'Very bad day' for Tour de France leader Vingegaard as Philipsen claims stage win

Jonas Vingegaard recovered from a heavy crash to maintain his lead over the UAE team Emirates’ Tadej Pogacar on Stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday.

But it will still count as a bad day for Jumbo-Visma’s Vingegaard as he lost two key teammates – Primoz Roglic and Steven Kruijswijk – ahead of the final week of the Tour.

Slovenian Roglic pulled out because of the injuries he suffered in a crash back on Stage 5 and Dutchman Kruijswijk taken to the hospital after a heavy fall 63 kilometres to go on Sunday.

Despite those setbacks, Vingegaard hung on bravely to maintain his 2 minutes 22 seconds advantage over Pogacar with Briton Geraint Thomas a further 2:43 down in third in the General Classification.

Belgium's Jasper Philipsen sprinted to take the stage victory in a tight finish ahead of Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen.

“I crashed today but I’m OK and I just hope that [teammate] Tiesj [Benoot] is OK. He crashed worse than me. I have a bit of road rash but nothing serious,” Vingegaard said.

“We really had a bad day today and it affected us. We lost two very, very important helpers but we’ll keep on fighting and do our best.

“That’s probably the worst thing about today, I’d say. Steven and Primoz were very important teammates and so it’s a very bad day for us.”

The 202.5km stage, however, belonged to Philipsen, who was recording his first stage win in the Tour de France.

The Alpecin–Fenix rider went early for the line, and just about held off Van Aert by a wheel with Pedersen close in third.