Tour de France 2023: Fabio Jakobsen is ‘okay’ and will ‘suffer through’ Stage 5, says Tom Steels

Fabio Jakobsen’s bike “is in three pieces” but the Soudal-QuickStep rider is “okay” after his crash in Stage 4 of the Tour de France, according to the team’s directeur sportif, Tom Steels.

One was Dutchman Jakobsen. Thankfully he avoided any serious injury but he was left with an abrasion on his right shoulder and side. He should be fit to take part in Stage 5 on Wednesday as the race heads into the Pyrenees for the first time.

“He lost a lot of skin but let’s hope he recovers and feels okay on the bike so he can suffer through the Pyrenees.”

Team manager Patrick Lefevere added: “Fabio has some wounds on his shoulder and back from the ‘nice’ asphalt. I suppose he won’t sleep very tonight.

“There were a lot of crashes today on the circuit finish. The question is if it’s the fault of the circuit or of the riders. Some of the sprinters took some big risks. Unfortunately, sprinters always take risks and so it’s inevitable that there are crashes.”

Jakobsen and his team – having been at the front going into the last 2km – were edged out in the finale by Philipsen.

He said: “You can see on the videos, first [Jonas] Rickaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck) has to go all the way to the right, almost crashes [into] Kasper Asgreen (Soudal Quick-Step).

“Then Mathieu [van der Poel] (Alpecin-Deceuninck) has to go all the way to the left, so that’s cutting the road once.

“And then Jasper Philipsen has to go from left all the way to the right again, to take the shortest way, cutting the road again.

“It’s a bit stupid I think.

“It’s not nice for the race, you get a fight for the positioning, left right, left right.

“We want to see all sprinters at the line. Like this, it’s just dangerous. I understand why they do it, because they win. Probably we would do the same.

“But it’s just not nice for cycling, I think. The parcours builder and the organiser really have to look into this, that on the first bunch sprint like that, when they are so many guys involved – it’s almost not a fair sprint.”

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