"It's a real shame" - Mathieu van der Poel keeps the faith in Jasper Philipsen at Tour de France despite stage 6 relegation

After his dominant sprint performances at the 2023 Tour de France, winning four stages and the Green Jersey, Jasper Philipsen is finding things a lot tougher in 2024. Three sprints down, the Belgian is still waiting for a win and to make matters worse, he was also relegated from 2nd on stage 6.

In the opinion of the race jury, Philipsen's sprint was dangerous in the frantic finale in Dijon, with the Alpecin-Deceuninck leader adjudged to have put Wout van Aert's safety at risk as he shut the door on the Team Visma | Lease a Bike superstar. As a result of Philipsen's demotion, the current Green Jersey Biniam Girmay moves up to 2nd place, with Fernando Gaviria up onto the podium of the stage.

Speaking post-stage, but before the decision of the race jury was revealed, Mathieu van der Poel reiterated the Alpecin-Deceuninck faith in Philipsen, despite his somewhat disappointing start to the 2024 Tour de France. “It went really well, unlike yesterday I could really do my thing. For the first time in a long time I felt a lot of power in my legs," the world champion assessed. "At 200 meters from the finish I went from the front at full speed, that's what Jasper likes. It's a real shame. But we're getting closer and closer, we'll keep going for it.”

Robbe Ghys also shared the renewed faith of the team in their sprint leader. "We always come to win. I didn’t see how close it was, but it’s a shame,” he reflected in his own post-stage interview. “We were well up front. I was the only one who wasn’t in a good position, but I was able to come back at the start of the last kilometre, which allowed me to do my job. I think everything went pretty much perfectly after that. He has enough experience to realize that it's just small details. That may be on his mind for a while, but if we keep going like this, the win will definitely come."