Jasper Philipsen restored to third place after Tour sprint relegation confusion
After a difficult start to the Tour de France, Jasper Philipsen showed a glimmer of form by sprinting to third place in Nevers on stage 11 only for the commissaires to relegate him to the back of the bunch. Following an appeal, however, Philipsen was later restored to third place.
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Jasper Philipsen’s ill-starred Tour de France took another turn when he was relegated from third place to 119th on stage 11 to Nevers, only for the decision to be later overturned by the jury.
The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider finished strongly in the bunch sprint, though he was unable to overhaul winner Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) and he crossed the line in third place behind Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM).
Shortly after the finish, however, the commissaires ruled that Philipsen was to be relegated to the back of the peloton, seemingly for making contact with Pavel Bittner (Picnic-PostNL) just as the sprint was getting under way.
“We were surprised by the jury’s decision,” general manager Philip Roodhooft told RTBF. “We sent some team members to speak to the jury to try to understand their reasoning. I’ve seen the footage of the sprint… We don’t think there’s anything there. From what we’ve seen, we don’t understand it. We’re going to ask for an explanation so that we can assess the situation.”
His brother Christoph Roodhooft led the Alpecin delegation to the discuss the disqualification with the commissaires, and Sporza later reported that Philipsen had been restored to third place on the stage.
"I am glad that we were able to discuss this together and that they dropped the demotion and the yellow card," Christoph Roodhooft told Sporza. "This is a well-deserved victory for everyone."
Philipsen has won ten Tour stages in his career, and he also claimed the points classification in 2023, but he has yet to make an impact on this year’s race.
The Belgian’s best result so far was fourth place on stage 8 to Bergerac, and it was striking that Alpecin-Deceuninck did not commit to policing the breakaway on stage 11 to Nevers, which proved to be the quickest road stage in Tour history.
Philipsen’s teammate Mathieu van der Poel was among the unsuccessful early attackers ahead of the intermediate sprint, and Alpecin didn’t contribute to chasing down the break until the Silvan Dillier joined the pursuit effort in the closing kilometres.
Result: Tour de France stage 11
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