“It pissed me off more for Marion”: Alaphilippe reacts after Lefevere’s criticism

Twenty-eighth Wednesday of Across Flanders Julian Alaphilippe is having a mixed start to the season even though he was present in the leading group in the Milan-San-Remo final (9th). On Sunday, he will line up at the start of the Tour of Flanders. On the sidelines of his Soudal-Quick Step team conference, he then spoke at length with RMC Sport and France Info. “Mathieu (van der Poel) is clearly the favorite. I don’t feel bad. The others are just stronger. I give the maximum, I’m not bad, I feel that things are going well, it’s just that the overall level is raised and it’s complicated collectively to find ourselves again,” he said about the event. .

The double world champion also spoke at length about the numerous criticisms of his manager Patrick Lefevere, for several months in the media: “I really managed to detach myself from it as much as possible as I often tend to do. Afterwards it pissed me off more for Marion (Rousse, his wife) who didn’t ask for anything and who doesn’t like being in the stories at all. She didn’t appreciate being mixed up with comments like that that were useless and didn’t make sense. »

He continues: “I’m tired of it, so I don’t care… What matters to me is that my son is in good health and that I do my job as best as I can. The rest, you can always criticize me, you can always say, “ah, he won there, now he’s moving forward”… That’s how it is, I give my all every morning, I’m going to train hard. And There you go… “

He confirms his non-participation in the Tour de France

Julian Alaphilippe then confirmed that he would not be at the Tour de France in July despite calls from his Belgian teammate Remco Evenepoel who will be team leader. “It has been planned for a long time that I will be competing in the Giro,” he said. I will finish my classic campaign on Sunday with a few days of rest and I have already booked a hotel at altitude in Andorra for around twenty days to prepare. So I’m happy to go and discover the Giro and I think that afterwards I can think about the rest of the season. That doesn’t appeal to me (Editor’s note: going to the Tour de France). »

On the other hand, he left the door open for selection for the Olympic Games in Paris this summer: “It’s clear that it would be a source of pride. It’s a goal to participate but above all it’s a goal to be 100% to go. It’s not just to have the French team t-shirt that I’m going to go there. I want us to have a group capable of winning and if I speak at the moment, I don’t want to go there. No, because I think I don’t feel 100%. But we’re not there yet, we’ll see after the Giro. »