Jasper Philipsen

The world’s fastest sprinter. A Monument winner. Green Jersey owner. Twice on the Roubaix podium in two years. Is there anything Jasper Philipsen can’t do?

About Jasper
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Behind the athlete

About Jasper Philipsen

Date of birth: 2nd March 1998
Nationality: Belgian
Hometown: Mol, Belgium

Milano-San Remo

1st – 2024
Tour de France Stage Wins – Six

1st – 2022, 2023
Classic Brugge-De Panne

1st – 2022, 2023

Racing

Team: Alpecin-Deceuninck
Discipline: Road

Aeroad CFR

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Speedmax TT

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“I want to win the green jersey as much as possible.”

Jasper Philipsen – Alpecin-Deceuninck

Behind the athlete

The town of Mol is famous in Belgium for being the birthplace of Tom Boonen. It’s also where the rider most likely to come close to his peerless palmares was born.

Jasper Philipsen grew up idolising his hometown hero, and by the time Boonen retired in 2017, Jasper was a talented young junior, able to join the legend on training rides. Both possess a rare talent in cycling: top sprinting speed, and a mastery of the cobbled classics.

The Alpecin-Deceuninck rider has been more of a slow burner than Boonen was, however. He wasn’t dominating sprints until his mid-20s, and his emergence as a one-day spring superstar has been even more recent.

Now Jasper is considered the fastest sprinter in the world, has won Milano-San Remo, and podiumed at Paris-Roubaix twice in a row.

That slow burn is now a raging fire.

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.

Speed Dreams

After his first green jersey win last year, Jasper says that he wants to make it a goal to win it again as much as possible. But his results in the classics have somewhat broadened his aims.

"My podium finish in Paris-Roubaix made it click – now I know that I can also compete for wins in races of that calibre," he says. "I took the step I wanted to take in that kind of race. It's something to continue with and I like doing it alongside sprinting."

The key to it all, he says, is enjoying himself. The 2023 season was the first year that he truly let go, and the results spoke for themselves: 19 wins across the season.

“Staying mentally fresh was the key I think. At the start of the year we said that it was important that I maintained enjoyment with what I did throughout, and had fun during the season. Of course, you have highs and lows but that's inevitable.”

Here’s to going fast, and having fun doing it.