Alaphilippe hot favourite for cycling world crown
INNSBRUCK, Austria: France’s Julian Alaphilippe has been heavily tipped by his rivals to win Sunday’s cycling world championships showdown in Innsbruck on what many have described as one of the toughest routes ever.
The race over a draining 258.5 kilometres features almost 5,000 metres of climbing, culminating in a brutal final ascent, a daredevil descent and a slight uphill incline on the last 2km dash for the line where huge crowds are expected in the centre of the Austrian town.
Tour of Spain winner Simon Yates and his twin Adam are also among the favourites and should one of them succeed, it would be the first British winner since Mark Cavendish in 2011.
But the twins both fear the French trident led by Alaphilippe -- winner of the King of the Mountains classification in this year’s Tour de France -- with Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot both potential winners too.
“I think Alaphilippe is the main favourite, you have to look at him,” Simon said on Friday.
“He’s in very good form, he’s won many good races and he’s backed by a very good team, for sure the strongest team. They have many cards to play so it’s not just him.”
“We all know how good (Alaphilippe) is uphill and downhill,” he added.
The twins were in bullish mood at the team hotel on Friday and said they would see how the race panned out before deciding on a final plan of attack.
“I’m feeling good, Simon’s feeling good and that’s all that matters,” Adam said. “During the race it’s real simple tactics. Anything can happen so we’ve just got to keep it simple.”
The Colombian national team boasts powerful climbers, led by a tight-knit quartet of Rigoberto Uran, Nairo Quintana, Sergio Henao and Miguel Angel Lopez.
“It’s a really hard course, super demanding and with that hill coming after six and a half hours riding, I think it’ll be very, very hard,” said Uran, who came second in the Tour de France in 2017.