The 2023 Mountainbike World Champion has been widely praised for his promising talent and thanks to his versatile abilities he has been labelled as a possible successor to another Dane, Jonas Vingegaard.
Despite the rising interest around his debut, Phillipsen remains calm before the first stage of the Tour Down Under set to take place Tuesday.
"It is too early to assess my level compared to other riders. I have to ride a few more bike races before I can say more about it," says the young Dane to Feltet.dk ahead of his debut.
"I haven't specified my training yet in relation to my rider type. It's still open for me and I still want to do some different races this year and see where I'm at my best and where I need to improve.”, he says.
Over the past few years, he has turned into one of the world's best junior riders. He has triumphed in both road racing and mountain biking at the World Championships, and his signature was in such high demand that a number of big cycling teams approached him with large money offers to acquire his services.
In the end, Phillipsen decided to put his faith in Lidl-Trek and the team surely has not hesitated to throw him to the lions. In the Australian stage race, he will now battle it out with some of cycling's absolutely heavyweights under great scrutiny from the international cycling media.
Several respected international media sources were represented at Mondays press conference and before the race the young Dane is expected to finish within the Top 10 among a number of bookmakers.
However, the high expectations certainly doesn´t seem to throw off the talented young rider.
“I don't feel like I have anything to prove. I hope to get some good experiences and ride a good bike race down here. I want to sit back with a feeling of satisfaction when the race is done.”, he says.
Tour Down Under consists of six stages and Phillipsen is not the only Dane who will be in action.
Julius Johansen will make a comeback to the World Tour for UAE Emirates, and also Casper Pedersen (Quick-Step), Tobias Lund Andresen (Team Picnic PostNL) and Mathias Norsgaard (Movistar) will start in the race