Beyond the finish line on Fano’s Via Gramsci, a platoon of Soudal-QuickStep riders had begun to assemble, giddily waiting to catch a glimpse of their leader Julian Alaphilippe, who had been whisked off into a nearby camper van to change ahead of the podium ceremony.
Alaphilippe’s remarkable victory on stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia came after a breakaway of more than 120km, largely in the company of Mirco Maestri (Polti-Kometa), but then alone for the critical final 10km from the Monte Giove to the finish.
Just as Mark Hughes only ever seemed to score spectacular goals during his time at Manchester United, Alaphilippe is essentially incapable of serving up a routine victory. Drama and emotion have been travelling companions throughout his career, and Alaphilippe carried them with him again here as he held off his pursuers on the narrow, sinuous road into Fano.
“I had the impression it was impossible – but with him, you never know,” teammate Mauri Vansevenant said, shaking his head. The thought was echoed by young Luke Lamperti, who is rooming with Alaphilippe at this, his debut Grand Tour. “When he races, it’s all or nothing,” Lamperti said admiringly. “Sometimes he loses, sometimes he wins big.”
When the door of the camper van creaked open, Josef Černý cried out to catch Alaphilippe’s attention – “Loulou! Loulou!” – and the Soudal-QuickStep group spilled over towards the barriers. Alaphilippe was due on the podium, but the prosecco and platitudes could wait another minute. He stopped to step into the embrace of his teammates. The man may have borne the brunt of Patrick Lefevere’s various frustrations this past year, but he remains utterly beloved within the confines of the self-styled Wolfpack.
“That touched me,” Alaphilippe said about the shared moment when he took a seat in the press conference half an hour later. “I think people can see that I’m real, that I give everything. That touched me a lot.”
Pretty much everybody, from the would-be sages in the press room to Davide Bramati in the Soudal-QuickStep team car, thought Alaphilippe was on a fool’s errand when he set off in the company of Maestri with 120km still to race. But there was a method to his madness here.
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Like in Épinal on the 2019 Tour or in Leuven at the 2021 Worlds, Alaphilippe followed a strategy that made sense only within the logic of his own days of grace. When he pressed clear on the climb through Recanati, the hilltop birthplace of the poet Giacomo Leopardi, he was already beginning to picture the infinite possibilities of the road ahead.
“I went first in a small group, but the collaboration was not so good,” Alaphilippe said. “When we went away as a duo, it was really not the plan, and when we stayed a long time with 30-40 seconds, my sports director Davide Bramati asked me to stop and to wait for the chasing group, but I said, no, I feel good. I said it was better to be 45 seconds in front than to chase. I enjoyed the stage. It was up and down all day, but I felt good, and that made the victory more special.”
For much of the day, Alaphilippe and Maestri had a fragmenting group of 30 or so riders behind them, and at various points across the afternoon, they looked doomed to be swept up by the strongmen, including the on-form Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos).
They held a lead of 40 seconds in the steep final haul to Monte Giove, where Alaphilippe used the 20% slopes to rid himself of Maestri. From there, he raced frantically to hold of his pursuers, throwing himself with nervous energy into every corner until the moment he realised the victory was finally his. He eventually rolled home 31 seconds clear of Narváez to complete a full set of Grand Tour stage wins.
“It’s pure cycling, pure racing,” Alaphilippe smiled. “I didn’t expect I would spend my day with Mirco Maestri, but I really want to say chapeau to him, he deserved to win too. In the final, I had to keep pushing into the last 500 metres, because I was really afraid Jhonny Narváez would arrive…”
Rebirth
The victory was Alaphilippe’s first in almost a year and only his fifth since he became world champion for the second time in Leuven in 2021. The seasons since have been blighted by injury and illness, but also soundtracked by the increasingly vocal discontent of his paymaster Lefevere.
The nadir seemed to arrive in February, when Lefevere suggested the 31-year-old’s form had suffered from “too much partying, too much alcohol,” while apportioning additional blame to Alaphilippe’s relationship with his partner, the Tour de France Femmes director Marion Rousse. Alaphilippe refused to be drawn into a public debate then, and he kept his counsel again when asked about the matter in Fano.
“I stayed calm, I kept faith in myself,” Alaphilippe said carefully. “I gave the maximum to get my best level, that’s what gives me the motivation to continue my career and voilà… Today I’m very happy to have won a stage.”
After falling short on the opening day in Turin and then enduring a near-miss on the gravel stage to Rapolano Terme, Alaphilippe had looked to be warming to his task on this Giro, and victory here provided the confirmation.
It remains to be seen if Alaphilippe can now carry the momentum from his Italian expedition into the summer, but he has always been a man for the big occasion and the biggest occasion of all – a home Olympic Games – must surely appeal to his sense of theatre. Asked if the win marked his rebirth, Alaphilippe raised an eyebrow.
“I think I was never dead,” he smiled. “I was of course for some time on a downward wave, but that’s a part of one’s cycling career. It’s hard to be always on top. I needed a lot of patience, and I think today was the best reply.”
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