Jasper Philipsen of Belgium, riding for the Alpecin Deceuninck team, won the 193.5km third stage of the Tour de France, after a hectic bunch sprint finish in Bayonne was painstakingly scrutinised by the race jury.
For some time after the riders crossed the line, Philipsen’s win looked in doubt after he appeared to switch across the finishing straight and block the progress of rival Wout Van Aert, of the Jumbo-Visma team.
There was a long and anxious wait for Philipsen, who watched multiple replays of the sprint on a phone with friend and former teammate Tadej Pogacar alongside him, also craning his neck to study the intricacies of the sprint.
Meanwhile Adam Yates, the overnight race leader and Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates colleague, retained the yellow jersey, after safely negotiating the first bunch sprint of this year’s Tour.
Eventually, Philipsen’s win was confirmed. “It was tense, but it’s the Tour de France and there are no presents,” he said. “Everybody goes all in and I think I can be really happy with our team performance today.”
The 25-year-old, winner of two stages in last year’s Tour, took his sixth win in Grand Tour racing ahead of Phil Bauhaus, riding for Bahrain Victorious, and Australian Caleb Ewan, of Lotto Dstny.
Mark Cavendish, in what was the first opportunity for him to become the record stage winner in the Tour, finished sixth. The wait for the record-breaking stage win continues.
Philipsen, was indebted to his team mates and in particular to Matthieu van der Poel, whose virtuoso lead-out paved the way for Philipsen’s success. “Mathieu did a fantastic job,” he acknowledged. “For sure he has the speed. You know that no other lead out will pass it.”
For Van Aert, who enjoyed such success in last year’s Tour and clearly felt his momentum had been checked by Philipsen, it was another frustrating day. Asked whether he thought the sprint had been fair, Van Aert responded: “It’s hard to say. It’s not up to me to judge.”
In Sunday’s stage finish in San Sebastian, he had hurled his bottle to the floor in disgust after being outsmarted by last-minute French breakaway artist, Victor Lafay. There was said to be some bike throwing and door slamming too, when he returned to his Jumbo-Visma team bus.
Van Aert’s team mate, Jonas Vingegaard, the Tour’s defending champion, was also criticised by the Belgian public and media for not supporting Van Aert more in the pursuit of Lafay during the closing moments of Sunday’s finale.
“If anyone made a mistake on Sunday, you can blame me,” the team’s sports director, Grischa Niermann said. “We didn’t reckon on an attack from Lafay in the last kilometre. And it’s not PlayStation ...”
The Tour’s third stage, mostly a humdrum affair, exited the Basque Country and headed for the French border, on the largely flat route from Amorebieta-Etxano to Bayonne.
Fittingly, the emphasis went from pintxos to Pichon, with the Arkea-Samsic team’s Laurent Pichon, alone at the front and leading the peloton through the border, as the Tour crossed into France for the first time in 2023.
The veteran French rider had been accompanied in his attack by Neilson Powless, of the EF Education EasyPost team, but the American, having bagged more points in the King of the Mountains classification, then dropped back into the peloton, leaving Pichon ahead, ploughing a lonely furrow. The 36-year-old Breton was finally reeled in by the peloton with a little over 40kms to race.
Earlier, a second tack attack, replicating the vandalism of Sunday’s stage when thumbtacks had caused multiple punctures in the final half of the stage, slowed the peloton again as the race exited San Sebastian. But on an otherwise mundane stage, the only real drama came beyond the finish line, after endless replays of what had looked to most to be a fair sprint.
The manner of Philipsen’s acceleration however, suggests that he will be the man to beat in the flat stages of this year’s Tour.
