Tour de France 2023: Jasper Philipsen doubles up in crash-ridden finish to Stage 4, Mark Cavendish fifth

A finish littered with crashes on the Nogaro motor racing circuit in Southwest France saw Belgium’s Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) sprint to a second successive win in the Tour de France.

Once again, Philipsen’s Dutch team-mate Mathieu van der Poel provided the spark after the 25-year-old sprinter lost his team-mates in the chaotic closing circuit. Once reunited with Van der Poel, Philipsen was launched at just the right moment and managed to hold off a late surge from Australia’s Caleb Ewan (Lotto Dstny) and Germany’s Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious).

Frenchman Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) and Britain’s Mark Cavendish (Astana-Qazaqstan) completed the top five but European champion Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) was among a cluster of riders who hit the deck in a series of separate incidents in the tense final kilometres.

Philipsen’s second win on the Tour propelled him to the top of the green jersey standings, which he leads over Sunday’s Stage 2 winner Victor Lafay (Cofidis) by 150 points to the Frenchman’s 80 points.

An otherwise wholly uneventful stage on the Tour had no impact on the general classification, with Britain’s Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) retaining his six-second lead over Slovenian team-mate Tadej Pogacar going into two days in the Pyrenees.

More to follow.

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