The five-day shortened Criterium du Dauphiné will be held Wednesday in Clermont-Ferrand, France, where Julien Alaphilippe, who recently finished second in Milan-San Remo, will lead a strong Detuning-Quick Step team in the final push for this year's Tour de France.

The race will be the final push for this year's Tour de France.

Although the race has been shortened from eight days to the original May 31-June 7 schedule, changed due to the Coronavirus outbreak, the traditional prelude to the Tour de France will not fade away as the sport's biggest stars converge here to put as many climbs on their legs as possible. It will not fade away as the sport's biggest stars converge here to put as many climbs on their legs as possible.

"The Dauphiné is the best preparation for the Tour de France. It will be a special competition with a lot of hard stages, but I'm still not scared and I want to win another stage like last year," Alaphilippe said last month when he unveiled a revised race program.

In 2019, the 28-year-old Frenchman finished the Dauphiné with both a stage win and the polka-dot jersey, making him the race's best climber, but he will be joined by teammates James Knox, Remi Cavagna, Bob Jungels, Caspar Asgreen, Tim Declerck, neo With the help of professional player Mauri Vansevenan, he hopes to reap at least a similar harvest.

Knox, Jungels, Cavagna, and Asgreen should be especially strong on the climbs, while Declercq and Vansevenan will be strong elsewhere. The team will do everything in its power to ensure that Alaphilippe can light up the next Tour de France again, as he did last year with a two-week yellow jersey and fifth place overall.

He proved that he is on the right track by finishing second behind Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma) in Milan-San Remo on Saturday.

If fans enjoyed a week of great racing with the Tour de Pollogne, Tour de Ain, and Milan-San Remo taking place simultaneously, the Dauphiné saw Nairo Quintana (Alcare Samsic), Richie Porte (Trek-Segafredo ), Mikkel Landa (Bahrain McLaren) and other GC hopefuls could make further strides, while UAE Team Emirates' Tadej Pogacar, Emmanuel Buchmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), Rigoberto Uran (EF Pro Cycling), Adam Yates ( Mitchelton-Scott) will come together, while Tour de Ain winner Primoz Roglic, Jumbo Visma's teammate Steven Kruijswijk and Tom Dumoulin will once again be joined by Team Ineos' Egan Bernal, Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas. They are expected to battle it out.

It is truly a star-studded race, and sprinters are rarely seen, with the few exceptions of Andre Greipel of Israel's Startup Nation and Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe. Non-climbers such as Sagan and Greipel are trying to make it up the climbs in order to run through the Tour in order to win the green jersey in Paris.

Along with Alaphilippe, Jungels and Asgreen are likely to be in the final Tour squad for the Dauphiné-Quick Step, but for Alaphilippe at least, the climbing stages of the Dauphiné are considerably more than many of the mountain stages that the riders will face in September Even though they are short, they should serve as a dress rehearsal for the Tour.

"The Dauphiné will be a very hard race, probably one of the toughest of the season, with five stages, five uphill finishes, and four of those stages will be very short and full of gas from the start." Tom Steele, sport director of the Dooslink-Quickstep, said in a press release on Sunday.

"The weekend [stages 4 and 5] will be particularly hard, with nearly 4,000 meters of elevation change each over the two days, which could make a big difference in the standings. We have a strong team and we hope not only for a stage win, but also that the riders finish the race in good conditions and feeling." "

Dousselink Quickstep for the 2020 Criterium du Dauphiné: Julien Alaphilippe, Caspar Asgreen, Remi Cavagna, Tim Declercq, Bob Jungels, James Knox, Mauri Vansevenin