The possible participation of Julian Alaphilippe in the Tour de France “is a matter of time trial” and no plan B is yet planned in the event of the Frenchman’s package, said Sunday the manager of the Quick Step AlphaVinyl team, Patrick Lefevere. In his weekly column in the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, the Flemish leader indicates that “in the most optimistic scenario, Julian will get back on his bike in mid-May. He will then have six weeks left before the start of the Tour”.
The world champion had fallen heavily on April 24, 60 kilometers from the finish of Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He had been hospitalized, suffering in particular from a hemopneumothorax and multiple fractures (ribs and scapula). “For him to be able to participate in the Tour, his recovery will have to go perfectly. The healing time of a pneumothorax is still an unknown,” said Tom Steels, one of the athletic directors of the “Wolfpack” earlier this week.
“A Tour de France with or without him makes a big difference, especially commercially, but also sportingly,” wrote Lefevere in Het Nieuwsblad. The manager excludes in any case that the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, recent winner of the Doyenne des Classiques, replaces his teammate on the Grande Boucle. The latter confirmed during the week that he wanted to respect his program decided at the start of the season, namely to focus on a single Grand Tour this year, the Tour of Spain.