TOUR DE FRANCE 2023 – STAGE 18
MOÛTIERS – BOURG-EN-BRESSE

58.3: THE WOLF HOLDS OFF THE PACK
With a gap of 8’’ under the flamme rouge, the early attackers could feel the sprinters breathing down their necks… But Kasper Asgreen still had the ressources to cover the last kilometre at 58.3 km/h to hold off the pack and take victory. According to NTT Data, Jasper Philipsen averaged 65.3 km/h over the same section to dominate the peloton’s sprint and finish with the same time as Asgreen.

1: THE FIRST FOR KASPER
First win at the Tour for Kasper Asgreen after two second places: in Gap in 2019 and in the Saint-Emilion TT in 2021.
It’s the 12th pro win for Asgreen. Excluding the National TT championship of 2021 and this year (22nd of June), he hadn’t won among the pros since the 4th stage of the Volta ao Algarve back in 2021, 2 years 2 months and 12 days ago.
His last win on a road race was the Ronde van Vlaanderen 2021.

255: BOASSON HAGEN’S LANDMARK
Edvald Boasson Hagen today has raced his 255th Tour stage, equalling the record among active riders held by Imanol Erviti.
The road to the top is long for “EBH”, as the absolute record belongs to Joop Zoetemelk, the only one above the 400 mark, standing at 404.

100: NICE COLLECTION, TADEJ
At his 81st stage run at the Tour, Tadej Pogacar counts a leader’s jersey collection far higher than that: today he conquered his 100th leader’s jersey (21 yellow, 7 polka-dot, 71 white, the latter an all-time record).

51: SOUDAL-QUICK STEP STEPS IN
It’s the first win at this Tour for Soudal – Quick Step, and the first since Fabio Jakobsen last year in Nyborg.
It’s the 51st win for the Soudal team since they first won as Domo – Farm Frites in Mont Ventoux 21 years ago (Richard Virenque, 21st of July).
The Belgian team has won stages in 18 of their 22 Tour participations. Only twice did they wait that long to open their tally: in 2006, when Matteo Tosatto won stage 18; and 2008, when Gert Steegmans won the last stage on the Champs-Élysées.

15: TOWARDS THE BIG NAMES
15th green jersey for Jasper Philipsen: he is up at the 34th all-time spot with Joseph Thomin and Marcel Kittel.

16: DENMARK’S HIGH-QUALITY RIDERS
Kasper Asgreen is the 16th Danish winner at the Tour, elevating the total of the country at 28 victories, 10 shy of the 10th all-time place, occupied by Australia.
In this year’s peloton we have almost one third of the Danes who have won a stage in the Tour’s history, 5 out of 16 (Vingegaard, Cort, Kragh Andersen, Pedersen, Asgreen).

1: WAITING FOR THAT ELUSIVE WIN
Both Pascal Eenkhoorn (2nd) and Jonas Abrahamsen (3rd) are at their first Tour podium…and both haven’t won yet this year.
The last win for Eenkhoorn is last year’s Dutch Road Championship, while the last for Abrahamsen dates back 2020, the 2nd stage of the Tour of Malopolska.