Jasper Philipsen clinches victory with sprint finish at Vuelta a España Stage 1

Jasper Philipsen from Alpecin-Deceuninck won the first stage of the Vuelta a España in a great comeback after quitting the Tour de France this year. In this race, Ethan Vernon from Israel-Premier placed second, and Orluis Aular from Movistar Team finished third. 

With his win, Philipsen admitted: “Winning is always a nice feeling, and definitely when there is a reward like the red jersey, of course it’s a nice present.” 

This win would not have been possible without Philipsen’s teammates, who helped him get ahead in the race at the perfect time. The athlete said: “We managed to do our lead-out the way we wanted to — with Jonas [Rickaert] and Edward [Planckaert] in the final kilometre they executed perfect. I saw 175 meters to go and had to start sprinting. I’m really happy it worked out for us.” 

Moreover, Philipsen recalled how disappointed he was when he crashed at the Tour de France, and how he found a new goal in this race because of the setback. “This was a nice goal, but I knew we only had one chance because there aren’t many opportunities for a sprinter like me at this Vuelta,” he added. 

Highlights of the race

The race began with six riders — Alessandro Verre, Pepijn Reinderink, Nicolas Vinokurov, Joel Nicolau, Koen Bouwman, and Hugo de la Calle — breaking away from the peloton. With this, the Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck teams worked hard to control the gap. 

At one big climb, Verre earned the most points, and this secured him the polka dot jersey for the next stage. Furthermore, in an intermediate sprint, Reinderink was awarded first, and he was followed by Vinokurov and Bouwman, earning them bonus seconds in the tournament. 

Later in the race, de la Calle tried to go alone to win the most aggressive rider prize. However, he was caught with less than 40 km to go.

In the final moments of the race, many teams tried to get to the front before a challenging finish with many roundabouts and obstacles. The team of Lidl-Trek got stuck in one of the roundabouts. Alpecin-Deceuninck did a perfect job setting up their sprinter, Philipsen, to go to the finish line first and eventually won the race easily. 

On social media, netizens expressed their opinions about Philipsen’s win. One netizen commented that it was a “perfect lead out.” Another netizen called him “Jasper ‘the Master’”. 

“Around two months ago, he broke his collarbone, and now he’s winning a stage,” a netizen said.

One more netizen remarked: “Congratulations Jasper, so happy for you!”

 

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