Philipsen inches from Victory as Pogačar retains White Jersey

In what was a chaotic final sprint, Jasper Philipsen settled for second place on stage 4 of the Tour of California behind Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck-Quick-Step). The young Belgian opened up the sprint and held off Peter Sagan (BORA-hansgrohe), who was third.

Just before the final three kilometers run-in to Morro Bay, there was a big crash in the peloton, with all the UAE Team Emirates riders able to stay at the front and keep out of trouble.

Tadej Pogačar finished safely in the peloton to retain his fourth place overall while also keeping hold of the white jersey.

Jasper Philipsen: “I am satisfied with my performance. Today we worked very well together and managed to avoid the big crash towards the final. Our plan was to have a sprint train going into the last kilometres and that worked out well. Ferrari got me in a perfect position into the final corner and then Rui Oliveira did a perfect lead-out by bringing me up to Richeze’s wheel. I started my sprint with 200 meters to go and I was hoping for a victory but unfortunately it was just a little too late. I had good legs in the sprint. Tomorrow will be another hard day but I’ll try again.”

Stage 4 results:

1 Fabio Jakobsen (Ned) Deceuninck-QuickStep  5:53:22

2 Jasper Philipsen (Bel) UAE Team Emirates s.t.

3 Peter Sagan (Svk) BORA-hansgrohe s.t.

General Classification after stage 4:

1 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) EF Education First  21:16:50

2 Gianni Moscon (Ita) Team Ineos  +6″

3 Kasper Asgreen (Den) Deceuninck-Quick Step  +7″

4 Tadej Pogačar (Slo) UAE Team Emirates +16″