"This was his worst day of this Tour" - Concerns for Mathieu van der Poel after stage 11 although Alpecin-Deceuninck confident 'he will still get through'

The lack of a Mathieu van der Poel leadout made little difference for Jasper Philipsen as he still managed to power his way to a fourth Tour de France stage win of the 2023 edition. Speaking afterwards Alpecin-Deceuninck's Christoph Roodhooft addressed the concerns over the Dutch superstar.

"The fact that Mathieu felt a little less was not a problem during the meeting before the ride," Roodhooft told Eurosport in a post-stage interview. “He should still have done the lead-out. However, during the stage he felt less. I think this was his worst day of this Tour. We then decided together that he would just roll in. I think it's very unfortunate for Mathieu. He will still get through before the end of the Tour, we are not afraid of that. He himself indicated that he was not completely okay."

As mentioned, van der Poel being out the back didn't have much of an effect on the end result of the sprint as Philipsen continued his dominance much to Roodhooft's delight.

"We sometimes laughed at height training that we wanted to win five stages. To be clear: that was really funny. However, the counter is now at four and as such the fifth is still in sight," he says. "At the moment he is the best sprinter in the world, we can say that now. Now he did it more on his own, he was perfect at the end. It was a complex arrival, but we did a good recon and the guys knew what to expect. They sat there calmly when they had to."