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While one sprinter continued to prosper at the Tour de France another floundered, and it showed the difference between sprinting with confidence and searching for that perfect sprint to break a drought.
The first thing the broadcast goes to after the celebrations and winner’s reactions following a sprint stage is the overhead shot as it’s so revealing of the tactical movements that ended up deciding the stage.
Of course, it gives an unfairly omnipotent perspective for analysts in the future like myself to go back and say, of course he should have done that, and not messed up there. When you’re sprinting at 70km/hr, or positioning in the midst of a jostling peloton at 60km/hr plus, you don’t have the luxury of total awareness of the rider movements around you.
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Stage 11 - Full Replay - Tour de France 2023
That said, there was a clear distinction between the stage winner Jasper Philipsen and fellow star sprinter, Australian Caleb Ewan, who free wheeled in for 15thon stage 11 of the 2023 Tour de France.
Both were in relatively the same position coming into the final kilometre. Ewan had been brought up early by his team, and had done a good job surfing the wheel to stay within the top 5-10 riders consistently, Philipsen was a bit more caught up in the hustle and bustle of the peloton, but he had emerged onto Ewan’s wheel and both riders had a teammate at the front.
Ewan was following Wout van Aert, who had Christophe Laporte to pilot him, and with Philipsen also in a good spot behind, there was all the incentive in the world for their teammates Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Jasper de Buyst (Lotto-Dstny) to go as hard as possible to keep their sprinters in an advantageous position.
They tried, but failed in that regard, de Buyst’s turn of pace wasn’t rapid enough to prevent the leadout of Uno-X and Jayco AlUla coming past with speed and saw Ewan, Philipsen and van Aert swamped. That is generally a bad situation for a sprinter, you lose a lot of agency to decide your own destiny in the sprint, and have to use valuable energy in re-accelerating to find a wheel to follow.
Philipsen seemed to anticipate being swamped, and he was actually accelerating before Groenewegen passed him to fight for the Dutch sprinter’s wheel. He actually lost that battle to Bauhaus and had to prop for a second, ceding a few positions with Groenewegen and Bauhaus very much in the box seat.
Ewan meanwhile had been fully swamped, but now found himself in the position of having Philipsen land directly in front of him with the Aussie best positioned to take his wheel. Maybe something else was going on with Ewan and his bike, but he didn’t take decisive action at this point to snap onto Philipsen’s wheel, or anyone’s really to find his way back to the front of the race.
He left Philipsen’s wheel to Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), then Coquard’s wheel to Peter Sagan (Total Energies) and didn’t really sprint from there as there was a lot of traffic in front of him and the win wasn’t a possibility, victories being the only real currency for a sprinter of Ewan’s quality.
Philipsen meanwhile was making his own luck, rounding the field a few crucial positions in a show of strength to slide onto Groenewegen’s wheel. He had to push through the wind himself to do that, and he was a bit lucky in the way that the sprint opened up that he had a clear shot to Groenewegen’s wheel, but he was there to take advantage of that opportunity.
Then, for a rider who’s just spent crucial energy changing their position, his sprint was phenomenal, easily clearing out the field to win comfortably in the dash to the line. Matt Keenan called it ‘his best sprint of the Tour’ and I agree, it was an awesome performance.
The other wins have been not armchair rides, but ones where Alpecin-Deceuninck’s leadout has been the star, with Philipsen the man who has finished it off in style. This one was almost all him.
Ewan showed none of the verve that has seen him weave through pelotons for wins in the past, and this was one where he could have had that chance again, coming off Philipsen’s wheel after the Belgian had done all that work, he would have been an excellent chance.
Out of the other sprinters, Australian WorldTour team Jayco-AlUlla’s Dylan Groenewegen will be kicking himself for not finishing that sprint off, he won’t get a better chance this Tour you would think, same for Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X).
Astana-Qazaqstan sports director Mark Renshaw provided some insight into what other teams and sprinting specialists are thinking at present about Philipsen.
"If there was ever a chance for Philipsen to be beaten it would have been today, but he showed he's got the best legs and I think the confidence is playing a big part."
