'He was a victim' - Jasper Philipsen breaks collarbone after 'stupid' crash at Tour de France

Jasper Philipsen was on cloud nine on Saturday afternoon; the Belgian sprinter had just pulled off a masterstroke in Lille to pull on the first yellow jersey at this Tour de France, but little did he know that the same elation he experienced would soon be switched for pain and anguish after coming down hard on the road to Dunkirk three days later.

Philipsen flew over his handlebars and slammed into the floor at speed after Cofidis's Bryan Coquard collided into him at the day’s intermediate sprint point. The force of the impact tore his green jersey and left him in a heap. His team later confirmed that he had suffered a displaced collarbone fracture and two broken ribs, and would undergo surgery in Herentals, Belgium.

Alpecin-Deceuninck's co-team owner, Philip Roodhooft, spoke to reporters gathered outside the team bus at the finish.

"Jasper was a victim of something he was totally not involved in, that's clear," he said. "To be honest, the two others, they collide or crash but this is not about blaming. It was just a stupid crash, something that can happen.

"The consequences are for Jasper and us as a team, mainly though for Jasper himself the consequences are very bad. But what can you say? Bad things happen sometimes."

"I think everybody who saw that feels bad about it," he added. "What can you say? It impacts us when you see it happening somewhere else; like on the first stage when Filippo Ganna was out of the race on Saturday. You feel bad luck for them [Ineos Grenadiers] but then you move on. Then of course, when it comes closer you live that differently and I think that’s normal."

As well as winning in Lille on day one, Alpecin currently have Mathieu van der Poel in the yellow jersey after his victory in a hilltop sprint in Bolougne-sur-Mer on Sunday. The team stand a chance of winning again in Rouen on Tuesday to get back on track in another stage tailored towards the likes of the Classics specialist.

"I think at this moment it's not something to talk about, moving forward," Roofhoft said, when asked about Alpecin's chances of another win.

"Jasper is still in the hospital, his clothes are also burned, his back was very badly burned with road rash so I don’t think we should be talking today about how we continue. We know we have to continue, Jasper would want us to continue, but at the moment it is just not right to talk about that."

Australian sprinter Kaden Groves felt differently to his Alpecin-Deceuninck team boss when he arrived back at the bus and completed a quick warm down before speaking to reporters, his white helmet visibly spattered with mud and grime from another wind- and rain- affected stage.

"We need to come up with a plan for tomorrow," he said. "Mathieu is still in yellow and in super shape. We need to, of course, keep Jasper in our minds but we also need to move on with the race."

"It's an emotional moment for us," Groves said. "Obviously the goal to win stage one and take the yellow jersey was achieved. But once Jasper lost yellow we wanted to then chase the green jersey for him to try and win that for the second time.

"It's the Tour de France, it's life changing to win a stage here and we see people taking lots of risks for this. I was in front of Jasper, so I didn’t see too much. I'm also not sure about why it happened but I assume that it was a racing incident and I don’t want to comment until I’ve seen the footage.

"Considering we won the first two stages then I guess there's then a lot of pressure on other teams to perform. Whether that pressure is coming from sponsors or team cars it makes the racing that much more aggressive and we saw that today."