Alaphilippe continues upward trajectory at Tour de l'Ain
Omega Pharma-QuickStep rider could be a Classics contender in the making
When Dave Brailsford spoke a couple of days before the start of the Tour de France about his desire to win the race with a French rider, he said he’d been impressed by several very familiar names including Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet. Brailsford also mentioned another less renowned Frenchman who had caught his eye, and over the past few days Julian Alaphilippe has demonstrated why.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).