20 November 2020

World road race champion Julian Alaphilippe eyes Tour de France glory after sensational season

World road race champion Julian Alaphilippe has revealed that the Tour de France is the one race left that he wants to win.

The 28-year-old Frenchman was one of the standout riders in the truncated 2020 season as he won the world title in Italy, Brabantse Pijl, claimed a stage of the Tour de France and held the yellow jersey for three days, while also finishing in the top five in both Milan-San Remo and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Alaphilippe became world champion for the first time back in September

(Maxppp/PA Images)

But while many are looking at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix as the major one-day monuments missing from his palmarès, Alaphilippe has his eye on success at the three-week long Tour.

"Now after winning the World Championships, for sure I’d really like to win the Tour de France," Alaphilippe told Eurosport’s Bistrot Velo.

"The two races that always made me dream were the World Championships and the Tour de France. 

"Of course, I want to win Monuments and Classics but if I could only pick one, it would be the Tour."

France has not had a winner of the Tour since Bernard Hinault beat American Greg LeMond by one minute and 42 seconds back in 1985.

Alaphilippe held the yellow jersey for a total of 14 days in the 2019 Tour, but relinquished it three days before the finish and ended the race in fifth.

If Alaphilippe was to win the 2021 Tour de France, he would become the first man since LeMond in 1990 to win the three-week race while wearing the world champions’ rainbow jersey.

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