REACTION
Julian Alaphilippe lost his yellow jersey on Friday at the top of the Iseran pass. Saturday, he lost his place on the podium in the climb to Val Thorens. The Deceuninck-Quick Step rider, who gave up 13 km from the finish and conceded 3'17 "on Egan Bernal at the finish, will finally finish 5th overall without regret.
"I gave everything, I think it was difficult to do better," admitted the team leader Deceuninck-Quick Step. "I was expecting to blow up at one time or another, but I still maintained, I'm very proud of what my team-mate Enric Mas did for me, it was his job and he really Well done without him, I would have finished a quarter of an hour I think It's my temper With me it's a bit all or nothing I was second overall before the stage this morning (Saturday morning) If I was second, or fiftieth, it was the same for me but I fought because I did not want to have regrets, I can only be proud of my Tour. far beyond what I would have imagined. "
" If I had been told before departure that I would do all this, I would never have believed it "Alaphilippe, who will not be on the final podium of the Tour on the Champs-Élysées (unless he is elected super combative of the event, which would not be a heresy), has indeed won two stages on this Tour, the 3rd, in Epernay, in his traditional register of puncher, and the 13th, against the clock, a little to everyone's surprise. "If I had been told before the start that I would do all this, I would have never believed," admitted Alaphilippe, not frustrated by the last two days of racing. "Why should I be frustrated?" I'm just exhausted, happy, proud of what I did, what we did with the team that was not the best equipped to win. In my career, it will have changed a lot of things, it's just sports, moments of life that you have to enjoy. Owl, as the incredible year of Alaphilippus, author of an exceptional Tour and winner in the spring of Milan-San Remo and the Walloon Arrow