A year after thrilling his home nation for two weeks on the Tour de France, a tearful Julian Alaphilippe on Sunday produced an almost carbon-copy capture of a stage win to claim the maillot jaune once again.
On the day’s final climb, Alaphilippe launched a blistering attack to clinch bonus seconds at the summit, before a white-knuckle descent to the finish line in Nice also gave him bonus time.
Alaphilippe, described by former winner Geraint Thomas during last year’s race as the “darling of France,” leads Britain’s Adam Yates, who accompanied him on his wild dash from distance, by just four seconds.
Photo: AP
The main overall contenders are 17 seconds adrift.
“I just wanted to dedicate this victory to my dad. It was important to me,” said a tearful Alaphilippe, whose father, Jo, passed away in June.
Former soldier Alaphilippe began punching toward the sky at the finish line as he turned to see just how close behind him the onrushing peloton was to overtaking his escaping trio on the Promenade des Anglais.
The setup of the second stage was eerily close to how Alaphilippe stole away from the peloton last year on day three to Epernay and eventually led the Tour for 14 days, before wilting on the penultimate stage to finish fifth overall.
No Frenchman has won the Tour de France since 1985.
“I really wanted to try something and I had nothing to lose,” the Deceuninck-Quick Step leader said. “It really hurt me, I was digging deep at the end there. It’s a great pride and responsibility, and I will defend this honor day by day, I won’t be giving it up tomorrow that’s for sure.”
While Alaphilippe celebrated, it was a bad day for Team Jumbo-Visma.
Shortly after Alaphilippe’s attack, Michal Kwiatkowski of Team Ineos somehow backed into Jumbo-Visma joint team leader Tom Dumoulin and knocked him to the floor.
The former Giro d’Italia winner dusted himself off as Kwiatkowski apologized profusely, but his teammates were slow to react.
The Dutch outfit had been leading the peloton all day, but suddenly they slowed down and abandoned their pursuit of Alaphilippe, who had Switzerland’s Marc Hirschi and Yates for company on the tense 15-minute dash to the line.
“In the end I was never going to win the sprint, but to come third on stage two, I’m pretty happy with that,” Yates said.
The man who started the day in the maillot jaune, Norway’s Alexander Kristoff, finished way off the pace after the peloton had to negotiate two category 1 climbs, but he did retain the leading sprinter’s maillot vert.
“I didn’t want to hurt my chances of winning a sprint later in the Tour by pushing too hard in the hills,” he said.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Matvei Michkov did not score on Monday, but the Philadelphia rookie had a hand in both goals as hosts the Flyers earned a 2-1 victory over the Nashville Predators. Ryan Poehling and Jamie Drysdale got the goals for the Flyers (31-36-9, 71 points), who won their third straight. Michkov and Travis Konecny assisted on both. Ivan Fedotov stopped 28 shots to earn his first win since March 1, ending a personal six-game losing streak. Zachary L’Heureux got the lone goal for Nashville. Michael McCarron and Brady Skjei got the assists for the Predators (27-39-8, 62 points), who have just four goals in their
RSS