Julian Alaphilippe is an incredibly versatile rider, quite like the much talked about duo of Mathieu Van Der Poel and Wout Van Aert. The Frenchman even has a successful cyclocross career under his belt in the youth categories.

Alaphilippe might be a surprising favorite for the cobbled classics, after all, at one point in 2019 it appeared that he might win the Tour de France. Typically general classification ambitions in July do not complement spring classics campaigns. For Alaphilippe however, he has proven that he can do both.

Alaphilippe crashed out of the winning breakaway at the 2020 Tour of Flanders in a bizarre crash with a television motorbike. In 2021, Alaphilippe returns to the king of the classics for redemption, and for revenge.