Kasper Asgreen claimed a surprise win at Bourg-en-Bresse, his first at the Tour de France, as he held off the sprinting peloton along with his breakaway companions Pascal Eenkhorn and Jonas Abrahamsen who rounded out the podium of stage 18. Hot favourite Jasper Philipsen had to settle for fourth in the first position of the peloton. Asgreen delivered Soudal-Quick Step’s first stage victory this year and a third for Denmark after Mads Pedersen and Jonas Vingegaard. The latter retains the yellow jersey.
ASGREEN, CAMPENAERTS AND ABRAHAMSEN IN THE LEAD
152 riders took the start of stage 18 in Moûtiers at 13.40. Non-starters: Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Anthony Perez (Cofidis). Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-Quick Step) was the first attacker, quickly joined by Victor Campenaerts (Lotto-Dstny) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X). They got a maximum advantage of 1’48’’ at km 7. Teams Jayco-AlUla, DSM-Firmenich and Alpecin-Deceuninck paced the pack after that. For half of the race, the gap was stable around one minute. Abrahamsen took the two KOM points up for grabs at Chambéry-le-Haut (km 62) and atop côte de Boissieu (km 105) where attacks finally took place at the head of the peloton, involving Pascal Eenkhorn (Lotto-Dstny), local rider Simon Guglielmi (Arkea-Samsic), Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies).
EENKHORN REINFORCES THE LEAD GROUP
Eenkhorn rode away from the pack with 65km remaining. Campenaerts waited for him. The two Lotto-Dstny riders caught up with Asgreen and Abrahamsen to make it a leading quartet 58km before the end. Abrahamsen also won the intermediate against a very motivated Eenkhorn while Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) showed no interest to challenge Philipsen for the green jersey. In the last hour of racing, Bora-Hansgrohe and Lidl-Trek took over from DSM-Firmenich, Alpecin-Deceuninck and Jayco-AlUla at the head of the peloton as the leading quartet was less than one minute up front.
THE PELOTON MISSES OUT ON CATCHING UP
Campenaerts was designated for the combativity award. He kept pulling the leading quartet until the very end, even when the chances to hold off the peloton were very slim with 40’’ lead at the 20-km to go mark, 20’’ with 10km to go and less than 10’’ within the last 3km. Campenaerts gave it all in the final straight with the idea to lead Eenkhorn out but it was Abrahamsen on his wheel and Asgreen who timed the sprint at perfection. The Dane came second in a stage to Gap in 2019 and second again in the St-Emilion ITT in 2021 before he took his maiden win today, keeping the momentum for Danish riders in a Tour dominated by his compatriot Jonas Vingegaard.
