As the luminous yellow figure of Jonas Vingegaard rolled down the start ramp of the stage 20 time trial in Lacapelle-Marival, en route to sealing his first Tour de France crown, 500 miles north the world champion Julian Alaphilippe was hauling up Belgium’s famous Mur de Huy.
At the top of this steep road, Alaphilippe crossed the line and raised a fist in celebration. He had won the first stage of the Tour de Wallonie, and perhaps more importantly he had shown to himself and the wider world that he was back. Alaphilippe was one of the unlucky victims of a domino-crash in the peloton during April’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege, falling into a ditch where he broke two ribs, a kneecap and suffered a collapsed lung. Yet less than three months later, here he was winning again.
