The 109th Tour de France takes place without the two stars Mark Cavendish and Julian Alaphilippe. Both the British record stage winner and France’s world champion were absent from Team QuickStep-AlphaVinyl’s squad for the tour, which begins in Copenhagen.
Instead, the Belgian team relies on the Dutch sprinter Fabio Jakobsen and is also hoping for stage victories by the Danish classics specialist Kasper Asgreen.
Cavendish is only nominated as a replacement. The 37-year-old had set Eddy Merckx’s stage record last year and was actually hoping for his 35th day’s success. Cavendish only became British champion on Sunday after a strong performance. Now he can only be included in the squad due to a short-term illness or injury to a team-mate. The team justified the waiver of Alaphilippe with a lack of form. The 30-year-old had a bad fall near Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April and only returned to racing on Sunday.
| Surname | first name | nation |
|---|---|---|
| Lampaert | Yves | BEL |
| Asgreen | Kasper | THE |
| Cattaneo | Mattia | IT |
| Declerq | Tim | BEL |
| bagioli | Andrea | IT |
| Honoré | Mike Frolich | THE |
| Jakobsen | Fabio | NEED |
| Morkov | Michael | THE |