Did Julian Alaphilippe took pleasure in preventing the Belgian triplet Wellens-Campenaerts-Van Aert, who was taking shape this Sunday on the 15th stage of the Tour de France in Carcassonne, on the eve of the national holiday with our neighbors? The doubt was almost allowed by seeing the French runner throw his bike on the line to tear third place from Wout Van Aert, before clearing his fist and going from a raging cry. In full era in addition to all the runners and their sports direction via atria and radios, it seemed impossible that the recruit of the summer of 2024 at Tudor thought for a moment of the stage victory.
And yet … The director general of the Swiss team Raphael Meyer was the first to appear in front of the media, after a day marked by the serious fall of Julian Alaphilippe after only 17 km. “His radio had been broken since the fall and we never had time to replace it,” he said. That’s why he thought he was first by crossing the line. What could we do? He was told it was great to finish third. »»
The previous Philipsen in Calais in 2022
A speech necessarily inaudible for such a champion, who thought he had finally won this 7th stage victory over the big loop that he has been targeting more than everything for four years. “Unfortunately, my radio was no longer walking after my fall,” confirms the main interested party. So like an idiot, I made the best sprint possible by thinking of the stage victory. And there you go, I raised my hands when there were guys in front … “
A necessarily burlesque situation which recalls the short -term joy of the Belgian Jasper Philipsen during the Tour de France 2022. If he had also won his sprint in Calais, he had zapped that his compatriot Wout Van Aert had distorted company to everyone to win alone a few seconds earlier. Like what it is always partly a Belgian story …
Did Alaphilippe not take a can in 43 km?
On Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2020 then La Flèche Brabançonne last March, our national “loulou” had already distinguished itself by raising its arms too early, with various consequences for these dumplings. But this Sunday, especially in view of the racing facts (fall and injury to him, escaped and incessant counters at the front of the race), he seems to be more the victim than the instigator of this mid-Grossar, half-Anachronistic error.
Even without an operational radio, it is hard to design that no one at Tudor has alertly alerted Julian Alaphilippe to the situation at the top of the race when he recovered a water can from his team car in the last 43 kilometers of the stage. This is the moment, very far from the arrival, that Tim Wellens (UAE) had chosen to fly solo towards the final victory, with in Carcassonne 1’28 ” in advance on Victor Campenaerts and 1’36 ” ahead of the French.
A bit philosopher, Julian Alaphilippe (33) concluded about this episode: “It could have ended better, but I could also have returned home. Because on his big fall, the double world champion dislocated his left shoulder.
“It can give it even more the grinta”
“To be honest, within thirty seconds that followed the fall, I thought it was over for me,” he admitted on the set of France TV. I remembered how they had done in the hospital and managed to put my shoulder back in place. It made a big key and it came back to order. Afterwards, it was a time trial to come back, I fought because I had good legs. »»
This “slightly crazy day”, particularly for him, ended with a satisfactory radio exam: the state of his shoulder will not prevent him from starting to Mont Ventoux on Tuesday, after the day of rest. This is the essential. First Frenchman on a podium of a round stage this summer, Julian Alaphilippe is now to avoid tricolor cycling from finishing empty-handed by the Champs-Elysées next Sunday.
Our file on Julian Alaphilippe
Consultant for France TV, the former yellow jersey on the 2004 Tour Thomas Voeckler has a prediction: “Julian did not at all like this feeling after the finish line today. It can give him the grinta even more to seek a stage victory for real, as Philipsen had done in 2022. “It is all the harm that we wish Julian Alaphilippe, whose sequence filmed this Sunday by Eurosport, where he plagues against” shitty radios “within his new team, will have made us vibrate as much as his superb 15th stage.
