Philipsen. In the second stage of Tirreno-Adriatico 2024, the strong Soudal-QuickStep rider was annihilated by the powerful sprint of his countryman in the jeans-style jersey of Alpecin-Deceuninck.
Just as he did last year, Philipsen opens his season account at Race of the Two Seas, and if the rest of the year is anything like 2023, then the other sprinters had better start attending those races that Philipsen decides to skip. It’s worth remembering that, after his two stage wins at Tirreno, last year he scored at Brugge-DePanne, Scheldeprijs and took home four stages at the Tour de France along with the green jersey, as well as an impressive second place at Paris-Roubaix behind team-mate Mathieu Van der Poel.
“This winter I didn’t do any special training for sprints, because I know that’s where I’m strong, but I concentrated more on training for the classics”. With these words Jasper confirmed what had already been guessed last year: he is not content with being a simple sprinter, he is aiming to be a more complete rider. Should he manage to do it as well as he sprints, well, that would be trouble for many. In the meantime, he has three more chances to update his score in this Tirreno-Adriatico.
