If he wants to be ambitious when approaching the Tour de France, which he finds after having missed the previous edition, Julian Alaphilippe is no longer at the level, according to Christian Prudhomme.
Has its advantage on the Tour de Switzerland, finished at a convincing 5e Place, Julian Alaphilippe sees things as large as the Tour de France approaches. The runner of the Tudor team, absent from the Tour last year, hopes to win a new stage victory there, which has already won six in six participations.
“Winning a step is the Grail. My first target is the 2nd stephe said on the Tour de France website. On paper, it really corresponds to our characteristics, with Marc Hirschi and I, so we focus on this day. I even went to recognize the final this morning. I like it. We know that there will be other opportunities later, but it’s good to already have a clear goal in mind to launch the Tour. »»
Julian Alaphilippe will obviously face very serious competition since this two stage and the others that the native of Saint-Amand-Montrond has checked are inevitably also on the tablets of the masters in the matter, Tadej Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel. What make Christian prudhomme rather pessimistic.
“It is no longer the flamboyant Julian Alaphilippe of half a dozen years ago”
“Julian Alaphilippe returns to the Tour but it is no longer the flamboyant Julian Alaphilippe of half a dozen years ago”said the director of the Tour de France, who seems to want to bet more on the runners of the new generation.
“It is a change of generation. Thibaut Pinot left. Romain Bardet, too, has just left, he said. On the other hand, there are young people, there are new ones. There is Lenny Martinez, there is Romain Grégoire for example. There is Kevin Vauquelin of course, which has been brilliant in recent weeks, especially around Switzerland. We are counting on them. »»
More than on Julian Alaphilippe.
