With Road Worlds Too Steep, Jasper Philipsen Weighs Shot at Gravel World Title

With a climb-heavy road worlds course, Jasper Philipsen could be the latest European road star to target the UCI Gravel World Championships.

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Philipsen said he's considering racing the UCI gravel worlds in October. (Photo: Romain Doucelin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen says he wants to reach Madrid at the Vuelta a España to bank three weeks of racing ahead of 2026.

The Alpecin-Deceuninck star crashed out of July’s Tour de France in stage 3, and enters the final week of the Vuelta with few sprinting chances until Sunday in Madrid.

Will he make it?

“That’s the plan, yes. Let’s see if the body also wants to go,” Philipsen told Velo. “It’s good for my condition for next season, with good training, and we can see some opportunity in the last week.”

There hasn’t been a sprint since stage 8, which Philipsen won in Zaragoza. Since then, it’s been endless climbs and suffering for the fast men in the bunch.

The Vuelta climbs are steeper but shorter than what the bunch confronts in the Tour de France. Philipsen said the suffering is still the same for riders at the back of the bus.

“The climbs here are different than the Alps or the Pyrénées. They are not as long as in the Tour but they are still very hard,” Philipsen said of surviving climbs like the Angliru. “There is no real gruppetto here. It’s every rider for themselves. We try to stay together as a team.”

The 2024 Milan-San Remo champ insisted there is value in completing the Vuelta after his early Tour exit.

With one eye already on 2026, pushing through to Madrid to complete a full grand tour will do him some good.

“The Vuelta is the most important race of the season that’s left for me,” he said. “Of course, I would like to stay in, and I like to do attractive racing.”

No worlds or European championships

And there’s not much left for Philipsen in the back end of 2025.

After bouncing back from surgery from his Tour de France crash that left him with a broken clavicle, Philipsen is intent on squeezing the most out of this Vuelta. He won two stages and finished second in another. Madrid’s final romp is another chance to win.

Philipsen ruled out a tilt at the UCI Road World Championships in Rwanda and the European championships in France’s Drôme-Ardèche region. Both have too much vertical for his taste.

“This year the worlds are too tough. It’s a little too much climbing, so that’s why there aren’t many goals left for me personally,” he told Velo over the weekend. “It’s really tough, so it’s going to be for climbers this year.”

That reality also extends to the autumn’s other major one-day races. Il Lombardia, which closes the Italian calendar in October, offers no hope for sprinters. He recently added the SUPER 8 Classic on September 20 to his calendar.

Gravel worlds could be next

So what’s a race-hungry sprinter left to do? Gravel worlds perhaps?

“Maybe, yes. Let’s see,” Philipsen told Velo when asked about the UCI Gravel world Championships. “I like gravel racing. I was planning after the Vuelta to do some gravel riding.

“I did it a few times and I really enjoy it. You can make some decent speed on the road and also on the gravel sections, so it feels natural, feels like nice riding.”

This year’s UCI Gravel World Championships will be contested in South Limburg, the Netherlands, on October 11 and 12, 2025.

The discipline has attracted an increasing mix of WorldTour professionals since the debut of the UCI-sanctioned gravel worlds in 2022. All the winners so far are elite road pros who crossed over into the booming discipline, including Gianni Vermeersch, Matej Mohorič and Mathieu van der Poel, and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Kasia Niewiadoma and Marianne Vos.

Two of those names are current teammates at Alpecin-Deceuninck, so why not keep the jersey in-house?

A little gravel dust on his jersey could be the perfect way to end an up-and-down 2025 for the Belgian sprinter ace.