Peloton laughs as Alaphilippe mistakenly celebrates stage win (again): "He should’ve done another pull"

At a considerable distance behind stage winner Tim Wellens - and also behind Victor Campenaerts, who broke away late - Alaphilippe won the sprint from the chase group for third place. He beat Wout van Aert and others, so at first it looked like he was simply celebrating a strong sprint. But it quickly became clear his celebration was over the top. He actually believed he’d won. “He didn’t know Tim was still up the road,” team director Sylvain Blanquefort told Eurosport.

When the former world champion found out he had only come in third, he rushed to the team bus. After calming down a bit, he told Sporza it had been a rough day, including a crash early in the stage and a dislocated shoulder that he popped back in himself. “After that, my race radio stopped working. I still had good legs and fought for it. But in the end, I sprinted like an imbecile for what I thought was the win.”

“It really sucks,” DS Bart Leysen said in agreement. “His radio broke during the crash, and the race was going so fast we didn’t have time to replace it. Julian only got updates from the race director. We couldn’t reach him ourselves because there were always small groups behind him. It’s frustrating that this happened, but we can’t turn back time. Anyway, we would’ve signed up for third place this morning.”

After the finish, Wout van Aert claimed it was him who told Alaphilippe he had actually placed third. “He would’ve been better off doing an extra pull. He’s not the smartest,” he rather bluntly said to De Telegraaf. Pascal Eenkhoorn, who was part of the breakaway, also found it amusing. “I didn’t know Wellens had already won, but I did see that Campenaerts was still up ahead. I thought Campenaerts had taken the win, but I did know it wasn’t a sprint for first place. Too bad for him, I thought, haha,” he told NOS.

To his credit, Alaphilippe took it on the chin and even appeared on a French TV show after the stage. “You’ve just got to see the humor in it,” he told ITV.