The images still give chill in the back. On April 24, 2022, the Frenchman, then double reigning world champion, suffered a serious accident during Liège-Bastogne-Liège, of which he is one of the favorites. Thrown at 70 km/h against a tree, he suffered a pneumothorax, a fractured shoulder blade and several broken sides. In the documentary dedicated to his Quick Step team on the Amazon platform, we relive from the inside the panicked reaction of his sports directors, the tears of his mechanic and those of his companion Marion Rousse, to the comments that day for France Télévisions . The accident is the darkest point of a season in hell during which the 30-year-old Auvergnat accumulates viruses, injuries and hospital stays. After a winter spent “recharging” with the family, “Alaf” is determined to attack 2023 with a knife between his teeth. “I have rabies,” he said in January. “We are going to see great Julian this year”, supports his teammate Rémi Cavagna.
And in fact, the year started rather well with a victory on February 25 in the Ardèche Classic, only his third success since his second world championship title in 2021. But since then, the scoumoune machine has been working at full speed again. . While he had made the Flandriennes his goal for the start of the season, he fell ill and retired at the E3 Grand Prix. A week later, he fell on the Tour of Flanders which he left injured in the left knee. The wound becomes infected and he has to leave the bike in the garage for a week.
Withdrawn from the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche wallonne, the race he has won three times, he is due to return to Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday, as a teammate for Remco Evenepoel. “The fate is hounding him”, deplores his companion who praises his “strength of character”. “A lot of people would have been disillusioned. But he remains serious and focused. He impresses me more than when he won ten races a year, ”insists the director of the Tour de France women. But the general manager of the Soudal-Quick Step team, Patrick Lefevere, does not hide his impatience. Since this winter, he has been distilling harsh words and giving another layer of them on Monday evening in the RMC Podcast “Grand Plateau”.
“Fortunately he became twice world champion. Apart from that, he wins the first stage of the Tour and wears the yellow jersey (in 2021, editor’s note). I understand that all the French teams are excited about it, but not me. I like him, like everyone else. But I have to be realistic. It eats up a large part of my budget and I still want results too, ”said the Flemish manager.
“You have to be honest, when Julian Alaphilippe shone, there was no Pogacar, Van der Poel, these phenomena,” he added in a particularly harsh judgment, pointing to the high salary (estimated at 2, 3 million euros per season) from the Frenchman, under contract until 2024 and which he does not plan to extend under these conditions. “But I always say it’s like school: there are three terms. Imagine that he wins two or three stages in the Tour de France and that he wears the yellow jersey for ten days, that becomes another story, ”concluded the Belgian in a more conciliatory tone.
In fact, Julian Alaphilippe says he thinks “already at the Tour” which will leave on July 1 from the Spanish Basque Country and where he should be the leader of his training in the absence of Evenepoel, concentrated on the Giro. “He has already planned stage reconnaissance. He is really revengeful and he has a very big desire to do well, especially since he missed the Tour last year, ”underlines Marion Rousse. Hoping that, this time, bad luck forgets him a little.
