Tour de France 2023 Stage 18 recap: Kasper Asgreen the surprise winner as breakaway goes the distance

It looked like the quartet would be swallowed up but Kasper Asgreen held on for a memorable win to deny the sprinters at the death.

“Obviously, the situation was not ideal – 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, really, really hard weeks – and we’ve seen it before, even a really small group can manage to cheat the sprinter teams. So, 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. They all did an amazing job out there. To be honest, we all deserved to win with the work we put in. But I’m really happy to come away with it. It means so much.

"With the period I had this last year since my crash in the Tour de Suisse, and having to leave the Tour de France last year. I’ve come a long way since then and to cap it off with a victory like this – I want to dedicate it to the people who helped me this last year, and to [team-mate] Dries [Devenyns] – it’s his last Tour and I just saw him and he was really emotional.”

1. Kasper Asgreen
2. Pascal Eenkhorn
3. Jonas Abrahamsen
4. Jasper Philipsen
5. Mads Pedersen
6. Cees Bol
7. Jordi Meeus
8. Matteo Trentin
9. Christophe Laporte
10. Luca Mozzato

And man of the match Victor Campenaerts took an honorary 16th place after pretty much single-handedly ensuring the break went the distance...

He's come second twice before but Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) is now a stage winner on the Tour de France - taking advantage of some weary legs and many moments of indecision in the pursuing pack who, accordingly to Robbie McEwen, "blew it".

With Jasper Philipsen the best of the rest, the green jersey winning the sprint in the peloton but only for fourth place - not for his fifth win.

Wow! What a finish! The breakaway held off the peloton and Soudal-QuickStep have their win. Kasper Asgreen will have Victor Campenaerts to thank for that after the Belgian's huge pull on the home straight - but it's the Dane who proves the strongest of the quartet and picks the peloton's pocket in style.

Campenaerts still digging deep - and this will come right down to the wire...

With Bauhaus out, they're pushing for Nikias Arndt who has won stages on the Giro and Vuelta before. Just eight seconds now for the four leaders.

The German Nils Politt puts in a massive pull for Bora-hansgrohe and the pendulum swings back in favour of the sprinters here with the gap suddenly down to 10 seconds. What a beast Politt is. Can Jordi Meeus now finish it off for Bora? It's a big ask, but if he does, he will owe Politt a pint of Weisse beer.

It's a powerhouse quartet, that's for sure, and they may have been underestimated by the pack. Intermarche-Circus-Wanty briefly lend a hand for their man Biniam Girmay, but their time on the front doesn't last long. No one team has taken control and there's a lot of looking at each other. Remember, there are five roundabouts in the final few kilometres, which will help the break.

The sprinters' teams don't want to commit their lead-out riders to the chase but that means they're running out of options on the front. Alpecin have Kragh Andersen and Lidl-Trek have Skjelmose, with Soudal probing with Declercq, mindful of having Asgreen 20 seconds up the road.

With three riders on the front after the climb - which strung out the peloton - Philipsen's team has control of the pack, but still needs to close the gap of 25 seconds.

The gap is 45 seconds as the road direction has changed giving us a sidewind. Later, on the approach to Bourg-en-Bresse, it will be a tailwind - but only after a punchy climb with a narrow entrance which could well string things out.

Philipsen is the stand-out favourite but will have to be at his best to beat Groenewegen, Pedersen, Coquard, Girmay and Welsford. We also can't discount the likes of Kristoff, Sagan, Mozzato, Meeus, Bol and perhaps even Michael Morkov, the Danish veteran, who could sprint for Soudal in the absence of Jakobsen.

A handful of Jayco riders swing to the side of the road to pick up fresh bidons of water. Yet to pick up a win on this Tour, the team has come second on three occasions - twice through Simon Yates and once through Dylan Groenewegen at Moulins. The Dutchman will be hoping to end that run today - but he'll need to beat Jasper Philipsen is he wants to stand atop the podium. The gap is 40 seconds.

The Lidl-Trek team of Mads Pedersen and the Bora-hansgrohe team of Jordi Meeus have joined the chase on the front of the pack to help whittle the lead down to 55 seconds into this headwind.

With fresh impetus coming from Pascal Eenkhoorn (Lotto Dstny), this breakaway - formed by Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Dstny), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X) and Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep) - has renewed vigour. Their lead is still 1'10".

Here's that flashpoint from Jasper Philipsen from earlier in the stage...

Alpecin, Jayco and DSM have returned to the front now as they enter breakaway-killer mode with the riders entering the business end of the stage. The gap is 1'10" for the four leaders but it should come down fairly quickly now that there's renewed cohesion behind.