Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Desseuninck) completed a hat trick on stage 7 of the Tour de France in Bordeaux to prevent Mark Cavendish's historic 35th stage win of the Tour.

In an interview with Sporza on Friday evening, Philipsen responded to protests from Astana Kazakstan team boss Alexander Vinokurov and Intermarché Circus Wanty boss Jean-François Broulard by saying, "It's It is unfortunate that this is happening," he said.

Philipsen analyzed the sprint on his program and noted that Cavendish's line changed as well in the last few meters of the race.

"The guy in front [Mark Cavendish] always sets the line, so I jumped on his wheel. 'Mark also starts in the middle and swerves to the right.'

"It makes sense for Gil May to get caught up a bit. Things are always magnified at the Tour."

The tension surrounding the sprint was no doubt magnified by several consecutive sprint stages with tumultuous finishes.

On stage 3, the UCI commissaires examined allegations that Philipsen had gone wide off line in the sprint and pulled away from Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), ultimately ruling that Philipsen was not at fault.

And just 24 hours later, on stage 4, Alpecin Deceuninck's teammate and key leadout man Mathieu Van der Pol interrupted Vinium Guillemay to make room for a successful sprint by Philipsen in Nogaro In doing so, Van der Poel was fined CHF 500 and relegated from 16th to 22nd place.

Cavendish is no doubt under pressure to break Eddy Merckx's Tour de France stage win record.

But equally, there is speculation that the challenge for the historic record worked in Philipsen's favor - the Tour Commissaires did not want to break the record by demoting Cavendish. Following Van der Pol's demotion and a series of claims, some race officials consider Philipsen to be a yellow card and risk demotion if another incident occurs.

However, Belgian national coach Sven Van Vanthourenhout considered the controversy a considerable overreaction. If something like this happened on the first day, we wouldn't even talk about it," he told Sporza magazine.

Philipsen likewise seemed unfazed by the attention his leadout and sprint received. It's a shame," he said of the fiasco.

With stage 8 likely to feature the race's best racers and stages 9 and 10 being mountainous, stage 11 from Clermont-Ferrand to Moulin will be the next chance for a group sprint battle. It will be interesting to see how this tension affects Alpecin-Desseuninck's sprint strategy.