Kasper Asgreen holds on to win Tour de France Stage 18 as Jonas Vingegaard maintains lead

Danish rider claims maiden Grand Tour victory while countryman takes another step closer to retaining overall title

Soudal Quick-Step rider Kasper Asgreen celebrates winning Stage 18 of the Tour de France on July 20, 2023. AFP

Denmark's Kasper Asgreen outsprinted the chasing peloton to win stage 18 of the Tour de France on Thursday as Jonas Vingegaard maintained his comfortable overall lead.

The sprint teams got their sums wrong on the 185-kilometre stage from Moutiers as a four-strong break held on by just a few metres to take the honours, with the Soudal Quick-Step rider beating Pascal Eenkhoorn and Jonas Abrahamsen to the line.

The day brought no changes at the top of the general classification, in which defending champion Vingegaard took an all-but-unassailable seven-and-a-half minute lead over Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates on Wednesday.

Jasper Philipsen, hoping to add to his four sprint stage wins in this first opportunity for the quick men in more than a week, came home in fourth having failed to make the catch.

Organisers were keen to offer the sprinters a flat run here after four Alpine tests, even taking a tunnel through a mountain rather than climbing over it.

Asgreen was part of a four-man breakaway that took shape early in the stage, but they were never allowed to open a gap of more than one minute and a half by Philipsen's Alpecin-Deceuninck team.

As the bunch drew closer, Asgreen's teammates took turns at the front to slow the pace and offer more hope to the breakaway.

In the four-man group, Belgian Victor Campenaerts rode himself into the ground hoping to set up Lotto-Dstny teammate Eenkhoorn for a last-gasp sprint.

Yet Asgreen was stronger, launching his effort some 200 metres from the line to claim his maiden Grand Tour stage win.

“Obviously the situation was not ideal,” admitted Asgreen after the race. “I would have preferred to have gone with six, seven or eight [riders] but it's also the last week of the Tour and we're coming off some really hard weeks.

“We've seen it before that even a small group can manage to cheat the sprinters' teams. I didn't rule it out. It was a team time trial to the finish.

“I really couldn't have done it without Pascal, Victor and Jonas,” he added.

“They all did amazing out there. We all deserved to win with the work we put out there. I'm really happy to come away with the win.

“It means so much - with the period I had the last year with my crash in the Tour de Suisse and having to leave the Tour de France last year. I've come a long way.”

Overall, Vingegaard remains well clear of Pogacar – who described Wednesday's stage as “one of the worst days of my life on the bike” – with the Slovenian's British teammate Briton Adam Yates in third place, 10 min 45 sec off the pace.

Friday's Stage 19 sees the peloton travels across the Jura Mountains, without tackling any major climbs, over a 172.8km route from Moirans-en-Montagne to Poligny. The processional final stage in Paris takes place on Sunday.