Alaphilippe heads into Tour de France time trial with 'pressure of France on my shoulders'

You don't often find Julian Alaphilppe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) happy with a controlled, uneventful race, but the lack of action on the Tour de France's first foray into the high mountains ensured the Frenchman remained in the famous yellow jersey for another day. It will, in fact, be a yellow skinsuit, and he'll be last down the start ramp in Friday's individual time trial, which he says will give him the motivation to "hurt myself as much as possible" in order to survive another day.

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Patrick Fletcher

Patrick is an NCTJ-trained journalist, and former deputy editor of Cyclingnews, who has seven years’ experience covering professional cycling. He has a modern languages degree from Durham University and has been able to put it to some use in what is a multi-lingual sport, with a particular focus on French and Spanish-speaking riders. Away from cycling, Patrick spends most of his time playing or watching other forms of sport - football, tennis, trail running, darts, to name a few, but he draws the line at rugby.