SerpApi.Org
Jasper Philipsen salvaged his Tour de France after winning out of a big breakaway group in stage 17 on Wednesday.
Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate Mathieu van der Poel rolled out the red carpet for the Belgian sprinter to win his first stage of the 2026 Tour.
Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) crossed the line second, with Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA-CGM) kicking to third.
A day after the time trial, Wednesday’s transition stage delivered a wild, attack-riddled day as expected. The brutal pace saw UAE Emirates-XRG climber Adam Yates suffer a major crisis. Tim Wellens dropped back to help pace the British ace to the line to try to make the time cut.
With three straight summit finales looming the Alps, it was a relatively calm day in the saddle for the GC favorites and Tadej Pogačar could follow the wheels without too much drama.
Stage riddled with attacks
The 174.7km stage 17 from Chambéry to Voiron was circled by every breakaway rider in the bunch. A solid group pulled clear that included Quinn Simmons and Van der Poel but the day’s main obstacle at the Cat. 3 Col de Prés kept things on a short leash.
The back half of the stage was over rolling terrain so the sprinters didn’t fully throw in the towel. Decathlon CMA-CGM did huge pulls at the front to trim the lead to under one minute when Olav Kooij and others bridged across to the front group.
Mads Pedersen later attacked to create a five-rider group off the front to scoop up the day’s intermediate sprint with under 30km to go to tighten his grip on the green jersey.
Jasper Stuyven uncorked an attack with 25km to go but was reeled in by a big chase group with about 3.5km to go and missed out on the Tour stage win that’s eluded the veteran Belgian across his career.
Yates in trouble
It was calm day in the saddle for the GC favorites and Pogačar finished with the main GC group without major shakeups in the overall standings.
The day’s big drama came when Yates started suffering from the gun. Team officials confirmed the 33-year-old woke up sick and he was soon alone off the back.
