before Cauterets. This possibly helped Pogacar stay on the wheel of Vingegaard when the Dane launched and set an unbelievable tempo in the last 10 minutes of the climb. The main group were distanced by two minutes, but unlike one day earlier, Tadej Pogacar was glued to Vingegaard’s wheel – temporarily saving his Tour de France campaign.
The final climb to Cauterets offered a much larger drafting benefit due to the shallow gradient and after Van Aert had finished his pull, Vingegaard immediately took the front without hesitation. This overconfidence, likely created by the domination on Marie Blanque, cost the Dane, as Pogacar distanced Vingegaard with an immense acceleration and managed to increase the gap to 24 seconds at the finish. This performance brought Pogacar back into the race and showed that he was still capable of reaching his 2020 climbing level, which he had not shown since then. Among Pogacar’s climbing performances this is perhaps the best of his career, although Puy Mary and Col de la Loze from Tour de France 2020 can be argued to be his best as well.
3. Jonas Vingegaard on Marie Blanque.
Tour de France Stage 5, Col de Marie Blanque (7,90km; 8,49%; 671m)
20’58min @ 6,92ᵉw/kg
Expectations were high for the first mountain stage of the Tour de France, but Jonas Vingegaard quickly shattered them, looking extremely dominant on the Marie Blanque climb. He quickly detached Tadej Pogacar after his attack and averaged 7,25ᵉw/kg for the last 12’02min. He opened up a 37 second gap on Pogacar and Kuss, who had remained in the wheel of the Slovenian, after setting up Vingegaard attack.
Pogacar was by no means bad on this day however, as he was nearly one minute faster than in 2020, whilst Vingegaard broke that record from 2020 by 1’29min, a historic margin over such a short climb. The following descent and short section also aided Vingegaard, as he managed to increase his gap to 1’04min. The other story of the day was Jai Hindley, who had joined the early breakaway and managed to stay away from the favourites group to take the stage win and the yellow jersey, which he would lose on the next day.
2. Jonas Vingegaard on Col de la Loze
Tour de France Stage 17, Col de la Loze (11,20km; 8,54%; 956m)
32’42min @ 6,28ᵉw/kg*
*Time of car incident removed.
Tadej Pogacar’s dramatic blowup might’ve been the story of the day, but Jonas Vingegaard’s performance was quite comparable to his historic effort in the time trial the day before. After an extremely difficult stage with 4,132kj / 64,2kj/kg before the final climb, the Dane distanced the nearest competitor Adam Yates by two minutes on the climb. He also smashed the already very quick record set by Miguel Angel Lopez in 2020, improving on the time of the colombian by 52 seconds.
Vingegaard proved himself to be the absolute king of high endurance mountain stages, while Pogacar’s blow-up leaves some questions open. Are the continued problems on these stages (Mont Ventoux 2021, Col du Granon 2022, Col de la Loze 2023) just a result of unfortunate circumstances or a genuine weakness? I guess we will have to wait and see…
Another performance worth mentioning was stage winner Felix Gall, who really showcased his talent on Col de la Loze, as well as on Stage 20.
1.Jonas Vingegaard on Côte de Domancy, Combloux.
Tour de France Stage 16 (ITT), Côte de Domancy to Combloux (6,05km; 6,84%; 414m)
13’31min @ 7,38ᵉw/kg
It will probably come as no surprise that this legendary performance from Jonas Vingegaard ended up at the top of our list, although the effort up Col de la Loze was pretty close. Vingegaard distanced Pogacar by 1’07min on the longer climbing section which was 40% of the total time trial duration. It is also interesting to note that Vingegaard remained on his time trial bike for the climbing section, while Pogacar switched to a climbing bike.
In the sections before the climb, which were mostly flat but included a smaller hill and a short technical descent, Vingegaard also gained 31 seconds on Pogacar – his dominance was not limited to the climbing part of the time trial. The scary part are the gaps to the positions behind Pogacar however, with Van Aert coming in 2’51min down in 3rd place. The gaps from Vingegaard to 2nd and 3rd place in percent of total time were 5% and 8,7% – both the largest in Time Trials in modern Tour de France history (1990 – Present).
That makes this performance not only the best climbing performance of the year, but also a serious contender for the greatest time trial in the history of Le Tour de France.
Below you can see all performances in the Top 10 in a graph with standard trend-lines. This year, the pink trendline was reached for the first time since 2009. And not only once. It was broken a total of three times, all by Jonas Vingegaard, on Izua (Honourable Mention), Combloux (1st in Ranking) and Bejes (9th in Ranking).
Would love to see the same thing for the ladies 🙂 Surely Gaia Realini’s Jebel Hafeet hammer session!
Very impressive analysis – which helps explain why Vingegaard was so dominant in 2023.
Your analysis is a highlight of the off-season. Thorough and impressive.
Thank you!
Great analysis! Love reading these! I miss your Watt Police podcast though. You guys need to bring that back.
Interesting to see the graph and how around 2000-01 the “generational” performances dropped significantly. I believe this was around the time when they developed the test for EPO.
Great analysis! Last summer I analyzed the ITT of Vingegaard, which was, together with Bahamontes on Puy-de-dome, the best ever climbing-ITT in the history of the Tour.
https://www.callmewimpy.com/post/de-masterclass-tijdrijden-van-vingegaard
I don’t use watts etc., my method is based on the % difference with the strongest concurrents (standard I take the 10% best concurrents in the stage). But I think the results are comparable with your findings.
In my book I also looked at climbing performances but only in the Tour.
Great to read your analysis off-season. Thanks, it must have been a lot of work.
Wim Callewaert (Callmewimpy)
Yep I also analyzed the time gaps in percentages for time trials, although only for ones from the last 30 years. Vingegaards performance stands out. Also nice to see a mention of Bahamontes, an incredible effort on Puy de Dome, also according to the watts.
Really interesting read. Thank you for posting it
So basically Vingegaard is one of the greatest climbers in cycling history? Is he the greatest of all since he is not using the same things Pantani used?
Who knows if he is on something? Nobody really does except him, or to be really hypothetical his team/coach could give him something he thought was legal. This is not to says he is non natural, just illustrate we have no way of knowing. But yea he is really good and cuz i’m a dane as well i must say i admire him. If he continues like this in 2024 i only think it’s fair to start the debate of him being better than Pantani.
Gran trabajo. Estas actuaciones resultan tan impresionantes como desconcertantes. La historia que se repite una y otra vez.