The Tour de France’s main sprinter Jasper Philipsen has backed Mark Cavendish to win a record-setting thirty fifth stage throughout this yr’s race, saying that the entire sport is prepared on the Briton.
Philipsen gained the race’s inexperienced jersey and 4 levels in 2023, and is broadly anticipated so as to add to his tally of six profession stage wins within the forthcoming weeks.
As much as eight levels of the 2024 race look like reserved for the sprinters, and Cavendish, 39, solely wants one win to turn out to be the outright stage race file holder; he at present holds the title with Eddy Merckx on 34.
Talking two days earlier than the race will get underway within the Italian metropolis of Florence, Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Philipsen mentioned: “All people desires to see Mark win a thirty fifth stage. I’ve all the time been a giant fan of Mark Cavendish and it could be a historic second if he can attain it.”
On stage seven of final yr’s Tour, Cavendish appeared set to win, solely to be overwhelmed by Philipsen. A day later, Cavendish crashed out of the race with a damaged collarbone.
The primary day that’s slated to go the best way of the sprinters is the third stage that finishes in Turin, earlier than an additional three alternatives forward of the primary relaxation day.
Philipsen’s principal rivals are anticipated to be Belgian nationwide champion Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny) and Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), however he’s additionally anticipating a robust Cavendish, regardless of the Manxman solely successful three races in his 18 months driving for Astana-Qazaqstan.
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“He might be good and there [in contention] for certain,” Philipsen mentioned. “[But] it’s not that I’m going to be giving freely a dash. We’ll attempt to do our greatest and try to beat him.”
Philipsen gained March’s Milan-Sanremo however has been frequently overwhelmed in stage races all through the season, though largely towards two riders not current on the Tour: Soudal-QuickStep’s Tim Merlier and Lidl-Trek’s Jonathan Milan.
Requested if he can pinpoint why he hasn’t been as persistently quick, Philipsen mentioned: “As a result of the opposite guys are tremendous and never gradual. We additionally centered rather a lot on the Classics – we had success in Milan-Sanremo – and we weren’t focusing rather a lot on sprinting.
“I’m anticipating from myself that I’ll be sprinting sooner in the course of the Tour de France which must be the apparent purpose. However in fact different guys will even anticipate the identical.”
The large weapon in Philipsen’s armoury is reigning world champion Mathieu van der Poel. The Dutchman has turn out to be an important member of Philipsen’s leadout practice in current instances, and with Van der Poel not anticipating to be in competition for a lot of stage victories himself, he might be dedicating his companies to his teammate.
“Mathieu is somebody that not many different groups have, or no different group actually, so it’s one thing necessary for our group,” Philipsen mentioned.
“It was a very good how we managed to do the sprints final yr. But when there are circumstances and we have now to innovate with out Mathieu, we will do it. We will adapt to any scenario to have maximal energy in a dash stage.”
