Jasper Philipsen

Jasper Philipsen

Philipsen, Gent. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2023.
Personal information
Full name	Jasper Philipsen
Nickname	Jasper Disaster[1] • Jasper the Master[2]
Born	(1998-03-02) 2 March 1998 (age 26) Mol, Flanders, Belgium
Height	1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	75 kg (165 lb; 11 st 11 lb)[3]
Team information
Current team	Alpecin–Deceuninck[3]
Discipline	Road
Role	Sprinter
Amateur team
2017	BMC Development Team
Professional teams
2018	Hagens Berman Axeon[4]
2019–2020	UAE Team Emirates[5][6]
2021–	Alpecin–Fenix
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France Points classification (2023) 9 individual stages (2022, 2023, 2024) Vuelta a España 3 individual stages (2020, 2021) One-day races and Classics Milan–San Remo (2024) Classic Brugge–De Panne (2023, 2024) Eschborn–Frankfurt (2021) Scheldeprijs (2021, 2023) GP de Denain (2021) Münsterland Giro (2024)

Jasper Philipsen (born 2 March 1998) is a Belgian professional cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam Alpecin–Deceuninck.^[7][8] Specialising as a sprinter, he has won nine stages in the Tour de France and three in the Vuelta a España, and the points classification in the 2023 Tour de France.

From 2010, Philipsen rode for the Royal Balen BC team. In 2015, he became national junior time trial champion. Later that year, he finished eighth at the European championships in the same discipline and sixth at the world championships.^[9] One year on, Philipsen won the Guido Reybrouck Classic and E3 Harelbeke for juniors, and successfully defended his national time trial title. In addition, in the same year he finished fifth in Paris-Roubaix for juniors and 11th in the Omloop der Vlaamse Gewesten. Philipsen made the cut for both the time trial and the road race at the world championships in Doha. Upon the time trial, in which he set the 18th fastest time, he was hospitalised with exhaustion and overheating. Although Philipsen appeared to have convalesced, he didn't make the road race three days later.^[10]

On 1 April 2017, Philipsen secured his first UCI victory as an elite rider, for the BMC Development Team team. In the second stage of the Triptyque des Monts et Châteaux, he beat fellow-Belgian Milan Menten and Dutchman Maarten van Trijp in the bunch sprint.^[11] The day after, courtesy to a fifth place in the individual time trial, he snatched the leader's jersey from Chris Lawless. In the final stage, he finished fourth, taking not only the overall classification, but also the points ranking and youth classification. After finishing second in both the Tour of Flanders U23 and the ZLM Tour, he won a stage in the Baby Giro in June. In the points ranking, he kept one point ahead of Neilson Powless. In July, he won the second stage in the Tour of Alsace, after which he rode the hopefuls road races at both the European and national level. In the fifth stage of the Olympia's Tour, he beat Patrick van der Duin and Fabio Jakobsen in the bunch sprint. In October, he won Paris–Tours Espoirs.^[12]

In 2018, Philipsen became professional at Hagens Berman Axeon. He took several victories that year, including the overall classification of the Triptyque des Monts et Châteaux and a stage in the Baby Giro.^[13][14] In October, he was offered a contract with UAE Team Emirates. Through this team, he made the switch to the World Tour.

Philipsen made the startlist for the 2019 Tour de France.^[15] He participated in the 2020 Vuelta a España,^[16] where he won stage 15. He participated in his second Tour de France in 2021 and while he did not win any stages he had many promising results including making the stage podium a half dozen times. He rode in the 2021 Vuelta a España where he won two stages.^[17] He also wore the points ranking jersey in several stages, vying with Fabio Jakobsen for the jersey, before abandoned halfway through due to a mild fever.^[18]

Early in the 2022 season he won the points ranking and two stages of the UAE Tour. He then won the points ranking and a stage in the Tour of Turkey and a stage in the Tour of Belgium.

He entered the 2022 Tour de France with the team pursuing stage wins for both Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel. Philipsen initially thought he had won stage 4, but Wout Van Aert turned out to have taken the peloton by surprise, attacking as the yellow jersey. After the Alps he got a chance to win stage 15 after the final breakaway rider had been run down during the final kilometre. He managed to outpace previous stage winners Van Aert and Mads Pedersen, taking the team's first win of the race.^[19] His second stage win came on the final day in Paris, winning the sprint by a convincing margin.

In March 2023, he won his second World Tour one-day race: the Classic Brugge–De Panne, outsprinting Olav Kooij and Yves Lampaert only a week after winning two stages of Tirreno–Adriatico.^[20] Two weeks later, he won Scheldeprijs for the second time. Five days later, he outkicked Wout Van Aert to take second at Paris–Roubaix.^[21] This was his first podium in a Monument. At the Tour de France, he won stages 3, 4, 7 and 11, all of which were sprint finishes.^[22] This led him to ultimately win the points classification by over 100 points to second placed Mads Pedersen. Philipsen went on to win nine more races in the season, leading to a total of 19 victories.

Philipsen began his 2024 season in a similar fashion, winning one stage and finishing second in another at Tirreno–Adriatico.^[23] He then won his first Monument: Milan–San Remo in a sprint finish, ahead of Michael Matthews and Tadej Pogačar.^[24] Four days later, he defended his title at the Classic Brugge–De Panne, and again had a repeat of last year at Paris–Roubaix, where he again placed second to teammate Mathieu van der Poel.^[25] After three second place finishes in a row on sprint stages, Philipsen won stage 10 of the 2024 Tour de France, his first of the Tour.^[26] He went on to also win stages 13^[27] and 16.^[28]

Sports journalists occasionally compare Jasper Philipsen to Tom Boonen, as both hail from the same region in Flanders and are routinely qualified as sprinters, specialising in classics.^[29]

Philipsen is one of the most prolific cyclists of his generation.^[31] By 2022, several international specialized media considered him to be the best sprinter in the world.^[32][33]

He drew some criticism for his riding style during the 2023 Tour de France, as he appeared to interfere with other riders on several stages.^[34] This criticism reemerged during the 2024 Tour, as he was relegated to the back of the peleton for interfering with Wout van Aert in a bunch sprint; costing him green jersey points as he had originally finished second.^[35]

Grand Tour	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Giro d'Italia	—	—	—	—	—	—
Tour de France	DNF	—	109	91	97	128
Vuelta a España	—	85	DNF	—	—	—

• CyclingNews: Best Sprinter in the World: 2021, 2022, 2023^[36]
• Most Victories in 1 Season: 19 in 2023^[37]
• Flandrien of the Year – Best Professional Cyclist: 2023^[38]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jasper Philipsen.

• Jasper Philipsen at UCI
• Jasper Philipsen at Cycling Archives (archived)
• Jasper Philipsen at ProCyclingStats
• Jasper Philipsen at Cycling Quotient
• Jasper Philipsen at Team Belgium (in Dutch)