Philipsen takes yellow after first stage of Tour

JASPER Philipsen won a chaotic opening stage of the Tour de France to take the first yellow jersey of the race.

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Philipsen took his 10th career Tour stage but the first to put him into yellow as he beat Biniam Girmay in a much-reduced bunch sprint after crosswinds split the peloton to pieces.

Overall hopefuls Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic were both caught out, conceding 39 seconds to the main favourites Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard, with the Dane having done much to instigate the splits inside the last 20 kilometres of the 185km stage that started and finished in Lille.

Fewer than 40 riders made it into the front group but Philipsen’s Alpecin-Deceuninck team had four of them and they made it count, putting together an ideal lead-out for Philipsen to comfortably beat Girmay and Soren Waerenshjold to the line.