Patrick Lefévère attacking Julian Alaphilippe is nothing new. Tuesday evening, in the columns of the Flemish newspaper Humo, the manager of Soudal Quick-Step once again tackled his rider, under contract with the Belgian team until the end of the year. This time he criticizes him for not making enough effort to perform at a high level.
“Julian is a good guy. But after signing his mega contract, we didn’t see him anymore,” he said on Tuesday. The “mega contract” that Lefévère mentions in the interview corresponds to the salary increase of 2.3 million euros from which Alaphilippe benefited in 2021, after his two world champion titles (2020 in Imola and 2021 in Louvain) .
Since then, the Frenchman has appeared less on the podiums. The fault lies in the falls which largely truncated his 2022 season. At the end of 2022, the manager had already questioned the rider’s salary in the columns of The Last Hour: “Julian has a champion’s salary but he must confirm that he is always one. » A leitmotif that emerged again at the beginning of 2023 on the Flemish channel Sportza: “I understand his illnesses and his falls, but you cannot continue to hide behind that. His wife (Marion Rousse, with whom he has a child) and his manager (Dries Smets) were there. I told him I wasn’t happy at all. »
“I think at his house there were too many parties and too much alcohol”
Patrick Lefévère on Julian Alaphilippe
This time, Lefévère questioned his runner’s lifestyle. “As you get older you have to take care of yourself more, train harder. I think there were too many parties and too much alcohol at home.” Before questioning the couple formed by Julian Alaphilippe with the former professional cyclist Marion Rousse. “He is seriously under Marion’s spell. May be too much. »
The French rider will make his cycling debut in Europe on Saturday on the Het Nieuwsblad circuit in Belgium.
