Jasper Philipsen sprinted to victory as his team Alpecin-Deceuninck timed their lead-out to perfection on Tuesday's Stage 16 of the Tour de France, as UAE Team Emirates' Tadej Pogacar retained his overall lead.
Philipsen's win, on a 189-kilometre flat ride from Gruissan to Nimes, was his third on the Tour this year after victories on Stages 10 and 13, while green jersey holder Biniam Girmay, who has also won three stages, crashed in the final two kilometres.
Slovenia's Pogacar retained his yellow jersey with a lead of three minutes and nine seconds over Jonas Vingegaard in the general classification, while Remco Evenepoel remains over five minutes behind.
Alpecin-Deceuninck controlled the sprint as the riders moved up to the front to set up the victory for Philipsen and it worked to perfection as Mathieu Van der Poel's textbook lead-out allowed his Belgian teammate to win comfortably.
“I'm really happy after such a team effort. It's always nice when you can win together and that's what we did today, definitely,” Philipsen said.
“I didn't see the crash [involving Girmay]. We were trying to position ourselves and focus on our own lead-out. I hope everyone is OK.
“I was feeling good, I had a good rest day on Monday, my shape improved during the Tour. So I was confident if we could line it up good today, we could go for the win. It's a difficult level, so three wins is good. We can be proud.”
Philipsen crossed the line ahead of Phil Bauhaus, Alex Kristoff and Sam Bennett.
Girmay eventually got back on his bike as his teammates helped him across the line. But the Eritrean saw his lead in the sprint standings reduced to 32 points.
While there are no more flat stages on the Tour, the green jersey is still very much up for grabs with intermediate sprints in the next five stages.
“Everything is possible. He [Girmay] is climbing really well,” Philipsen added. “I hope he's OK after the crash because he doesn't deserve to lose like this. I will try whatever I can because the hard stages are to come.”
Britain's Mark Cavendish, who has won a record 35 stages on the Tour in his career, finished 17th in potentially his final sprint stage.
Because of the Olympics, this year's Tour de France will finish in Nice on Sunday – meaning there will be no final day dash down the iconic Champs Elysees.
Pogacar mentioned this after Tuesday's race. “It's a shame for the sprinters not to have the final day sprint, they don't have that much motivation to finish the race but I hope they come all the way with us,” said the yellow jersey holder.
Wednesday's Stage 17 is a 178km ride from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Superdevoluy.
