Breaking: Julian Alaphilippe to miss Tour de France

Julian Alaphilippe is said to have not been selected to ride the Tour de France, a hard hit for the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team rider who has for the last few months been preparing for the race, now seemingly in vain.

This has been reported by Het Nieuwsblad. The Frenchman suffered a hard crash at Liège-Bastogne-Liège earlier this year and has endured a slow but successful recovery, with a battle against time seemingly positive as he completed an altitude camp with his teammates at Sierra Nevada, and has had a decent result at yesterday's nationals.

After the French national championships, where Alaphilippe rode to a 13th place after helping Florian Sénéchal into the win, the World champion showed positive signs and commented that “I can't say that I had a lot of fun on the bike, but it went better than expected. So I'm happy".

Quick-Step are set to make their announcement in the coming hours or days, and there is a lot of suspense regarding who will be the selections for the Grand Boucle.