Awarded each day to the leader of the Tour’s Points Classification (for which riders score points at mid-stage intermediate sprints and again at stage finishes), the maillot vert (“green jersey”) was created in 1953 to honor the 50th anniversary of the Tour de France. Originally taking its color from La Belle Jardinière, a chain of clothing stores that sponsored the jersey during its early years, we had grown accustomed to the jersey’s bright green hue. But for the second year in a row, this year’s jersey will be darker, with mint green accents on the sleeves and Skoda as its presenting sponsor.
The battle to win the green jersey at the 2024 Tour de France will again be intense with a defending champion poised for a repeat victory and several riders chasing him that might need to choose between targeting stage wins or the Points Competition.
All of them will have to contend with another mountainous route, one that limits most of their chances to the Tour’s first two weeks. In fact, don’t be surprised if the rider who wins the green jersey competition is the only sprinter to make it all the way to the end of the Tour.
So here’s a rundown of this year’s green jersey contenders–and some of the other sprinters hoping to leave the 2024 Tour de France with a stage victory.
The Defending Champion
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck)
After winning two stages in the 2022 Tour de France including Stage 21 on the Champs Elysees–a stage that many consider to be the unofficial sprinter’s world championship–Philipsen upped the ante last year, winning four stages and his first green jersey.
But if you watched the newest season of Netflix’s Tour de France: Unchained, you know that Philipsen was not a popular rider–at least among many of his peers–thanks to reckless, dangerous, and sometimes confusing tactics that earned him the nickname, “Jasper the Disaster” the year prior. The Belgian said at the beginning of the series that he was hoping to shed the moniker in 2023, but he did anything but that.
This season, Philipsen took a long break after the spring Classics, where he won his first Monument–Milan-San Remo–and took second–for the second year in a row–at Paris-Roubaix. He returned to racing at last week’s Tour of Belgium, winning a stage and the Points Classification in his nation’s home tour.
At the Tour de France he’s again shooting for as many stage wins as possible, and perhaps another green jersey–which should come easily if he wins as many stages as he did last year. Once again he’ll have a full team supporting him, led by none other than the Netherlands’ Mathieu van der Poel, the reigning world champion and one of the strongest riders in the sport.
We’re eager to see if Philipsen can accomplish his goals without drawing the ire of other riders and teams. Yes, sprinting is an aggressive enterprise and its best practitioners are willing to throw caution to the wind for the sake of crossing the finish line first. But there’s a way to do it such that others aren’t put in harm’s way–and that’s another line that Philipsen crosses far too often.
The Challenger
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)
Philippsen’s toughest competition should again come from Denmark’s Mads Pedersen, a hybrid sprinter similar to the Belgian in that he’s able to make it to the finish on tougher stages and still have the legs left to sprint for the win. That’s why–in addition to having won stages in all three grand tours, including his second Tour de France stage last year–he’s an accomplished Classics rider–like Philipsen.
The Dane took a break following this year’s spring Classics–during which he took a second win in Ghent-Wevelgem–but came back to racing at the recent Critérium du Dauphiné, where he won Stage 1 and wore the yellow jersey for a day. His chances of winning the green jersey will hinge upon how well he can do on the Tour’s flatter sprint finishes, the kind of stages in which Philipsen often has an edge. Pedersen might not target those days, instead choosing to pick specific stages on which to go all-in. Winning stages means more to his team than the green jersey does, but if Pedersen makes it through the first in the hunt for green, we won’t be surprised if he goes for it.
Just Shooting for Stage Wins
Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan)
Last year was supposed to be Cavendish’s last Tour de France. The then-38-year-old came to the Tour hoping to get the one win he needed to become the winningest rider (stage-wise) in Tour de France history. But sadly–just as it looked as if he were on the verge of taking the one win he needed to break his current tie with Belgium’s Eddy Merckx–he crashed and broke his collarbone. Luckily for us, Cav took some time to think (and heal) and then announced that he would race one more season, a season built entirely around getting his 35th Tour de France stage victory.
