QuickStep-AlphaVinyl team manager Patrick Lefevere has revealed his strategy for selecting the eight riders for this year’s 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France, confirming that Julian Alaphilippe will ride if he is fit, that Mark Cavendish remains ready in case Fabio J🌞akobsen has problems, while Kasper Asgreen will target the time trial to ensure the team’s best possible ꦑplace for the team car convoy position.    

Lefevere revealed his philosophy in hཧis regular weekend column in for . 

“We always work with a long list: a number of riders already know from the first training camp of the season that we are lookiꦕng at them for the Tour. After Switzerland we will go from eleven names to the final eight🐽 names,” Lefevere said.

Most teams have a weekly catch-up with management and directeur sportif on a Monday and the call after the Tour de Suisse will finalise the names of the eight riders for the Tour de France after a check of the♏ir performances fitness and the team’s ambitions.

The risk of COVID-19 infecti♚ons means teams are keeping a number of riders on stand-by in case they are needed for a late call-up.𓆏       

“Usually we arrive at our eight names fairly unanim♌ously. It's not rocket science ei🎶ther,” Lefevere said.

QuickStep-AlphaVinyl is not targeting overall victory at the Tour de France and so will select a team to target stage victories in the 👍sprints and whenever the terrain suits them. 

Illness and injury disrupted 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:QuickStep-AlphaVinyl’s spring and world champion 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Julian Alaphilippe suffered a punctured lung, fractured ribs and fractured shoulder blade in a high-speed crash at 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He spent several days in hospital and severa൩l weeks off the bike but is back training and has beꦇen working at altitude in hope of building some kind of fitness for the Tour de France.   

A🔥laphilippe has not raced since his crash but will be selected if he can build someꩵ kind of form for the end of June.  

“If Alaphilippe gets ꧙fit, he will come,” Lefevere made clear.

“We're not going to be secretive about that. He is making good progress with altitude training in the Sierra⭕ Nevada, but with all due respect: there is a big difference between training uphill with Yves Lampaert or Tim Declercq and effectively participating in the race.”

Lefevere confirmed that Jakobsen is QuickStep-AlphaVinyl's first pick for the sprinter role. 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Mark Cavendish won four stages and the green points jersey last ye𓂃ar when he was a late replacement for Sam Bennett. 

Cavendish recently completed the Gir🅘o d’Italia and a number of one-day races. It is unclear if Cavendish will stay with QuickStep-AlphaVinyl beyond 2022 but Lefevere insisted the Manxman was loyal to the team’s cause and ready to step-up if needed again.

“It is no secret that we are going to sprint in the Tour with Fabio Jakobsen. Although I will continue to speak with two names until ad nauseam,” he sai♏d. 

“Last year, Sam Bennett was also a certainty, so to speak, but in the end Cavendish went to the Tour. I♐ talked to him on the last weekend of the Giro. Mark said: ‘I'm a pro, I'll be ready until the last day.’”

Whoever sprints for QuickStep-AlphaVinyl at the Tour de France they will have a quality lead-ou♈t train.&n🥂bsp;

“Obviously, if you're going with 😼a sprinter, you also need a lead-out. Until further notice, M⭕ichael Mørkøv is the best in the world in that role,” Lefevere said. 

“Yve💟s Lampaert and/or Florian Sénéchal have their place on the train. And because as a sprinter team you have to control the race, you also need a profile like 🃏Tim Declercq or Josef Cerny. Unfortunately, the latter fell ill again in the Dauphiné.”

Lefevere knows the importance of team car positioning in the Tour de France convoy, so that riders can be serviced and supported qui💜ckly at any moment. 

For that reason 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Kasper Asgreen will target the time trial, even if he has💦 litt﷽le chance of victory against Filippo Ganna and Wout van Aert.

“If you give up the time trial🌳, you alsꩲo give up the classification and you drive in the support car in position twenty behind the peloton,” Lefevere explained. 

“You don't want to experience that if the cobblestone ride to Arenberg is plan🤡ned on Wednesday. We are counting on Kasper Asgreen for🐈 the time trial. Remi Cavagna is also an option.

“We will not go to the Tour with an outspoken classification man, even without his di🎀fficult preparation, we would not burn out Alaphilippe that way. But because of the convoy position, we have to stay near our riders. For that reason Mattia Cattaneo and Dries Devenyns can be used anywhere in the team and at the same time can ride classification.”