The finale of stage 4 of the 2023 Tour de France took place on a racetrack and numerous riders became well acquainted with the tarmac after multiple crashes. One of these incidents saw Fabio Jakobsen hit the deck and according to Danny van Poppel, stage winner Jasper Philipsen was at fault.
"I don't know what he did. I was behind the fight between Fabio and Jasper. They were pushing each other a little bit. Fabio fell, where Jordi fell over it. Fortunately, his bike fell to the right in front of me, so I could continue," the BORA - hansgrohe leadout man told NOS post-stage. "Jasper sometimes doesn't quite know what he's doing."
Although Jakobsen went down, Philipsen stayed up and subsequently fired his way to the win after another brilliant leadout from his teammate Mathieu van der Poel. Whilst van Poppel doesn't believe Philipsen deliberately brought Jakobsen down, he does feel like it was a crash that could easily have been avoided.
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"Sometimes you see someone doing something really stupid, and sometimes someone does it on purpose. It is no different with Jasper. He doesn't know what he's doing," van Poppel clarified. "But I'm not saying he did that on purpose, because it's part of sprinting. I'm not saying it was his fault, because it's also the risk of the profession. Of course I'm also getting a year older, so sometimes I think, can it be normal?"
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