Philipsen secures his second victory of the season, but warns ahead of the Tour: "I'm no Pogacar or van der Poel"

After Philipsen almost missed out on the Tour de France on Wednesday in stage 1 after a near crash, things went his way on the second day. In a chaotic bunch sprint, he was the first to cross the line, his second victory of 2025 after winning Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne in March. It was there that everyone expected another fantastic spring, but after a crash in Nokere Koerse, Philipsen lost some ground.

After a long training block, he returned with ninth place in Dwars door het Hageland and second place in the Elfstedenronde. In the Baloise Belgium Tour, he now seems to be slowly getting up to speed for the Tour de France, where he won nine (!) stage victories in 2022, 2023, and 2024. In 2023, he also added the green points jersey. So Alpecin-Deceuninck knows exactly how to prepare the Belgian sprinter.

In his last three successful editions of the Tour de France, Philipsen always opted for a stage race with classics in the spring before working towards July via the Baloise Belgium Tour. The sprint specialist is, therefore, confident ahead of the Tour. “This stage win confirms that all the hard work during training camp has paid off. We must try to maintain that focus ahead of the Tour,” Philipsen told HLN.

The second win of 2025 came a little later than in previous years, but still on time. "It had been a while, yes. But again, the circumstances were not in our favor. After a strong opening weekend in Flanders and a great training camp, I didn't get the results I wanted after that heavy crash in Nokere. I struggled with headaches for a long time. I don't want to blame everything on that, but it's a valid question how the rest of my spring would have gone without that crash."

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Philipsen emphasizes that success has not come easily to him in recent years. He had to work hard toward a goal. “I didn't do many sprints in the spring, sacrificed smaller stage races, and focused more on the classic work. Consciously. Because that's also a bit where the team wants me to go. That automatically resulted in less success because I'm not a multi-talented rider like Pogacar or Van der Poel who can win anytime, anywhere.”

What he's trying to say is that in recent weeks, the focus has been on the sprints, with success already. There need to be more of those in the Tour de France, although Philipsen is already looking beyond that. “I have to capitalize on opportunities where I can. And I hope to be able to do that more often in the second half of the season, with more sprint opportunities.”