Alaphilippe world champion: how he entered the hearts of the French

On the highest step of the Imola podium, Julian Alaphilippe let his tears flow this Sunday behind the mask of the world champion with rainbow facings.

Tears of emotion, of course.

From this emotion conveyed to the public by the French champion, 28 years old, most often hilarious, always simple and authentic in victory as in defeat.

“It was the dream of my career, he blurted out.

I've been so close so many times but I had never even been on the podium.

It's hard to describe the feeling of having achieved your dream… ”

Falling while he was heading for an Olympic medal in Rio in 2016 in the downhill, caught up in extremis in the final of the Bergen World Cup 2017, Alaphilippe did not, this time, give up his chance.

The only acceleration he produced on the last ascent of the Gallisterna hill was the right one.

After that, he kept the Van Aert-Hirschi, Fuglsang-Kwiatkowski-Roglic group alone for more than 10 kilometers, before they gave up on the Enzo and Dino Ferrari circuit.

“I want to thank the team for all their work,” he adds.

I said we had to make the race hard.

After, the attack on Pogacar, the work of the Belgians and the Swiss, it was the right scenario for us.

I knew I had to give the maximum on the last climb.

"

Just crowned, Julian Alaphilippe dons the rainbow jersey on the Imola podium.

Touching, the Frenchman let himself be overwhelmed by emotion during the Marseillaise # Imola2020 pic.twitter.com/CnorUfbl5r

- France tv sport (@francetvsport) September 27, 2020

Before bursting the screen this Sunday, it was during the Tour de France 2018 that Alaphilippe really invited himself into all homes.

During this edition, the little guy from Allier won his first stage in the Alps, at Le Grand Bornand (10th stage), then a second in the Pyrenees at Bagnères-de-Luchon (16th).

Mad with happiness, he specifies, however, that part of his thoughts are with his dad, Jo, a ballroom musician, elderly and then suffering from serious health problems - he died at the end of June.

A man of classics

Alaphilippe is a winner but he has a heart and nobody is mistaken.

The foundations of a great notoriety are then laid but the best is yet to come ... The 2019 edition of the Grande Boucle, even won by the Colombian Egan Bernal, is completely monopolized by Alaphilippe whose popularity is soaring, thanks to two new stage victories and especially 14 days with the yellow jersey.

PODCAST.

Julian Alaphilippe, a Tour in the name of the father

Less flamboyant on the Tour this year, affected by the recent loss of his father, he sought the empathy of his admirers.

Winner in Nice (2nd stage), he returned to the yellow jersey before it was withdrawn three days later for a container received outside the feeding zone in sight of Privas.

A bottle held out by Franck Alaphilippe, his dear cousin, lifelong trainer and trainer, member of the Belgian team Deceuninck - Quick Step…

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But it is on the ground of the classics, of the one-day races that the punch and the guts of the champion work wonders.

Appeared in the spring of 2015 thanks to two 2nd places (behind Alejandro Valverde) linked in the Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, it has been building up from a list of classics worthy of the greatest: the Flèche Wallonne in 2018 and 2019, the Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo last year.

Dynamite of the Primavera in the Poggio on August 8, he suffered the law of Wout Van Aert in the sprint.

This Sunday, Alaphilippe took his revenge on the rising Belgian star.

And once again provoked a flood of emotion, as only he knows how to do.

23 years after Brochard

Julian Alaphilippe is the ninth French crowned world champion on the road.

He puts an end to 23 years of famine for France and succeeds Georges Speicher (in 1933, in Montlhéry, France), Antonin Magne (1936, Bern, Switzerland), Louison Bobet (1954, Solingen, Germany), André Darrigade (1959 , Zandvoort, Netherlands), Jean Stablinski (1962, Salo, Italy), Bernard Hinault (1980, Sallanches, France), Luc Leblanc (1994, Agrigente, Italy), Laurent Brochard (1997, Saint-Sébastien, Spain).