No Tour de France 2022 for Julian Alaphilippe

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Reason finally prevailed over desire. If Julian Alaphilippe was keen to shine in front of his audience on the roads of the Tour de France, his body reminded him of reality. That of a runner, battered by severe injuries, who would certainly not have endured three weeks of high-intensity running. The rider of the Quick-Step Alpha Vynil therefore resolved, Monday, June 27, to leave his place in the Belgian collective, unveiled four days before the start.

“We decided to give him more time to recover and rebuild his condition, so he can be 100% for the second part of the season.“, indicates the press release of the Belgian formation. The French rider affirms that “to miss another opportunity to wear my beautiful rainbow jersey in my home country is very sad for me”but includes the decision: “I also don’t want to be at the start if I can’t be at my best level.“This absence sadly confirms a half-hearted year for the wearer of the rainbow jersey…

In sport as elsewhere, the hardest part is not getting to the top, it’s staying there. Julian Alaphilippe experienced it this year. If he had left 2021 with a title of world champion, his second, at the end of an explosive and daring “Alaph'” race, he has somewhat fallen into line in 2022. Everything is relative for a champion of this caliber and it would be far too hasty to speak of decline. His results remained very honorable but, despite the iridescent jersey which transcends its holder, victories were rare.

“I realize that this is a really rotten year sportingly”, he confessed without pretense to Franceinfo: sport just before the French championships. “Personally, I haven’t had a lot of fun on the bike, and I haven’t had a lot of results either. This year, my victory in the Tour of the Basque Country is almost anecdotal in comparison with my performance on the recent seasons”.

Second place, behind Nairo Quintana, on the Tour de la Provence, had however launched his year on an encouraging basis. For his first race of the season, the Frenchman, now 30 years old, proved that his legs were not stiff. But it was the Strade Bianche, in Italy, who would give the “the” of his season a few weeks later: knocked to the ground by gusts of wind and the fall of a rider, Alaphilippe managed to get back on the bike but, crippled back pain, he finished in an anonymous 58th place.

Out of the game during the Tirreno-Adriatico, “Alaph'” then skipped Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, victim of bad bronchitis. The month of April finally marks an upturn for Saint-Amandois. He won his first stage victory of the season at the Tour of the Basque Country and regained his confidence. This is a good thing since the Ardennes classics are looming and its declared main objective for the season: Liège-Bastogne-Liège. His fourth place on the Flèche wallonne is, in this sense, encouraging even if it can be seen as a disappointment for the triple winner of the event. But the real meeting takes place a few days later. Liege.

Alas, once again, this “monument” will refuse him. Brutally. 60 kilometers from the finish, the double world champion is caught in a fall and finds himself thrown into the side. The assessment is clear: hemopneumothorax, two broken ribs and a fractured shoulder blade. From then on the time trial is engaged. No streamlined machine or aerodynamic helmet this time, it’s just a matter of beating the clock to be restored in time for the big Tour de France deadline…

Since 2019 and his 14 days in yellow, the Frenchman has forged an extremely strong bond with the Grande Boucle and its spectators. If the final victory, a time envisaged by some, is no more than a pipe dream, seeing him dynamite the stages and irradiate the race with his panache remained, on the other hand, quite possible.

By dint of will and physio sessions, Alaphilippe was at the start of the French road championships on Sunday. In itself, that was already a feat. Even better, the Frenchman was not content to just do extras and greatly participated to the coronation of his teammate Florian Sénéchal. The latter, initially a reserve like the co-holder of the record for stage victories on the Tour (34) Mark Cavendish, was finally drafted, the day after the announcement, into the Belgian team after the positive test of the Covid-19 by Tim Declercq.

On the evening of the event, his trainer, Franck Alaphilippe, even wanted to be a little optimistic. “He seems happy with his form.” he told Eurosport, thus opening the door to possible participation. The Quick-Step Alpha Vynil, which judged its runner too fair physically to hope that he plays a major role, has just closed it with a double turn.


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