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.
TAIWANESE EXITS: Fellow Australian Christopher O’Connell joined Tristan Schoolkate as a winner following his 6-1, 6-2 defeat of Tseng Hsin-chun Australian qualifier Tristan Schoolkate on Monday dispatched rising Brazilian talent Joao Fonseca 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 at the ATP Toronto Masters, ensuring a breakthrough into the world top 100. The 24-year-old from Perth moved to 98th in the ongoing live rankings as he claimed his biggest career victory by knocking out the ATP NextGen champion from November last year. Schoolkate, son of a tennis coach, won his first match over a top-50 opponent on his sixth attempt as he ousted the world No. 49 teenager from Brazil. The qualifier played a quarter-final this month in Los Cabos and won through qualifying for his
Top seeds Alexander Zverev of Germany and American Coco Gauff on Tuesday advanced to the third round of the Canadian Open after both players were pushed hard by their opponents. World No. 3 Zverev, playing in his first match since his first-round loss at Wimbledon, was far from his best, but emerged with a 7-6 (8/6), 6-4 win over Adam Walton under the lights in Toronto. Momentum shifted firmly in Zverev’s favor when he won a 52-shot rally in the first set tiebreak and he sealed the win on a double fault by the Australian in the second set. “It was a very
Canadian teenager Victoria Mboko upset top-seeded Coco Gauff 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday night to reach the National Bank Open quarter-finals. “Your support was incredible,” Mboko told the crowd in French after a chorus of “Ole, Ole, Ole” chants echoed around the venue. “I’m really happy to win today ... It’s incredible. I’m so happy to beat such a great champion.” Gauff dropped to 2-3 since winning the French Open. She followed the major victory with opening losses in Berlin and Wimbledon, then overcame double-fault problems to win two three-set matches in Montreal. Gauff had five double-faults on Saturday after having 23 in
Taiwan’s top women’s badminton doubles duo, Hsieh Pei-shan (謝沛珊) and Hung En-tzu (洪恩慈), achieved a straight-sets victory over Japan’s Kaho Osawa and Mayui Tanabe at the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Super 300 Macau Open on Sunday. The Taiwanese pair won the final 21-18, 21-12, marking the duo’s second title this year after their win at the BWF Super 300 Taipei Open in May. The match on Sunday was their first encounter with the Japanese duo, ranked No. 63 in the world. Hsieh and Hung, ranked No. 12, began the opening game well. Hung, who plays left-handed, performed strongly at both the net and the