Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet, they say, and Jasper Philipsen is likely to agree.
The Belgian was expected to win several stages at this Tour de France but had to watch as countryman Tim Merlier streaked to victory in three bunch finishes.
But after getting into the day’s escape, and remaining calm when a smaller group made it up the road in the closing stages, Philipsen ultimately won easily in Voiron on Wednesday afternoon.
Mads Pedersen scooped up maximum points at the intermediate sprint with 27 kilometers remaining, before Jasper Stuyven counter-attacked and got clear. He was caught with 4km to go, which all but guaranteed a sprint finish, and Mathieu van der Poel marshalled the situation before leading out teammate Philipsen, who won by three or four bike lengths in the end.
Jacob Whitehead and Beren Cross break down the key storylines from today’s stage.
Jasper Philipsen reacts after finally landing the stage win he’s craved. (Luca Bettini / Belga Mag / Belga / AFP via Getty Images)
Philipsen — at last
Jasper Philipsen had to wait far longer than he, or anyone else, would have expected, but he finally secured his first win of the 2026 Tour de France on Stage 17. The 11th Tour stage win of the Belgian’s career also took him to within seven points of Mads Pedersen at the top of the points classification.
Philipsen has now won at least one stage in each of the past five Tours. In this one, the 28-year-old had been fifth, fifth, fourth and third twice in the sprint stages, but Wednesday in Voiron saw his patience pay off.
Given there are now three successive mountain stages coming up, today was always going to be the last hurrah for any breakaway, and so it proved, with a furious, seemingly endless battle to get into the selection as the race looped southwest from Chambéry.
Pedersen, yet again, was the one to initially animate the stage. The green jersey ensured he got across to the breakaway after missing out in the first instance. Once he was in the front group, he was not going to be denied as the intermediate sprint closed in.
The Lidl-Trek rider blasted away from the breakaway, taking five others with him, 57km from the finish line. Alpecin-Premier Tech’s Philipsen and Mathieu van der Poel saw the gap to Pedersen open up, though their teammate Edward Planckaert was in the leading sextet.
Planckaert tried to deny Pedersen maximum points at the intermediate, 27.2km from the finish, but he could only take second. The Dane took 25 points and Philipsen crucially mopped up nine as the seventh man through at the intermediate.
From that front six, Soudal-Quick Step’s Jasper Stuyven struck out for home after the intermediate. The former winner of Milan-Sanremo was on his own and got the gap out to nearly 50 seconds, but once the Pedersen and Philipsen groups combined behind him, his bid for victory was doomed.
Philipsen could deploy Van der Poel, Emiel Verstrynge and Planckaert to pull on the front, and Stuyven was ultimately caught with 3.5km to go. There was a brief flicker of an attack from Netcompany-INEOS’ Josh Tarling in the final kilometer, but once Van der Poel hit the front, there was only one outcome.
Mauro Schmid, Olav Kooij, Lewis Askey and Rick Pluimers were in the mix but, in Van der Poel’s slipstream, Philipsen had a huge advantage before he even committed to his final sprint. Pedersen, evidently exhausted from his day’s efforts, looked like he was pedalling through treacle and picked up just 10 points in eighth.
Philipsen’s relief at the end was clear.
He said: “I was prepared very, very well, I was in the shape of my life. The first stage was horrible. I couldn’t find myself, I couldn’t find the form I was hoping for. After 17 stages… we won for the team.
“The team is not saying that I have to win, but it’s obvious that I would win, because we did the preparation, we have a full leadout squad, we’re here for stage wins, not for GC.
“There are always expectations, and when I don’t deliver, they’re not going to shoot me or anything, but you just try to deliver. For the team, for the sponsors, for the staff, for everybody. If I can’t deliver, that builds a lot of pressure on myself. It’s something hard to deal with sometimes, but it’s just part of the sport.”
Tadej Pogačar and the rest of the general classification contenders rolled in safely eight minutes and 46 seconds later.
The order of the top 10 remains unchanged, although Jordan Jegat did sneak into the break and is now only a minute and six seconds behind eighth-placed Tom Pidcock.
Beren Cross
Green jersey set to be decided on the Paris cobbles
Mads Pedersen has worn the green jersey since stage four. Except on clear GC days, and even, on those, until the intermediate sprint, his Lidl-Trek team has been singularly focused on the Dane’s quest for the points classification. The likes of Mathias Vacek and Quinn Simmons, potential stage winners in their own right, have essentially been glorified domestiques for his escape attempts.
Pedersen’s success has been built on his strength and ability to climb. It’s meant he has been able to access intermediate sprint points out of the reach of other sprinters — as well as winning stage four’s breakaway into Foix.
Wednesday’s stage appeared to be conforming to that pattern — until his breakaway group was caught in the closing kilometers. Pedersen was then beaten into eighth in a heavy-legged sprint, with his closest rival for green, Philipsen, taking maximum points.
“It was a proper s**t day,” Pedersen said. “Super-disappointed. I didn’t get the job done, it’s a big loss of points. But it is what it is. We just have to deal with the situation.”
