PARIS (AFP) - Belgian 
Jasper Philipsen finally claimed victory in this year’s Tour de France when he won the 10th stage with a textbook sprint on Tuesday.
Philipsen, who won four stages on the world’s biggest race last year, benefited from a perfect lead-out by Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate and world champion Mathieu van der Poel to prevail after 187.3-km from Orleans.
Eritrean Biniam Girmay, who has already won two stages in this edition, took second place with German Pascal Ackermann coming home third.
Slovenian Tadej Pogacar retained the overall leader’s yellow jersey after an uneventful day.
The peloton stayed compact throughout the day through a few rain showers but everyone stayed quiet after Monday’s rest day.
Agitation came in the final five kilometers with the sprinters’ teams looking to get the best position and Alpecin-Deceuninck did the best job.
Van der Poel crushed the pedals with 300 meters to go, leaving Philipsen to finish it off comfortably for his seventh career win on the Tour.
It was a big relief for the 26 year-old, whose best result was a second place since the start in Florence.
The only bad news for Philipsen is that he did not regain much ground on Girmay as his rival stayed firmly in control of the points classification.
Girmay has 267 points to Philipsen’s 195.