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Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) sprinted to his third stage win of the Tour de France, dominating the closing dash of stage 16 in Nîmes as inexperienced jersey Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) crashed within the closing 2km.
The Belgian eased to his ninth profession Tour stage win forward of Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) to attract a near one of many dullest days of this 12 months’s race.
With Girmay falling earlier than the end and Philipsen gaining 50 factors on the line, the battle for the inexperienced jersey now seems to be again on, regardless of the stage being the final of the flat finishes on the Tour. The Eritrean’s lead is now lowered to only 32 factors.
Philipsen benefitted from one other high quality lead-out from his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammates as world champion Mathieu van der Poel dropped him off in an ideal place to begin the dash from the entrance.
The Dutchman took over from the Uno-X lead-out, launching Philipsen in direction of the road, the place he took a transparent win nicely forward of his opponents.
“I’m actually blissful. Undoubtedly after such a workforce effort – it’s all the time good when you possibly can win collectively and I believe that’s what we did undoubtedly right now,” Philipsen stated later.
“I used to be feeling good. I had relaxation day and I’ve felt that my form has improved throughout this Tour de France so I used to be assured if we might line it up good right now that we might go for the win.
“Each stage win is absolutely laborious to get at this stage so to take three is a extremely good job and I believe we might be proud.
“Every part is feasible however it’s actually laborious,” he added, referring to the inexperienced jersey battle. “[Girmay] is climbing rather well. I simply hope he’s OK after the crash as a result of he doesn’t should lose like this. We’ll simply attempt no matter we are able to, however laborious levels are but to return. We have now to go day-by-day however we largely get pleasure from this win.”
Unsurprisingly, there was no motion within the common classification as Tadej Pogačar (UAE Group Emirates) completed within the peloton, retaining his general lead, 3:34 up on Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
The way it unfolded
Stage 16 of the Tour de France would ship the ultimate alternative for the sprinters of the Tour de France peloton to shine. The day would take the 150 riders remaining within the race on yet one more blandly designed flat stage, this time stretching out a drawn-out 188.6km from Gruissan to Nîmes, curving round Montpellier on the way in which.
The largely featureless day introduced only one categorised climb. The 1.2km, 5% Côte de Fambetou lay 76km from the end, far too distant to have any actual impact on the motion, whereas an earlier uncategorised 7km climb to the Mas de Cornon led the riders into the day’s sole intermediate dash at Les Matellettes.
With so little on supply for any potential breakaway, nearly half the groups within the peloton focused on a bunch dash end, and native temperatures reaching into the mid-30s, there was – as we’ve seen a number of instances earlier than on this Tour – no incentive for anyone to enterprise up the street.
Two hours ticked by with actually nothing in any respect taking place out on the street, the peloton averaging 41.5 kph as they hit the ultimate 100km of the stage.
Issues briefly burst into life as soon as the race reached the dash and the fastmen got here to the fore, although sadly for viewers it was solely the intermediate dash with 93km nonetheless left to run. Bryan Coquard outpaced Jasper Philipsen to the road, with inexperienced jersey Biniam Girmay getting caught behind on the way in which to fourth place.
Thomas Gachinard (TotalEnergies) pushed on alone after the dash whereas behind him the peloton settled again into the boring roll-along of the earlier hours. The Frenchman rode two minutes up the street because the dash squad Alpecin-Deceuninck and Jayco-AlUla managed issues again within the peloton.
The specter of crosswinds had been mooted forward of, and even throughout, the stage. Any robust winds would have been greater than welcome so as to add a contact of spice to proceedings, however none materialised, and so the dash squads continued on, steadily clawing again Gachinard on the street to Nîmes.
He lasted till the 25km mark, by which level the sprinter’s groups had already upped the tempo forward of the end. The likes of Astana Qazaqstan, Lotto-Dstny, and Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale all took to the entrance inside the ultimate 10km, with Uno-X Mobility additionally becoming a member of the get together afterward.
Alpecin-Deceuninck moved up with 2km to go, the Belgian workforce following others throughout the closing run-in and shielding Philipsen from the wind within the course of on the way in which to the ultimate dash end of the 2024 Tour.
Outcomes
Outcomes powered by FirstCycling
