Strade Bianche 2022 LIVE - Julian Alaphilippe, Greg van Avermaet, Tadej Pogacar in the mix at gravel classic

Stay tuned for live text comments from Nick Christian Ad/> WHO IS RACING STRADE BIANCHE? Strade BiancheStrade Bianche – Who’s riding? Who can take Mathieu van der Poel’s crown?YESTERDAY AT 18:26 No Wout, no Mathieu – no fun? Not necessarily. While defending champion Van der Poel continues his return from injury and last weekend’s Omloop winner Van Aert, the 2020 champion, is instead riding Paris-Nice from Sunday, there will be three former winners on the startlist.

The 2019 champion Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl) is the pick of the bunch although 2018 winner Tiesj Benoot (Jumbo-Visma) showed much promise for his new team over Opening Weekend and will hope to play a decisive role in the race. It’s now been five years since Poland’s Michal Kwiatkowski picked up the second of his Strade Bianche wins and he’s part of an intriguing Ineos Grenadiers squad that also includes Briton Geraint Thomas, and Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz.

Tom Pidcock is a late absentee with a stomach virus. Other big names to consider are Greg van Avermaet (AG2R-Citroen), Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost), Gianni Moscon and Miguel Angel Lopez (both Astana Qazaqstan), Lennard Kamna (Bora-Hansgrohe), Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal), Sepp Kuss and Tom Dumoulin (both Jumbo-Visma), Jakob Fuglsang (Israel-Premier Tech), Kasper Asgreen (Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl), Warren Barguil (Arkea-Samsic), Gianluca Brambilla (Trek-Segafredo), Romain Bardet (Team DSM), Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco), Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates).