Milan San-Remo winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) is taking his first race start since Paris-Roubaix at the Baloise Belgium Tour starting Wednesday, as he prepares to defend the green jersey at the Tour de France.
The Belgian established himself as the Tour’s best sprinter and top fast man in the peloton at last year’s race, netting four stage wins on the back of world-class lead-outs by Mathieu van der Poel and the rest of his Alpecin-Deceuninck train.
It will be an important chance to rebuild race rhythm for the Belgian who has been training at altitude in his two-month break, with fellow top sprinters Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) and Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike) also present at the five-day stage race.
“In the past, I have also taken part in races such as Eschborn-Frankfurt, but that was not often a success,” Philipsen said at a pre-race press conference as reported by In De Leidestrui.
“I have watched a lot of races on TV, so I’m looking forward to getting back into action myself. Still, in view of this summer's goals, it made the most mental and physical sense to take a two-month break.”
Philipsen was keen to stress that although this is a preparation race for the Tour, he “always tries to participate to win”, which is no surprise for last season’s most successful sprinter.
“You always try to aim as high as possible, but we start with perhaps one victory,” said Philipsen.
“In any case, it is already good to get a reference of where you stand. You know this partly from training, but I haven't raced in a long time.
“That race rhythm is a bit gone anyway, after two months without a race."
The 26-year-old starred in Netflix’s recently released second season of Tour de France: Unchained, where he, Van der Poel and team co-owners Christoph and Philip Roodhooft are portrayed as the drama's antagonists due to their aggressive sprint tactics.
Van der Poel, who won last year’s Baloise Belgium Tour overall, won’t be joining his sprinter after also not racing since the Classics, opting instead to return at the Tour before taking on the Paris Olympics. So his aggressive and sometimes over-the-line services in the lead-out should be on show.
However, his appearance at the French Grand Tour was a surprise for Philipsen, who was certainly not complaining at the prospect of having the World Champion lead him out.
“We did some sprint training, that went well, so I don't think there are any surprises. A bigger surprise for me was that Mathieu [Van der Poel’s] program will also go through the Tour this year, so I was very satisfied with that,” Philipsen said.
“When you see how successful that was last year, you see that we can use him very well again.”
Philipsen did admit that the Dutchman may not be involved in every sprint, as he wasn’t in 2023, but assured he will give everything for the team where possible.
If the Dutchman isn’t involved, Philipsen has a more than capable remaining train through the likes of Jonas Rickaert and Robbe Ghys, who are both with him racing this week and are very savvy in bunch sprint finishes.
He isn’t quite sure where his form is as of yet but confirmed that he will be eyeing up the green jersey once again after dominating the classification in 2023.
'It’s hard to estimate [my current form]. We had a good altitude training, but it will be difficult to repeat what we did last year. We have had the right preparation to make that possible again, so why not?” Philipsen said.
“The green jersey is again the ambition,” he said as reported by HLN. “But everything will have to go well from the start and the last stages are of course also tough, so you have to be good enough for that. I haven't yet thought about whether I will race to Nice if I am not in the green, so the moment itself will have to tell.”
