Jasper Philipsen sees no room for romanticism at Tour de France: "Everybody wants to see Mark Cavendish win a 35th stage... We will do our best to beat him”

Whilst the fight for the Maillot Jaune at the 2024 Tour de France is set to be one of the mouth watering in a long while, the battle for sprint wins also has plenty of intriguing stories to follow.

Last year, Jasper Philipsen proved himself the dominant sprint force, winning four stages and taking a comprehensive win in the Green Jersey points classification. Up against the Belgian sprint phenomenon this year, will be the sentimental crowd favourite, Mark Cavendish, who in his final Tour de France, has one last chance to take a record breaking 35th Tour stage win.

"Everyone wants to see Mark win a 35th stage. I've always been a big fan of Mark Cavendish and it would be a historic moment if he can reach it," Philipsen admits in quotes collected by Cycling Weekly ahead of the Grand Depart of the 2024 Tour de France in Florence, this coming Saturday. “He will be good and there [in contention] for sure."

Nevertheless, Philipsen sees no room for romanticism at the 2024 Tour de France. The Belgian is ice cold and ruthless on the bike and the Alpecin-Deceuninck sprinter makes no bones about the fact the he is travelling to France (via Italy) to win, and win as much as possible. "It’s not that I am going to be giving away a sprint," he explains. "We will try to do our best and try and beat him.”

As mentioned, Philipsen was dominant twelve months ago, the unrivalled best sprinter in the world. This time around however, he's not quite in such electric form. “Because the other guys are super and not slow. We also focused a lot on the Classics – we had success in Milan-Sanremo – and we weren’t focusing a lot on sprinting," he assesses undeterred. “I am expecting from myself that I’ll be sprinting faster during the Tour de France which should be the obvious goal. But of course other guys will also expect the same.”