Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took a hat-trick win at the Tour de France stage 7, denying Mark Cavendish a historic 35th Tour win, but has had to respond to criticism of his racing line following a complaint from Astana Qazaqstan team boss Alexander Vinokourov.
Speaking in an interview with Sporza on Friday evening, Philipsen said, “It’s a pity that there is commotion about it.”
Philipsen analysed the sprint on the show, pointing out that Cavendish’s line had similarly changed in the final metres of the race.
“The man in front [Mark Cavendish] always determines the line, so I jump to his wheel,” Philipsen retold, “Mark also starts in the centre and then swerves to the right.
“Then it is logical that Girmay gets a bit stuck, but that’s just how sprinting is. Things are always magnified in the Tour,” he adds.
A tumultuous sprint series
The tension around the sprint has no doubt been magnified by several sequential sprint stages with tumultuous finishes.
Stage 3 saw the race commissaires review allegations that Philipsen moved from his line too much in the sprint, cutting off Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), ultimately ruling that Philipsen was not at fault.
Then only 24 hours later on stage 4, Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate and key lead-out man Mathieu van der Poel barged into Biniam Girmay to make space for Philipsen’s successful sprint. On that occasion, Van der Poel was fined 500 CHF and relegated from 16th to 22nd for his bumping of Girmay, losing 13 points in the green jersey standings in the process.
No doubt adding to the pressure is Cavendish’s highly publicised attempt to break Eddy Merckx’s Tour de France stage win record, which he was painfully close to with his second-place finish yesterday.
Equally, though, speculation has circulated that the historic record attempt played to Philipsen’s favour – with Tour commissaires reluctant to have Cavendish’s record-breaking win take place through relegation. Following Van der Poel’s relegation and the series of complaints, there are those at the race who regard Philipsen as carrying an effective yellow card and a risk of relegation should another incident occur.
Belgian national coach Sven Vanthourenhout, however, regarded the controversy as a considerable overreaction. “If this happens on day 1, we won’t even talk about it,” he said to Sporza.
Philipsen, similarly, seems undisturbed by the attention on his lead-out and sprint. “Too bad,” he said of the general fuss.
With stage 8 likely…
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