Tour de France: Jasper Philipsen wins the sprint in Carcassonne, Jonas Vingegaard stays in yellow

In the furnace of the Tarn and the Aude, the final of the 15th stage of the Tour was boiling on Sunday. Jasper Philipsen won it in the sprint in Carcassonne on Sunday, his first victory in the Tour de France, he who has already won three stages in the Vuelta. He was ahead of Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen but above all the unfortunate Benjamin Thomas, who broke away with Alexis Gougeard at 46 km and resumed just 400 meters from the finish. In general, nothing changes but Jonas Vingegaard, who fell 57 km from the finish and was quickly able to reintegrate the peloton, lost a new teammate, Steven Kruijswijk, the second on this day which could cost the Jumbo-Visma dearly. , after the abandonment of Primoz Roglic before the departure of Rodez. Benjamin Thomas caught up at the right time Cofidis has been waiting for a stage victory on the Tour since 2008. Approaching the fortified city of Carcassonne, she brushed her fingers against Benjamin Thomas. We who are still waiting for a tricolor victory on this Grande Boucle too. The rider from Tarn attacked with Alexis Gougeard 46 km from the finish. The two Frenchmen know how to ride and counted up to 35 seconds ahead of the peloton. But 10 km from the finish, the gap fell drastically under the impetus of the Ineos team, which invented a border instead of letting the sprinters’ teams work to win the stage. What they did 5 km from Carcassonne. Under the red flame, Benjamin Thomas, who had already blown up Gougeard, was 6 seconds ahead. Too little to fight against the furious train of rockets of the peloton who only had to pick up a Benjamin Thomas cooked to perfection. To the delight of Jasper Philipsen, in tears on the podium and “relieved” in a post-race interview, he who had raised his arms by finishing second during the 5th stage. This time it’s the right one. The 24-year-old Belgian also had to be the freshest to win today because on the Cammazes coast, 50 km from the finish, the Trek began the sprinters one by one. Caleb Ewan dropped just like Fabio Jakobsen and Dylan Groenewegen. If the latter two were able to regain their place in the peloton 25 km from the end, they left some juice in this phase of the race. 8 The number of Top 3 finishes (2nd 4 times, 3rd 4 times) for Jasper Philipsen in the Tour de France, which made the Belgian the active rider with the most podiums without any stage victory under his belt before his success at Carcassonne. The Belgian puts an end to a long series of places of honor in the Tour de France. In the oven of the stage, the Jumbo lived a dark day It is not reasonable to be satisfied with the setbacks of others, but there is no doubt that Tadej Pogacar saw the horizon clear up when he heard in his headset that Steven Kruijswijk, mountain teammate of the Yellow Jersey, had fallen and retired 64 km from the finish, and Jonas Vingegaard himself had tasted the bitumen a few kilometers further along with Tiesj Benoot. With Primoz Roglic, injured in the back and not starting at the start of the stage, the debates are rebalanced between the formations of the Slovenian and the Dane, at least numerically. The stage between Rodez and Carcassonne, a supposedly calm transition day, opened two windows onto a refreshing future of possibilities for Tadej Pogacar who tried to rush in at 23 km by attacking, trickster, for the stage victory .The Yellow Jersey has lost its feathers, and psychologically, while the Pyrenees will rise in front of the riders on Tuesday, the 2’22 lead it has in the general classification, must seem more hungry than ever. Paris is still far away.