Tour de France 2023: Jasper Philipsen makes it four with dominant sprint win on Stage 11

It looks increasingly like no one is going to be able to beat Jasper Philipsen in a bunch sprint in this year’s Tour de France. For a fourth time this July, Belgium’s Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) powered over the finish line quicker than any of his rivals – this time beating a frustrated Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) to the spoils.

After launching early, Dutchman Groenewegen faded to take second place over a bike length back with Germany’s Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) third ahead of France’s Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Denmark’s Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek). Ad Australia’s Caleb Ewan (Lotto Dstny) and Belgium’s Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) could only finish 15th and 16th despite the hard work carried out by their teams throughout the 180km stage from Clermont-Ferrand.

Tour de FranceShould cycling introduce red and yellow cards after Van der Poel bump?05/07/2023 AT 12:37 Another Belgian, Wout van Aert, also benefited from a solid lead-out from his Jumbo-Visma team-mates but was unable to finish higher than ninth place as Philipsen’s dominance in the 110th edition of the Tour continued unchecked. Ironically enough, Philipsen’s latest win came without the luxury of a leadout by his team-mate Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutchman feeling under the weather following his exertions in the breakaway one day earlier.

“It’s an incredible Tour so far – I can’t realise how it’s going,” the 25-year-old Philipsen said. “I’m just super proud.

One win is already a big challenge, but we have now done it four times.” The first rider to win four stages in a single Tour since Mark Cavendish in 2021 now leads Coquard in the green jersey standings by a whopping 145 points. On a day of relative rest for the general classification