Jasper Philipsen: "My sprint is not yet at the best level"

Coming to the Tour of Turkey Jasper Philipsen came as a headliner and he was on the hunt for stage wins. After two second places, the Alpecin-Fenix rider conquered the sprint in the third day and has taken over the race lead.

He said after the finish: “If I had come second again, that would have been really shit. Twice second, now a win, it's good. Did I need some leg speed after the classics? I think so. My sprint is not yet at the best level. We now have the time to do some sprints to get to the Tour de France with enough speed in our legs.”

His consistency and positioning skills are on point, and today everything clicked in the finale as he managed to beat Kaden Groves at the line, vice-versa of the previous day: “Today was a bit the opposite of yesterday. I was able to get out of his wheel and had enough speed. We had the tailwind again so it was all about speed.”

“Normally I can only wear the jersey for one day, because tomorrow is going to be a tough day. Hopefully our GC rider Jay Vine can repeat his success from last year and maybe even do better," he concluded. Tomorrow is the queen stage of the race where Philipsen will inevitably loose the lead of the race, however there will be more stages where a stage win is very possible.