Philipsen remains king of the Tour de France sprints despite no Van der Poel leadout

Jasper Philipsen sprints to stage 11 victory at the Tour de France
Jasper Philipsen sprints to stage 11 victory at the Tour de France (Image credit: Getty Images)

Jasper Philipsen has become the 2023 Tour de France sprint steamroller and he continued to flatten the opposition on stage 11 at Moulins on Wednesday, and that was despite the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader lacking his usual star lead-out man, Mathieu van der Poel, who is feeling under the weather.

Prior to easily outpowering Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AIUIa) on stage 11, Philipsen had already swept up stages 3, 4 and 7 with Van der Poel as his last man in the dash for the line. 

Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.

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