More than a third of the eleven stages of the 2023 Tour have ended the same: with Jasper Philipsen raising his arms and taking the podium as the winner. Four sprint victories has the Belgian sprinter from Alpecin. There is no one to stop him. Because the green jersey finds no rival in the massive arrivals of this Tour.
In Bayonne he defeated the German Bauhaus, in the Nogaro circuit he beat the Australian Ewan, in Bordeaux he beat the British legend Cavendish and in Moulins he prevailed against the Dutchman Groenewegen. He has earned the nickname of Jasper, the Master (the teacher), as they call him in the squad. In the regularity classification he almost doubles the second, the Frenchman Coquard (323 points to 178).
Again with overwhelming superiority, Philipsen swept this Wednesday. Almost out of inertia, when the peloton heads towards the finish line, at full speed, Philipsen appears. It does not matter the film of the stage. The end is always the same: the one in green ahead. Everyone ends up seeing the number 106.
At 25, the Belgian has climbed to the top of the sprinters of the moment. The Tour de France is the place to present your candidacy to be proclaimed king of speed. Philipsen, with his four wins, is the great dominator of today. Only Pedersen, in a finish that stung upwards, in Limoges, could with him.
Four is the fetish number for fast men in the French round. Cavendish won four stages in 2021 and 2016, Greipel in 2015, Kittel in 2013 and 2014, Petacchi in 2003, Cipollini in 1999 and the Belgian Steels in 1998. If Philipsen gets one more win between here and Paris – last year he already won in the Champs Elysées- would equal the marks of Kittel (2017) and Cavendish (2011 and 2010).
This time, the sprinter did not have the invaluable help of his teammate Mathieu van der Poel as a pitcher as in the other three victories. But he found the hole again to go out at full power. “It has been a great challenge, because we have had problems in the preparation. But I can also win without Van der Poel. I looked for it in the last kilometer but in the end I found a good wheel in Groenewegen”, explained the winner about the final phase of the stage. But his head is going at such a speed that he is already in Bourg-en-Bresse on Thursday, July 20.
