Cycling-Philipsen sprints to stage 16 win on Tour de France, Pogacar retains lead (updated)

Deceuninck NV

16/07/2024 17:26

(Adds details, quotes throughout)
       July 16 (Reuters) - Jasper Philipsen sprinted to victory
as his team Alpecin-Deceuninck timed their lead-out to
perfection on Tuesday's 16th stage of the Tour de France, a 189
km flat ride from Gruissan to Nimes.
    The win was Philipsen's third on the Tour this year after
victories on stages 10 and 13 while green jersey holder Biniam
Girmay, who has also won three stages, crashed in the final 2
km.
        Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar retained his yellow jersey with
a lead of three minutes and nine seconds over Jonas Vingegaard
in the general classification while Remco Evenepoel remains over
five minutes behind.
  
        Alpecin-Deceuninck controlled the sprint as the riders
moved up to the front to set up the victory for Philipsen and it
worked to perfection as Mathieu Van der Poel's textbook lead-out
allowed his Belgian teammate to win comfortably.
  
        "I'm really happy after such a team effort. It's always
nice when you can win together and that's what we did today,
definitely," Philipsen said.
  
        "I didn't see the crash (involving Girmay). We were
trying to position ourselves and focus on our own lead-out. I
hope everyone is OK.
  
        "I was feeling good, I had a good rest day (on Monday),
my shape improved during the Tour. So I was confident if we
could line it up good today, we could go for the win. It's a
difficult level, so three wins is good. We can be proud."
  
        Philipsen crossed the line ahead of Phil Bauhaus, Alex
Kristoff and Sam Bennett.
  
        Girmay eventually got back on his bike as his teammates
helped him across the line. But the Eritrean saw his lead in the
sprint standings reduced to 32 points.
  
        While there are no more flat stages on the Tour, the
green jersey is still very much up for grabs with intermediate
sprints in the next five stages.
  
        "Everything is possible. He (Girmay) is climbing really
well," Philipsen added.
  
        "I hope he's OK after the crash because he doesn't
deserve to lose like this. I will try whatever I can because the
hard stages are to come."
  
        Britain's Mark Cavendish, who has won a record 35 stages
on the Tour in his career, finished 17th in potentially his
final sprint stage.
  
        Wednesday's stage 17 is a 178 km ride from
Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Superdevoluy.
  

 (Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Alison
Williams and Pritha Sarkar)
 ((Rohith.Nair@thomsonreuters.com | Twitter: @RohithNair;))