Kasper Asgreen outsprints peloton to claim breakaway stage win on Tour de France

Kasper Asgreen outsprinted the chasing peloton to take victory from a breakaway on stage 18 of the Tour de France in Bourg-en-Bresse.

The sprint teams got their sums wrong on the 185km stage from Moutiers as a four-strong break held on by less than 50 metres to take the stage, with Asgreen beating fellow escapees Pascal Eenkhoorn and Jonas Abrahamsen to take his first career Tour stage win.

Jasper Philipsen, hoping to add to his four sprint stage wins in this first opportunity for the quick men in over a week, came home in fourth having failed to make the catch.

There was perhaps some karma in that given the aggressive tactics Philipsen had used earlier in the stage when trying to block Eenkhoorn's bid to join the breakaway.

The sprint finish resulted in no changes at the top of the general classification, in which defending champion Jonas Vingegaard took an all-but-unassailable seven-and-a-half minute lead over Tadej Pogacar on Wednesday.

This slightly lumpy stage offered up the prospect of a breakaway denying the quick men if enough riders could get up the road, although the sprinters who survived the mountains were desperate for their chance, with perhaps only the Champs-Elysees left after this.

But with exhausted legs throughout the peloton after some punishing days in the Alps only three – Asgreen, Abrahamsen and Victor Campernaerts – chanced their arm and were rarely given more than a minute’s advantage.

That short gap allowed Campernaerts’ team-mate Pascal Eenkhoorn to bridge over with 60km to go, despite being forced on to the verge by Philipsen as he tried to get away from the main bunch.

Even as a quartet, the front group appeared to have little chance, but the sprint teams struggled to reel them in on the way into