Soudal-QuickStep confirmed Julian Alaphilippe would lead their seven-rider squad at subsequent week’s Czech Tour, July 25-28, which can conclude on the opening weekend of the Paris Olympic Video games.
The UCI 2.1 four-day stage race will function the ultimate tuneup for Alaphilippe earlier than he competes for France within the males’s highway race the next Saturday in his dwelling Olympic Video games.
Formally named to the French males’s highway crew on July 8, Alaphilippe can be joined on the roster alongside Kévin Vauquelin (Arkéa-B&B Lodges), Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and European champion Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike). These three riders are all presently competing on the Tour de France, with Vauquelin having received stage 2 and can make their first appearances on the Olympics.
Alaphilippe has labored together with his WorldTour crew this season to govern his schedule for prime situation, with the Olympic Video games highway race his prime precedence. The veteran French rider opted to not experience with Soudal-QuickStep at this 12 months’s Tour de France to optimise that buildup for the Olympic highway race, which takes place on Saturday, August 3.
It was through the Giro d’Italia, the place Alaphilippe received stage 12 in his debut on the Italian Grand Tour, that he advised crew supervisor Patrick Lefevere that he wished to prioritise the Paris Video games over the Tour for his summer season. He departed Italy with the general most combative rider award and an understanding that his path was clear for the Olympics.
“I perceive above all that Julian already has Paris in thoughts. It will likely be his final probability to dwell the Olympic Video games, particularly at dwelling. Why deprive him of that,” Lefevere advised L’Equipe in Might.
Alaphilppe makes his second look on the quadrennial competitors, using to fourth place within the highway race on the 2016 Rio Video games. The Paris highway course favours the attacking Classics model of the two-time World Champion, with the 273km route together with 13 named ascents for two,800 metres of climbing. A 18.4km ending circuit in central Paris will embrace passes up the 6.5% ramp of the Côte de la butte Montmartre.
When the Czech Tour’s stage 3 takes place on the Saturday previous to the Olympic highway race, the time trial competitions happen in Paris for women and men. Vauquelin would be the sole consultant for France within the males’s ITT that day.
It’s a first-time look for Soudal-QuickStep to participate within the Czech Tour, which may have eight WorldTour groups at first. Alaphilippe will line up with Czech native Josef Černý, Kasper Asgreen, Mattia Cattaneo, Antoine Huby, James Knox and Luke Lamperti.