Pedersen worked hard all day but Philipsen narrowed the gap. (Gregory van Gansen / Belga Mag / AFP via Getty Images)
From a deficit of 31 points entering the day, Philipsen is now just seven behind — and with three mountainous stages to come, the classification will surely be settled on the streets of Paris in Sunday’s final stage. Philipsen is the faster raw sprinter, but a factor in Pedersen’s favour is that stage 21 is no longer a straight blast along the Champs-Elysees — but one reached after three hilly circuits of the city’s Montmartre district, which could shake Philipsen from the group.
“In Paris, you have no real reference,” said Lidl-Trek team boss Andy Schleck, a Tour winner himself in 2010. ”Yes, they raced last year, Wout (van Aert) won, but it was raining; it was different circumstances in the rain rather than in the heat.
“In the Olympics (over the same streets in the French capital two years ago), they did the climb as well, and Remco (Evenepoel) won solo. I doubt that it will be a bunch sprint, and if it’s not a bunch, anything sprinted out of a group suits Mads super-well. But first, we have a few mountains to climb and a few points to collect before we come to Paris.”
Philipsen still makes Pedersen favorite to win, saying: “It’ll be very hard. He also took 25 points in the intermediate today. He was in front, so he made it very hard. The next three days are very tough with the intermediate. The chance I will not be there is pretty high.
“Pedersen is climbing well, so he can gain some points again. We will see where we are on Sunday, and we’ll see what’s possible.”
Jacob Whitehead
Sick Yates suffers to the line ahead of key mountain stages
Adam Yates is a Tour podium finisher and a two-time Grand Tour stage winner, but the 33-year-old looked like a man reconsidering his life decisions as he crawled through the Chartreuse Mountains.
The Englishman has been ill for most of the past 48 hours; his fight on Wednesday was not to help Tadej Pogačar, but to make the day’s time cut. He eventually finished almost 27 minutes down, the third-last rider to complete the stage.
As one of Pogačar’s key domestiques ahead of the high Alpine stages, which are set to tackle Alpe d’Huez on both Friday and Saturday, UAE Team Emirates XRG want him fit — even if the yellow jersey’s lead over Remco Evenepoel appears unassailable.
“I think for Alpe d’Huez, at least for (Saturday’s) queen stage, he will be good again,” said Pogačar. “Yesterday (during the time trial), he was really bad; if it was a normal stage he would not finish, I think, but he managed it. He looked terrible, I have to say. This morning, he was in a good mood, eating well, but today was a hard stage, even for me, so I can imagine he paid a bit after yesterday.”
Yates got off the bike exhausted, heading straight onto the UAE Team Emirates XRG bus. Outside, team principal Mauro Gianetti gave an update on his rider.
“Yesterday he was not feeling well; and after the time trial, he was really bad,” Gianetti said. “He had vomiting and a stomach problem. This morning was better but, y’know, he was empty, and he suffered because he was so empty. He could not eat yesterday, and just a little bit each morning, so he was struggling.
“And then, one moment, he told us that he’d just spoken with (road captain) Nils (Politt) and said, ‘I will take the train (the gruppetto, for slower riders) behind us to try to save some more energy’. We hope it will be better tomorrow, but let’s see — he struggled a lot today.”
Jacob Whitehead
Stage 17’s top 10
- Jasper Philipsen | Alpecin-Premier Tech (3:41:13)
- Mauro Schmid | Jayco AlUla (same time)
- Olav Kooij | Decathlon CMA CGM (same time)
- Lewis Askey | NSN Cycling (same time)
- Rick Pluimers | Tudor Pro Cycling (same time)
- Clement Russo | Groupama – FDJ United (same time)
- Huub Artz | Lotto Intermarché (same time)
- Mads Pedersen | Lidl-Trek (same time)
- Michael Matthews | Jayco AlUla (same time)
- Aaron Gate | XDS Astana (same time)
General classification after stage 17
- Tadej Pogačar | UAE Team Emirates XRG (60:04:17)
- Remco Evenepoel | Red Bull–Bora-Hansgrohe (+4m 32s)
- Isaac Del Toro | UAE Team Emirates XRG (+6m 51s)
- Paul Seixas | Decathlon CMA CGM (+7m 11s)
- Juan Ayuso | Lidl-Trek (+9m 22s)
- Mattias Skjelmose | Lidl-Trek (+10m 14s)
- Lenny Martinez | Bahrain Victorious (+12m 50s)
- Tom Pidcock | Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling (+12m 58s)
- Jordan Jegat | TotalEnergies (+14m 04s)
- Yannis Voisard | Tudor Pro Cycling (+24m 18s)
Tadej Pogačar had a quiet day in the yellow jersey. (Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images)
Who’s wearing the jerseys after stage 17?
What’s coming tomorrow?
Stage 18 – Thursday, July 23: Voiron to Orcières-Merlette; 185km, mountain
Tour historians will know Orcières-Merlette as the scene of one of Eddy Merckx’s biggest defeats, when Luis Ocaña of Spain attacked during the 1971 Tour and put almost nine minutes into the great Belgian. We are unlikely to see such a gap this year — this could even be one for the breakaway, given what is coming on Friday and Saturday.
