Host country’s hopes of first title winner since 1985 are high after a breathtaking weekend thanks to Julian Alaphilippe’s risk-taking
The headline writers of L’Équipe seldom let you down. On Sunday they scraped the mould off a pun – JOUR DE FRANCE – held in storage for almost three and a half decades. Those words were chosen to celebrate a day on which all the nation’s stars aligned in the bike race that represents its greatest sporting spectacle: a Frenchman won the queen stage on the Col du Tourmalet with another Frenchman successfully defending the yellow jersey in its centenary year and the president of the republic along for the ride. And there was now the strong possibility that the race might be won by a home rider for the first time since Bernard Hinault in 1985.
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