There are two starkly different images in existence of Jasper Philipsen on the Champs-Élysées. The first, taken in 2021, shows the Belgian sitting on Parisian tarmac in tears with his head in his hands, morose, lost, broken. He’d just finished second to Wout van Aert on the final stage of the 2021 Tour de France, and it was his sixth top-three finish of the race. He’d been so close, again and again, but he hadn’t won. And for sprinters, winning is everything.
“Second is good but is not good enough,” Philipsen says, speaking during his off-season. “Definitely in cycling and sprinting it’s only first place that counts.”
The more recent image of Philipsen on the Champs-Élysées, one from this year’s Tour de France, is a much sweeter picture, and one that the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider is far more likely to have on his mantlepiece. It shows Philipsen crossing the finish line and releasing a Hulk-like, wild, manic celebration as he takes the first Tour stage win of his career. “A box ticked,” he says, with a grin.
But despite getting that elusive Tour victory this year (arguably the most important of the season for the fast men) Philipsen has this quality, one that’s seen in many of the sport’s greatest sprinters – think the straight-talking Manxman Mark Cavendish or the honest Aussie Caleb Ewan – he’s never satisfied and will admit that he always wants more.
Image: Agence Zoom
“I had two goals this season, one was winning in the Tour de France and having at least 10 victories, but I had nine victories in the end, so it was not what I really aimed for,” he explains. This answer comes somewhat as a surprise to me. I’d expected Philipsen to be waxing lyrical about his season, satisfied with finally proving he can perform at crunch time, but I don’t have the mentality of a winning sprinter, or the hunger for success that the Belgian rider clearly has in abundance.
“Next year, I just want to win more. As a sprinter, I’m mostly always there if it’s a bunch sprint. There are maybe one or two times in the season that I miss the sprint by positioning or by getting boxed in, but most of the time, I can find my way pretty well. I think I got maybe 11 or 12 second places, and then nine wins so if I can convert the second places into wins, that will change a lot,” Philipsen says.
Saying he wants to win more is one thing, but making that dream into reality is another. The 24-year-old is able to acutely analyse his…