Alaphilippe Targets Classics Tour de France & Olympics in 2021 the frenchman told reporters yesterday in the virtual media conference.
By: Zack Morris
All eyes are on the reigning world champion Julian Alaphilippe heading into the 2021 Classic season. In the last three years, Alaphilippe has won some of the biggest races in the sport including; 5 Stages of the Tour de France, Strade Bianche, Milano San Remo, Fleche Wallone twice, Classica San Sebastian, and of course the World Road Championships. Coming off of three absolutely incredible seasons, we can only expect Alaphilippe to build on his success in 2021.
The Frenchman has laid out a preliminary calendar which starts at the Tour de Provence, leading into the classics where he says he has great motivation ahead of the Tour of Flanders. Alaphilippe crashed out of the winning breakaway when he hit a moto in the 2020 edition of the Tour of Flanders.
After the classics, Alaphilippe will target the Tour de France, then the Olympic Games road race, before finishing the season with the World Road Championships.
Here are the words directly from Alaphilippe virtual press conference
“I’ll start at the Tour de la Provence – it’s nice to be able to start in the rainbow jersey in France,” he said. “Then I go until Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I’m very motivated. You have to take it goal by goal, though. For me I’m just focussed on the first part of the season, then the second part is the Tour de France and Olympics, which can be a big goal also.
Then the Worlds is the last part – I just know that we’ll do the climb from Brabantse Pijl there. I have the time to think about it and take it easy
I know I won’t ride the Tour de France for the general classification,” he said. “But we never know. In 2019 it was a good surprise for me, but my first goal is to perform well in the first part of the season.
The route looks good. I don’t know about the stages. For me the Tour comes later after the first part of the season, but I just saw that there are some really nice stages which really suit me well, so I’ll be really motivated. For the rest, we’ll see.