The return of Julian Alaphilippe after a long absence due to injury interrupted by COVID-19.
After returning to the party at the weekend at the Tour of Wallonia, 3 months after his heavy fall in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the world champion was tested for the virus on Monday morning.
He will not start stage 3 of the five-stage Belgian race, and is now unlikely to take part in the San Sebastian Classic on Sunday.
Alaphilippe fractured his shoulder blade, two ribs and suffered a punctured lung in his horrific play of fate in Liège. He went almost a month without racing and, despite his efforts to regain fitness for the Tour de France, I missed the variety for the QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team.
Alaphilippe had competed in the French championships at the end of June in an effort to participate in the Tour, but once that was taken off the table, he held back and came up with a plan for this part of the year.
He returned to the Tour de Wallonie on Saturday and returned to victory by triumphing in the first level at the Mur de Huy, scene of his 4 victories at La Flèche Wallonne. On stage 2, he finished in the first major peloton, almost nine minutes victorious, and passed the leader’s jersey to Rob Stannard (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Alaphilippe dropped out of the race on Monday morning and will likely have to miss the prestigious one-day Classic in San Sebastian, which he won in 2018. Assuming the rest of his program is interrupted, he would run the Tour de l’Ain, which begins on August 9, before the Vuelta a España, which starts 10 days later.
Alaphilippe will then travel to Australia for the World Championships, where he will attempt to win the rainbow jersey from the road race for the third year in a row, before finishing his season at Il Lombardia in October.
“The main goal this week is to do it and get into the pace of the race,” Alaphilippe said ahead of the Tour de Wallonie.
“Obviously I would like to attack and get effects, because those are the races that suit me. But first, I have to see where I stand. It will be to pursue the effects but also to build the condition. “
“It’s another show for me compared to other years, and I’ll try to have some freshness by the end of the season, because I want to finish it better than I started it. I trained at altitude. I didn’t do some crazy education to be in a position right away, but I’m still curious to see how I’m doing in Wallonia before St. Sebastian. With the Tour de l’Ain, it’s a smart block before the Vuelta.
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Associate Editor – Europa. Patrick is an NCTJ-trained journalist who has seven years of delight in professional cycling coverage. He has a degree in Modern Languages from Durham University and has been able to put it to smart use in what is a multilingual game, with a specific focus on French and Spanish speaking cyclists. After joining Cyclingnews as editor-in-chief thanks to his professional experience, Patrick became editor-in-chief in 2018 and oversaw a significant expansion throughout the site. -Deep production. Since 2021, he has been deputy editor-in-chief – Europe, taking more responsibility for the content of the site as a whole, while continuing to write and, despite a pandemic-induced disruption, to racing. all over the world. Outside of cycling, Patrick spends most of his time gambling or watching another bureaucracy of the game: football, tennis, running, darts, to name a few, but he draws the line in rugby.
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