Mathieu van der Poel left Philipsen with more to do than he would have liked: "I didn't know how far it was until the finish"

Unquestionably the fastest sprinter at the 2023 Tour de France, Jasper Philipsen took his third victory in three sprints on stage 7, helped in part by another quality leadout from Mathieu van der Poel. The Dutchman however, sees room for improvement.

“I came from a bit too far ahead,” says van der Poel in his post-stage interview. “I didn't see any signs, so I didn't know how far it was until the finish. I saw 350 meters and that was actually just a bit too far from the line. Actually, we just dropped him off perfectly. The most important thing for a sprinter is to waste as little power as possible in the last five kilometres and I think we succeeded. We have set up a nice train.”

Despite it looking for a moment as if the stage win would be going to the Astana Qazaqstan Team and Mark Cavendish, Philipsen stayed calm and launched his move around the Brit to take his third stage win of the race.

"He did it perfectly. The strong thing about Jasper is that he can just pull his plan. If we push him off a little too far, he will just take someone else's wheel back," van der Poel concludes.