Julian Alaphilippe and Remco Evenepoel to ride Belgian one-day race to recon World Championship climbs
The Druisvenkoers Overijse route takes on some of the roads that will be used on September 26
Julian Alaphilippe and Remco Evenepoel are set to ride Belgian one-day race Druivenkoers Overijse as a recon for the upcoming World Championships on the same roads.
Reigning world champion Alaphilippe will be joined by young Belgian star Evenepoel and Tour of Flanders winner Kasper Asgreen, as part of a strong Deceuninck - Quick-Step team to tackle to hilly race and to ride some of the roads used at this year's World Championships.
The roads around the town of Overijse are just south-west of the 2021 Worlds host town Leuven, with Druivenkoers taking place on August 26, making it an ideal recon race for some big names.
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Team sports director, Rik Van Slycke said: "Druivenkoers Overijse is an important race, because it puts on the table a hard course with some sections that will be ridden also at the Worlds, and this will make things more interesting than usual.
"We have a strong team and we will try to play an important role, as we always do. It won’t be easy, but we go to the start with a lot of confidence and motivation."
Druivenkoers Overijse 2021 will be raced over 192km, starting and finishing in the Flemish town of Overijse, featuring 20 punchy categorised climbs, including the Moskesstraat, the Taymansstraat, and the Bekestraat, all over which will feature in the elite men's road race at the World Championships.
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The men's race at the 2021 Worlds, scheduled for the final day of racing on September 26, will be raced over 268km from Antwerp to Leuven in Flanders, featuring 2,500 metres of climbing.
This will be Alaphilippe's first race since finishing sixth at the Clásica San Sebastián in late July, where his team-mate Mikkel Honoré took an impressive third.
Alaphilippe had a mixed Tour de France after taking the first stage, wearing the yellow jersey for a day before Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) took over. He then went into a series of breakaways but was unable to get a second stage win.
Evenepoel on the other hand has come back in flying form after having to abandon his first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia earlier this year.
He has since retained his title at the Belgium Tour, scored a top-10 in the Olympic time trial and put in a very impressive performance to win the Tour of Denmark, lapping the peloton on the queen's stage.
The 21-year-old Belgian will be keen to get close to top form heading towards a home World Championships that will be held just 48km from his hometown. .
As well as Evenepoel and Alaphilippe, the Danish duo of Asgreen and Honoré will surely be in the mix for the win both at this race but also the Worlds.
Both riders have had strong results this season with Asgreen taking the Tour of Flanders and the E3 Saxo Bank Classic as well as his nation TT title and Honoré pulling off fifth overall at the Tour of Poland behind team-mate and overall winner, João Almeida as well as multiple top-10 results across the season and a win at Coppi e Bartali.
The rest of the team is made up of three of the strongest domestiques around with Iljo Keisse, Pieter Serry and Dries Devenyns set to ride in a support role.
Deceuninck - Quick-Step team for Druivenkoers Overijse 2021
Julian Alaphilippe (Fra)
Remco Evenepoel (Bel)
Kasper Asgreen (Den)
Mikkel Honoré (Den)
Dries Devenyns (Bel)
Pieter Serry (Bel)
Iljo Keisse (Bel)
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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