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Jordi Meeus (BORA-hansgrohe) surprised the top sprinters to win the prestigious final stage of the Tour de France on the Champs Elysees in a desperately close finish.
“This is definitely the greatest day in my sporting career,” said Meeus. “These days I saw my results could improve… I’m happy to pull it off. I felt quite good all day. The beginning was easy and, from the moment we went full gas, my legs felt good.”
Meeus came from behind in the final metres to win by mere centimetres over Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Decuninck) denying the green jersey winner his fifth stage win of the 2023 Tour de France.
“Marco Haller did great job at positioning me,” said Meeus. “I sat on Pedersen’s wheel and then came off his slipstream to pip everyone on the line. It’s unbelievable I got to win here, in my first Tour de France.”
The final stage of the 2023 Tour de France was the normal processional affair to the centre of Paris, where the racing heated up.
Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) made it two years in a row attacking on the Champs Elysees, though he found that his way was again blocked by Jumbo-Visma, with a non-cooperative Nathan van Hooydonck following him after Pogacar attacked with 48 kilometres remaining in the stage.
The pair were joined by a group including a number of quality sprinters, and that ended up finishing the move with 32 kilometres to go.
That sparked a new set of attacks, with Australian Simon Clarke (Israel Premier Tech) jumping clear and establishing a three-rider move with Nelson Oliviera (Movistar) and Frederik Frison (Lotto-Dstny) joining him and building an advantage that stretched to a maximum of 25 seconds.
The trio were brought back by the peloton with 10 kilometres remaining, and while there were flurries of attacks, none really stuck as the sprinters’ teams kept the pace high behind.
Jumbo-Visma dropped off the back of the race before the finish, opting to use the gap they had to do a proper celebration over the finish line as a team.
The sprinters meanwhile fought out the stage, with Alpecin-Deceuninck leading the way through the famous chicane onto the finishing straight. Mathieu van der Poel led out Philipsen, but it was Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) who launched first, catching the four-time stage winner at this Tour de France a bit off-guard.
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) also surged through, but it was the fast finishing pair of Meeus and Philipsen that loomed large in the final metres, just pipping them on the line, with Meeus the winner. The German initially could barely believe it, but the photos showed a small margin of victory on the line over Philipsen, with Groenewegen edging out Pedersen for third.
Vingegaard cross the line over a minute later with his team arm-in-arm, confirming his second successive Tour de France overall victory.
Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) won the mountains polka dot jersey, Jasper Philipsen took out the points green jersey, Jumbo-Visma took out the teams classification and Victor Campanaerts (Lotto-Dstny) was given the super combativity award as the most aggressive rider.
