Tour Tandem
“I can also win without him, but with him it's a lot easier."
At the 2023 Tour de France, Jasper and team mate Mathieu van der Poel formed an almost unstoppable tandem in the sprints. For three of Jasper’s four wins, MVDP launched rocket ship leadouts to send his sprinter stratospheric.
Jasper was keen to prove to critics that it wasn’t all down to his team mate, however:
“I think my fourth stage was the nicest to win, the last one,” he says. “That's because there was a lot of pressure and commentary from outside of the team. A lot of people were saying he can't do it without Mathieu [van der Poel] or he can't stay on his own line or whatever. I think the win erased that completely.”
The duo are a formidable force in the classics too. At Paris-Roubaix in 2023, Jasper marshalled behind as MVDP went off the front. He did the same in 2024, while just a few weeks earlier, Mathieu had pulled the race back together on the run-in to the finish at Milan-San Remo, allowing Jasper to contest – and win – the sprint.
“What Mathieu did in the final was an incredible job and yeah I’m really proud and happy that we could manage and play it out as a team,” he said afterwards.