When Biniam Girmay crashed with 2km left to ride on stage 16 of the Tour de France, the race for the Škoda Green Jersey was transformed from a near-to-certain victory to a cliffhanger. The Eritrean’s only rival for the points classification victory, Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen,…
This Tour de France has so far been a disaster for defending Škoda Green Jersey winner Jasper Philipsen. The trouble began for the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider on Monday’s stage 3, the race’s first stage for sprinters.
Mark Cavendish unleased a powerful sprint with 150m to go in stage 5 of the Tour de France and easily won his 35th Tour stage, breaking the record he had shared with the great Eddy Merckx. Brought into perfect position by his Astana Qazaqstan team,…
The most interesting sprinter’s race of this Tour de France may not be the one for the Škoda Green Jersey. Rather, it will probably be Mark Cavendish’s race against time as he attempts again to break the record of 34 Tour stage wins he shares…
The Netflix series Tour de France: Unchained 2 is quite different from its 2023 predecessor, which was thrilling but incomplete, for the simple reason that road racing is as complex as a Russian novel and cannot be accurately portrayed in a single season. Another reason…
This has been a spectacular 2024 so far for Alpecin-Deceuninck: 10 race victories since the young Axel Laurance won stage 2 of the Etoile de Bessèges on February 1. Those victories include Milan–San Remo, the Classic Brugge-De Panne (both by Jasper Philipsen), the E3 Saxo…
The safest bet in the history of gambling, as sure as putting money on the sun rising tomorrow, was that Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) would win Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix. It was a sure thing not only because he is a once-in-a-generation talent, perhaps the best…
Four days after his sensational Milan–San Remo victory, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck) elbowed his way to a controversial win in the Classic Brugge-De Panne. The race was run over a mostly flat 198.9 km course that favoured a bunch sprint finish and in the end, it…
The 2024 Monuments season kicked off this weekend with the longest race of the year, the 288km Milan–San Remo, and it provided late dramatics and thrills that will be hard to top in any race this season. After more than six hours of racing, Alpecin-Deceuninck’s…