Tour de France 2022: Philipsen beats Van Aert on black day for Jumbo-Visma

Roglic gave up the tour of his own free will in the morning because he hardly recovered from his shoulder injury from the 5th stage during the race.

Kruijswijk, however, fell 65 kilometers from the end and had to be taken away in an ambulance with a dislocated shoulder.

Shortly thereafter, Vingegaard himself fell along with teammate Tiesj Benoot. However, both were able to continue the race without any problems.

“It was a very bad day for us – for sure. Primoz and Steven are out. They were both very important teammates,” said Vingegaard at the finish, but gave the all-clear regarding his own fall: “Everything’s okay with me. I hope just that Tiesj is okay too. He crashed too and I think a little worse than me.”

For stage winner Philipsen it was the first Tour stage win after four second and third places each.

“It’s just incredible! Until now, I only knew what it felt like to lose on the Tour. I’ve been close to victory so many times. It’s unbelievable that it finally worked today,” said the Belgian.

Last year he was third at the same place in Carcassonne behind Mark Cavendish and his driver Michael Morkov.

“I remembered the finale from last year and knew that I still had to make up a few positions before the last corner, because from there it wasn’t far to the finish,” he described the sprint, which he implemented in exactly the same way: Before the final kink, Philipsen advanced down the inside lane and then irresistibly launched his sprint to victory.

This is how the race went:

At the beginning of the stage, Nils Politt (Bora-hansgrohe) was one of the first to attack – and in contrast to the others, the German champion actually pulled away. Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Mikkel Honoré (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) jumped to the front and the trio stood.

But after almost 40 kilometers, the Jumbo-Visma team decided that this escape would make no sense. So Van Aert waited for the peloton, led by Trek-Segafredo, Alpecin-Deceuninck and BikeExchange-Jayco, not to let the trio’s lead increase to more than two minutes.

Without Van Aert, Politt and Honoré got just over three minutes, but it was always clear that the duo would not make it to the finish either. With 54 kilometers to go, the two were already caught.

Shortly before, there were two moments of shock for Jumbo-Visma. After Primoz Roglic had already given up the race before the start, Steven Kruijswijk fell 65 kilometers before the end and was taken away by the ambulance – his shoulder was dislocated. Shortly thereafter, the man in yellow, Jonas Vingegaard, himself and Tiesj Benoot also fell. But both quickly came back into the peloton.

On the ascent to the Cote des Cammazes after the intermediate sprint, 50 kilometers before the end, the peloton tore apart under Trek-Segafredo’s pace dictates and some of the top sprinters lost contact. Caleb Ewan and Fabio Jakobsen didn’t come back after that either, while Dylan Groenewegen and Alexander Kristoff made it back into the peloton 25 kilometers later thanks to the full commitment of the BikeExchange-Jayco team.

At the front of the race, however, were Alexis Gougeard (B&B Hotels – KTM) and Benjamin Thomas (Cofidis), who had broken away shortly after the mountain prize. They gained a 30-second lead and didn’t seem dangerous for a long time, until they still had 15 seconds into the last ten kilometers and Thomas finally even reached the final kilometer as a soloist with five seconds.

In the end, however, he was also caught and there was a mass sprint, which Philipsen won.