🎥 Jasper Philipsen's Tour de France disqualification overturned after jury appeal

Jasper Philipsen was disqualified after the sprint on stage 11 of the Tour de France. The Belgian from Alpecin-Premier Tech gave a push to a Picnic PostNL rider in the final kilometers, and this was deemed irregular by the jury. Philipsen thus lost his third place and a lot of points for the green jersey, but... the jury reversed its decision. Philpsen's 3rd place will stand.

From the very start of the day, Alpecin-Premier Tech did not resolutely play the sprinter’s card. In the opening stages, Mathieu van der Poel and Jonas Rickaert attacked on several occasions, but they were unable to break away straight away.

With thirty kilometres to go, the Belgian team did, however, send a rider to join the leading group, after which Van der Poel and co. set Philipsen up well for the final stretch. Like the other fast riders, however, he was caught out by Soren Waerenskjold, who pulled away in the final 350 metres.

Just before that point, around 500 metres from the finish, the peloton had to negotiate a slight bend. As they did so, the riders veered to the left, causing Philipsen – possibly due to Jasper Stuyven of Soudal Quick-Step pushing him out – to make contact with a lead-out rider from Picnic PostNL.

Because everyone swerved to the left, space opened up on the right for Waerenskjold. At first glance, this seems like a rather harsh penalty for Philipsen, if this was indeed the situation, but judge for yourselves from the footage below...

Following the decision, Alpecin-Premier Tech approached the race jury for an explanation, after which Philip Roodhooft issued a statement. ‘Jasper felt disappointed and baffled,’ he said, amongst other things. That appeal to the jury paid off, as Philipsen was ultimately placed third in the results.