"It was incredible to take my first Tour de France stage victory" - Kasper Asgreen reflects on his highlight of 2023
Cycling
With the 2023 road season at a close, many riders will be taking time to reflect on the year that has been and recapping their highlights. One such rider is Soudal - Quick-Step's Kasper Asgreen.
Undoubtedly the 28-year-old Dane's biggest day of 2023, came at the Tour de France as he finally managed to take his first Grand Tour stage win. “We had a pretty rough Tour de France this year, it was a really difficult race for us but we kept believing and remained really keen on showing our Wolfpack spirit and winning mentality," he recalls to the team's official website. "At the start of stage 18, we also knew there weren’t many opportunities left, so we were determined to give our best and keep trying, no matter how slim were our chances. The peloton was also tired after so many hard mountain stages, so a breakaway could have made it."
Part of the breakaway, Asgreen and co fought bravely but heading into the finale, a raging peloton was right behind and the catch seemed near. "Entering the final kilometre of the stage, we could feel them behind but we had confidence we could pull it off and with 200 meters to go I opened my sprint and just kept going, leaving everything out there," says the Dane.
Thankfully for him and fans of breakaway successes, Asgreen managed just hold on to win, with the first of the peloton's sprinters, Jasper Philipsen finishing fourth on the same time. "It was incredible to take my first Tour de France stage victory, especially after all the problems I’d had since the summer of 2022," he concludes. "I had come a long way and what I achieved wouldn’t have been possible without all the people who helped me and the amazing team that is Soudal Quick-Step. I was delighted that despite our setbacks our squad kept fighting and believing, and eventually got that win, our 50th at the race. It was really cool to help the squad achieve that milestone.”
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Oh, and yes: I am no psychiatrist/psychologist, but Bruyneel and Texas Turd are both sociopaths. It goes well beyond "protect my world and anyone would" that is the usual zeitgeist of their bullshit. No normal person has Bob Roll go at Greg Lemond with an audio recording device at Ron Keifel's bike shop...for example.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Funnier: this website keeps giving credo to their ramblings. In this case, why in any possible way would Boonen want to create a fantasy world to attach himself to these two clowns when more likely he would want to forget he was even there? Laughable.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- A sociopath is an informal term used to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a mental health condition characterized by a chronic pattern of disregard for social norms, laws, and the rights and feelings of others.EricJensenRidesBikes26-12-2024
- Rowe spent his whole career on one team being nothing more than a thug for Skyneos. I have no idea why another team would want import this type of person into their program.Sweep26-12-2024
- “CyclingUpToDate would like to extend it's condolences to family and friends of Pascal.” Paging a copy editor….menk26-12-2024
- yeah, that’s a more fair assessment. “reaching mathieu’s level” doesn’t mean you’re planning to replicate his whole career. the former IS doable, potentially. it’s just the latter that likely is not.OCexile25-12-2024
- That’s not entirely true. Every person follows their own development path and peaks differently. Remco and Primoz had hardly started cycling before elite level. Jonas was pretty much under the radzr until he unexpectedly had to take over responsibility at JV. Some guys only get real good in their thirties others have peaked mid-twenties. You can’t tell in advance how and upto what level they will progress, obviously his career might not have MVDPs length but nothing says he could not end up doing a few seasons at his level.Mistermaumau25-12-2024
- well, del grosso is 21 right now. when mathieu was a year younger than that, he was already winning elite level world championships, not U23. i think del grosso will be a very good pro for years, but if he was really going to be the next van der poel someday, he’d already have to be at that level right NOW. van der poel was showing signs of true greatness when he was 15-16. THAT’S what generational talent looks like.OCexile25-12-2024
- Yeah.... gear 😅.mikolajjj24-12-2024
- It shouldn’t be about expectations in the first place should it? Besides, if you look at everyone’s calculations as a whole they don’t add up in the first place. There’ll be 2-3 riders with a 50% chance, a dozen with 10 or 20% and dozens more with a 5% so we’re expecting at least 2 if not 3 winners. Remind me again who won before her? Says it all about using data to decide on participation.Mistermaumau24-12-2024