Not a lot seems to be going right for Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) in recent months, from a long injury lay off to COVID-19 on his return, but Cadel Evans knows all too well that a season that fails to go to plan doesn’t necessarily mean that all important race day at Road World Championships will follow the same path.
Evans won the prized rainbow jersey in 2009 after earlier in the season his hopes of finally turning two years of second places into yellow at the Tour de France ended with a 30th place and then a potential Vuelta a España victory slipped away with a botched neutral service wheel change. It perhaps shouldn’t come as a surprise then that when the 2011 Tour de France winner was asked for his thoughts on who could prove a threat at the World Championships when the event returns to his home nation for the first time in 12 years this September, there wasn’t for a second any discounting riders that hadn’t had the results falling in their favour recently.
Alaphilippe is well and truly on Evan’s radar for a third World Championship title in a row in Australia. Even though the elite men’s 266.9km race from Helensburgh to Wollongong delivers an estimated 3,945 metres of elevation gain, he believes the style of course could help shift the advantage away from the Grand Tour GC riders – particularly those who has already extended themselves in the hunt for yellow at the Tour de France – and toward those who excel in one-day events.
“Of course when [Tadej]Pogačar is on his good days, it doesn’t matter what sort of race it is he can win it, but I just think the course and the unpredictability of the climb and the finishing circuits and the corners is going to suit a one day specialist,” Evans said in a media conference held by organisers of the World Championships in Wollongong. “And that’s where I point more towards Julian Alaphilippe, that style of rider.”
Alaphilippe, took a solo victory at Road Worlds in Imola in 2020 after attacking on the final climb of the race with 12km to go and then went onto keep his grip on the rainbow jersey in Flanders, this time with his race winning attack coming 20km out from the line. The Road World Championships in Wollongong again provide a course which looks sure to thin the field and bring the fight for the rainbow jersey down to a select group or well-timed attack.
However, as much as the course may play to Alaphilippe’s strengths, the two-time world champion’s season has been…
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