Philipsen wins opening Tour stage to claim first yellow jersey

Jasper Philipsen will wear the Tour de France’s yellow jersey for the first time in his career after winning stage one of the 2025 edition.

A sprint finish was expected after a flat stage beginning and ending in Lille, and Alpecin-Deceuninck’s lead-out train delivered the 27-year-old in the perfect position to claim the stage win.

The Belgian beat Biniam Girmay by a comfortable margin to claim his 10th stage win on the Tour, with Soren Waerenskjold third.

The peloton split about 17km from the end of a chaotic opening day, with general classification contenders Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic caught in the second bunch.

Reigning champion Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, who is expected to be his main rival, were in the lead group along with most of Philipsen’s team-mates.

“It’s really amazing,” said Philipsen. “My 10th victory is something I will never forget.

“It was a perfect team performance. I think we were there all day in a really nervous stage but we knew it could be our day and we had to be at the front when the split happened.

Philipsen claimed four stage wins in 2023 and finished that edition of the Tour with the green jersey as the points classification leader.

He said he had “dreamt” about wearing yellow.

Already I had the green jersey from two years ago but to have the yellow jersey hanging somewhere in my house is amazing,” he said.

A five-man breakaway was caught with more than 100km to go on the 184. 9km loop route, which was affected by crosswinds and featured multiple crashes.

Ineos Grenadiers rider Filippo Ganna was forced to abandon after going down with British debutant Sean Flynn, and he was soon followed by fellow time-trial specialist Stefan Bissegger.

Benjamin Thomas will wear the polka-dot jersey as mountain leader after winning two of the day’s three climbs, wiping out Matteo Vercher as he lunged for the line to claim his second mountain point.

Then came the split, which resulted in Roglic and Evenepoel crossing 39 seconds after Pogacar and Vingegaard, and the latter’s British team-mate Simon Yates struggled.

The Giro d’Italia champion got a puncture and tried to recover but ended up coming in more than six minutes after the lead group.