Julian Alaphilippe during the Tour of Flanders, April 4, 2021. – Shutterstock / SIPA
World champion Julian Alaphilippe said he was feeling “really good” ahead of the Ardennes classics and the Amstel Gold Race, the first meeting scheduled for Sunday in the Netherlands. “I made a very good decision to recover well after the Tour of Flanders rather than continue to work hard,” said the Frenchman from the Deceuninck team on Friday during a press briefing held by videoconference.
The world champion has not raced since the Tour of Flanders in which he worked primarily for his Danish teammate Kasper Asgreen, winner on April 4 of the great Belgian classic. Alaphilippe said he was coming out of an internship in the south of Spain, but without having gone for altitude. “I was in the south of Spain to be able to train in good conditions”, declared Alaphilippe who, during this period, extended his contract with Deceuninck until the end of 2024.
Liège-Bastogne-Liège still resists him
“The form is good,” he added. I preferred to take it easy for a few days, I managed to feel better. These last days, I felt really good in training, I think it will be okay, in any case I did the maximum. “
Alaphilippe (28) finished 4th in the last edition of the Amstel Gold Race in 2019, after being caught in extremis with the Danish Jakob Fuglsang. He was more successful in the Flèche Wallonne (two victories in 2018 and 2019), which will be run next Wednesday in Belgium. But he has so far failed in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the “Dean” scheduled for April 25, although he came close to success in 2015 (2nd) and in 2020 (demotion from 2nd to 5th place after raising your arms too early).
While he thinks the Dutch classic is the least suitable of the next three races, Alaphilippe underlined the change introduced by the modification of the route transformed into a circuit around Valkenburg due to the pandemic.
“It can look like a world championship”
“We did the recce this morning. Basically, the Amstel is a fairly nervous race, with lots of road construction obstacles. There, throughout the final circuit, it is not the obstacles that will make the race difficult but the series of difficulties, with much less recovery than normal ”, explained the Frenchman.
“We will have to be in a good position so as not to take the breaks after each turn and that will wear out the peloton much more than normal times,” added Alaphilippe. “It will be a difficult race, as I like, it can look like a world championship”. Alaph ‘always knows how to find the words to make our mouths water.