Julian Alaphilippe’s farewell to cycling is worthy of LouLou

They call Julian Alaphilippe ‘LouLou’, because that’s how it’s done in France – they double the nickname. Mainly because ‘LouLou’ was more fitting. It was onomatopoeic, reflecting the way he sat on his bike, the way he moved when he stood on the pedals to sprint and push even harder. Julian Alaphilippe was like a spring, a nervous, twitchy elastic band – which is precisely why he was such a joy to watch. He was. And it has a certain impact to use the past perfect tense. We would have liked to keep using the present tense. He’s decided to make us change the tense. He’s retired: farewell to cycling with immediate effect.

For a few years now, the French cyclist had been struggling more than he ought to. He seemed to have lost that natural ease of being, if not the very best, then certainly amongst the best. Yet few paid much heed to this. Even when he fell behind on a trivial little climb – as happened in the last Tour de France (and not just in the last Tour de France) – there were those lining the roadside who cheered him on with an ‘allez’, those who shouted his name and, often, that nickname of his which suited him so well. On the final passage beneath the Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre during the last stage of the Grande Boucle, the thousands upon thousands of people who had filled every possible spot just to see the riders go by gave him an ovation even louder than that reserved for the leaders, Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar. Julian Alaphilippe wasn’t amongst the leaders; he was labouring, drenched in sweat, in the peloton, ten minutes behind the front-runners. No one realised at the time that this would be LouLou’s final ascent of that climb.

Julian Alaphilippe knew how to be wonderfully ‘superhuman’ on a bike. He was a springy rider, a bundle of passion and improvisation, a guarantee of unpredictability. With him in the peloton, there was always the possibility that the race would go haywire, that something unforeseeable might happen. He knew how to blend joy and melancholy, happiness and despair, in a way that few in the history of cycling have managed to do. That is why, beneath the Sacré-Cœur – and not just there – people were chanting his name.

Julian Alaphilippe has been an exceptional cycling champion, and not just in France. He has won 45 races in his career. He won two World Championships in a row (including the Covid-disrupted event at Imola), one Milan–San Remo (2019), one Strade Bianche (also in 2019), the Flèche Wallonne three times (2018, 2019 and 2021) and at least one stage in each of the Grand Tours: six at the Tour de France, one at the Giro d’Italia and one at the Vuelta. And on three occasions he came close to victory at Liège–Bastogne–Liège. In 2020, he raised his hands in celebration too soon and was pipped by Primož Roglič before the race officials demoted him to fifth place for an irregular sprint.

In those years straddling the 2010s and 2020s, Julian Alaphilippe was the world’s strongest rider in road races – or at least in those where it was the climbs, rather than the cobbles, that posed a challenge and thus brought out the best in the riders. And Liège–Bastogne–Liège was the race in which Julian Alaphilippe put on his most spectacular display on the bike. He never won it. Even cycling makes unforgivable historical mistakes.

It was during that very race, on a day when clouds were chasing one another across a rather gloomy sky, that Julian Alaphilippe began to slip from the very front of the peloton. On 24 April 2022, LouLou fell, hit a tree, broke a shoulder blade and two ribs, and suffered a collapsed lung.

In today’s cycling world, bad luck is unforgiving. A few months off the bike can turn into years of inactivity. And he was thirty years old and had a son who was almost one. According to Enzo Ferrari, “a driver loses one second per lap for every child he has”. That’s not quite true, but something does change. In cycling, nothing changes until something comes along to really shake things up. And that something is always a crash – a nasty one. Since that 24 April 2022, Julian Alaphilippe has never been the rider he was before that Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He has, however, found a way every now and then to return to that form – in a different guise, certainly, but always excellent. As at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, when, approaching Fano, he conjured up – with the invaluable assistance of Mirco Maestri – a 138-kilometre cycling extravaganza.

Julian Alaphilippe was all about his legs and his spirit. He was all about chasing the impossible. That’s why people loved him. Because you can’t help but love riders like that.