Jasper Philipsen Targets Tour de France Stages

Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel will team up at the Tour de France, with Philipsen aiming for sprint stages and the green points jersey.

Philipsen will target the first big sprint chance on stage 5 to Pau, while Van der Poel will focus on hillier stages.

Jasper Philipsen joked that they have never had a fight, and their capabilities match well.

They will try to aim as well as possible to have a successful Tour, both for themselves and for their team, Alpecin-Premier Tech.

Last year, Philipsen won stage 1 in Lille, but crashed out on stage 3, and Van der Poel won stage 2 but was forced to abandon the Tour due to pneumonia.

Van der Poel will try to produce a similar performance to his close finish to Tadej Pogačar in the Tour de Suisse time trial, and the team recently trained for the Tour de France TTT on the motor racing circuit in Zolder, Belgium.

Philipsen believes there are five or six possible sprint stages, including the final stage to Paris, despite the new Montemartre circuit.

Van der Poel seems ready to fight with the GC riders on the hilly stage 2 circuits of Montjuïc, but fears Pogačar and Evenepoel.

The team hopes to go for it again this year and have a successful Tour, with Philipsen and Van der Poel working together to achieve their goals.