Notable year-on-year changes in the June race programs of Alpecin-Premier Tech teammates Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen have been announced for their final countdown to the Tour de France.
On Friday, the team announced that their Belgian and Dutch stars are both set to take part in the Tour de Suisse, Philipsen foregoing his usual pre-Tour de France approach path of the Baloise Tour of Belgium for a first-ever participation in the Swiss national Tour.
That will be preceded by the 28-year-old fastman taking part in the Copenhagen Sprint on June 14 and followed by the National Championships on June 28.
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Van der Poel, on the other hand, has chosen a mixture of options in June in previous years, last taking part in Suisse in 2021 when he won back-to-back stages and led the race for two days.
He then took part in a long break on stage 5 and was a DNS the following day, suffering from what the team said at the time was a 'mild cold'. That year went very well for him in the Tour, winning stage 2 in an uphill solo move at the Mûr-de-Bretagne.
Neither Philipsen nor Van der Poel has raced since Paris-Roubaix on April 12. In the Tour de France, Philipsen will be looking to add to his current total of nine stage wins, the last on day one of the 2025 race when he netted the yellow jersey and also be hoping to put the memories of his stage 3 crash and abandon behind him.
Van der Poel, on the other hand, will likely be aiming to take the third Tour de France stage win of his career. He won stage 2 last year, inheriting yellow from Philipsen in the process.
The 2026 Tour de Suisse already has one of its most star-studded line-ups of recent years, with Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) the star attraction, alongside Tom Pidcock (Pinarello-Q36.5), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché) and Primož Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
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