Belgian Cyclist’s Back-to-Back Wins in the Ongoing ‘Le Tour de France’, Earns Him High Praise From a 7-Time Champion

It is early July and the cycling world has its attention fixed on the single greatest racing event in the world – Le Tour de France. As the premier event of cycling started off in Bilbao, Spain this year, it has reached a stage where it’s starting to get interesting. As the 4th stage of the Tour de France just concluded, one cyclist from Belgium has taken the lead. He won the 3rd stage of the race and has now won the 4th stage as well. And after this stellar display of performance, he was acknowledged by former cyclist and now a podcaster, 7-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong, who has been sharing his views about the updates in the ongoing Tour de France in his THEMOVE podcast, recently spoke about Belgian cyclist Jasper Philipsen. The former champion seemed blown away by the acceleration the cyclist made in the last two stages.

Lance Armstrong is in disbelief over Philipsen’s speed on a bike

Lance Armstrong recently took to his Instagram stories and shared a snippet from one of the episodes of his podcast. He said, “Philipsen wins another stage. He’s proven two things to me: One is the fastest guy in the race thus far, but he’s got a motorcycle as a lead-out man…” At this point, his co-host interrupts him to explain that these cyclists are beyond brilliant and they know each other very well.

The first stage of this year’s Tour de France started from Bilbao on 1st July and it ran for the first 113 miles. It was won by Adam Yates of Great Britain. Victor Lafay from France followed him to win the 2nd stage of the race, which ran from Victoria-Gasteiz to San Sebastien for another 130 miles. Since then, it has all been about Jasper Philipsen.

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Philipsen dominated the race after stage 2, and is still ahead of his competitors, having won the stage 3 and 4. They were from Amorebieta-Etxano to Bayonne for 120 miles and Dax to Nogaro for 113 miles respectively.

Jasper Philipsen still has a long way to go

While the first two stages were in the Medium-mountain stage, stages 3 and 4 were in the Flat stage. As the competition moves ahead onto newer stages, it keeps getting more difficult. Philipsen seems up to the task. While he still faces stiff competition ahead from defending champion Jonas Vingegaard of the Jumbo-Vista team, and Yates and Tadej Pogacar among others, Philipsen has clearly shown his prowess in speed.

In the 3rd stage of the race, Philipsen also had a near-clash with fellow cyclist Wout Van Aertm, which was deliberate and for which he got a lot of heat from fans. But it didn’t harm his stage victory. Armstrong strongly believes in the speed of Philipsen, but whether Philipsen will be able to maintain it for another 19-20 days to take home the championship, is something only time can tell.

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