Jasper Philipsen does not hide that he wants to go for the green jersey at the Tour de France this year.
“I have already indicated that I would like to go for it, but we will have to see for ourselves at the moment whether that is feasible,” he says.
“I realize that if I want to wear green in Paris, I have to be on schedule right from the opening stages. I think the most difficult thing to do is to focus on the seven sprint opportunities that await us. If I score as high as possible in those, the green will follow automatically.”
In recent weeks, Philipsen stayed in Tenerife and in La Plagne to prepare for the Tour.
“During the team training camp I participated in all the training sessions with the boys. In other words: building up endurance and riding uphill,” he explains. “I am now riding the Elfstedenronde Brugge and the Belgium Tour to regain rhythm and fine-tune my sprint. Specific sprint training sessions await between these races so that I can regain speed in my legs.”
Mathieu van der Poel is the other leader of Alpecin-Deceuninck in the Tour. He is also credited with chances in the points classification, but he doesn’t agree with that.
“The green jersey? No. If we’re chasing it this year, it’s for Jasper Philipsen. I am happy to help him with that”, Van der Poel recently said.