The competition will be as fierce as it was last year, but Cav’s Astana team has bolstered its ranks, most notably by signing one of Cav’s favorite lead-out men–Denmark’s Michael Mørkøv–away from Quick Step. With Mørkøv and Italy’s Davide Ballerini, Cavendish now has two of the riders who helped him win four stages and the green jersey with Quick Step in 2021, victories that reignited the Manxman’s bid to break Merckx’s record. As far as we’re concerned, Cav’s quest to win a stage will be one of the most exciting storylines in this year’s Tour, and if breaks the record, we’re gonna need some tissues.
Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL)
Jakobsen took a single stage win in two Tour de France starts with Soudal-Quick Step, a lackluster record which made it easy for the team to let the Dutchman leave for dsm-firmenich PostNL during the off-season. And so far he’s done little to indicate his former employers made a mistake, winning just one race in 2024, a stage at the Tour of Turkey, against mediocre competition.
He’ll be looking to redeem himself at the Tour de France, where unfortunately the route once again does him no favors. His best chances will come during the first two weeks, at which point he’ll likely head home before the Tour’s mountainous finale. A stage win would be a major victory for the 26-year-old, a result that could spark a turnaround for a rider who once looked poised to become one of the two or three best sprinters in the world.
Dylan Groenewegen and Michael Matthews (Jayco AlUla)
A five-time Tour stage-winner, Groenewegen came close a few times last year, but failed to add a sixth victory to his tally. The Dutchman is a bit more of a throwback to the days when pure field sprinters dominated the Tour’s flat stages, and with a team that always comes to the Tour with several cards to play, his chances have been somewhat hurt by the fact that he doesn’t have a leadout as powerful as some of the Tour’s other sprinters.
But that could change this year as Jayco AlUla is also bringing Matthews to the Tour de France. A four-time Tour stage-winner who won the green jersey in 2017, the Australian is the perfect complement to Groenewegen. As more of a hybrid sprinter, Matthews can serve as a perfect leadout man for Groenwegen on the flatter, faster finishes, while hunting for stage wins himself on hillier stages. He’s even a threat to win a stage from a breakaway. And while Matthews’ first order of business will be going for stage wins, don’t be surprised if he ends up contending for another green jersey as well.
Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty)
Girmay–who won a stage at the Giro d’Italia as a rookie in 2022–raced his first Tour de France last year with his best result being a third-place finish on Stage 7 in Bordeaux. But the French grand tour is an intimidating event, and Girmay isn’t the first rider to have come up short in his Tour de France debut.
The Eritrean’s spring wasn’t the best–he was largely irrelevant during the spring Classics and then crashed out of the Giro on Stage 4–but he seems to have found some form, scoring a win and two podium places in a series of one-day races in late-May and early-June. In the future we could see him becoming a green jersey contender, but for now, his only goal will be winning a stage.
Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale)
Bennett’s had a rocky few years. He won two stages and the green jersey with Quick Step in 2020, then was pushed to the side a few weeks before the race in 2021. Apparently, the Irishman had fallen out of favor with the team’s out-spoken and controversial general manager, Patrick Lefevere, and Mark Cavendish was given a last-minute call-up to take the Irishman’s place.
Cavendish went on to win four stages and the green jersey while Bennett was left looking for a new contract. So he went back to his previous team–BORA-hansgrohe–and won six races in two seasons for the German squad, including two stages at the 2022 Vuelta a España. He’s since moved to Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, where he hopes to score a stage win for the French team in his first Tour de France since his successful run in 2021.
Other Sprinters to Watch
One of the best young sprinters in the sport, Belgium’s Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny) is making his grand tour debut at the Tour de France. At first it looked like a Tour de France stage win might be a bit out of reach for the 22-year-old rookie this year, but then he outsprinted Philipsen, Jordi Meeus, and Wout van Aert–all Tour de France stage winners–to win the Belgian national championship last weekend, a tremendous boost of confidence as De Lie heads into his first Tour.
France’s Arnaud Démare (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) left Groupama-FDJ in frustration midway through last season after being left-off his team’s roster for the Tour de France for the second year in a row. Now the two-time Tour stage winner is hoping to score what would be a first-ever Tour de France stage victory for his new employers–a result that would certainly send a message to his old ones.
The French are going to need to win a stage one way or another, and if it’s not Démare, it might as well be Bryan Coquard (Cofidis), a 32-year-old veteran who was once one of the more promising young field sprinters in the sport. His best days might be behind him, but he did win a stage at the recent Tour de Suisse, a good sign heading into the Tour.
Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.
