'You're not supposed to have favourites as a journalist' – an ode to Julian Alaphilippe, cycling's great swashbuckler who is reportedly retiring

Julian Alaphilippe snakes across the road and skids his back wheel to a halt. He has just won the individual time trial at the 2019 Tour de France, and the people of Pau are in a frenzy. Not for 30 years have they seen a Frenchman win in the yellow jersey at the race. Alaphilippe, their golden prince, has not only kept hold of his overall lead – on a day he was meant to lose it – he’s grown it by 14 seconds.

The crowds cheer as if celebrating a cup final-winning goal. Alaphilippe springs out of his saddle and plants himself upright under the sun in the Place de Verdun. It looks for a moment as if he might bow. In the swell of excitement, and the outpouring of love around him, it feels as if he should. This is a once in a generation showman. The fans have witnessed a performance for the ages.

Seven years on, those same admirers might have fallen to their knees on hearing reports of Alaphilippe’s retirement on Thursday night. According to L’Équipe, the 34-year-old has decided to end his career with immediate effect. He still has a year left on his contract at Tudor Pro Cycling, but the news is that he has already crossed his last finish line.

“There’s nothing official, but don’t expect to see me again,” Alaphilippe had said at the summit of Alpe d’Huez, on the penultimate day of last month’s Tour – his final race.

There were no tears then, just a face wearied by 13 years as a pro. Having only committed to cycling after tossing a coin with becoming a drummer, he leaves the sport as a two-time world champion, six-time Tour de France stage winner, but most importantly, the darling of the French public, the goateed swashbuckler who showed that, win or lose, charm never goes away.

There’s a parallel universe somewhere in which Alaphilippe won that Tour de France in 2019. He wore the yellow jersey for 14 days, including in the time trial, and only surrendered his lead after times were taken prematurely on stage 19 due to a hailstorm and landslide, at a point when he was trailing Egan Bernal by two minutes on a climb. Might he have closed the gap on the downhill? He was probably the best descender in the race. But there was no bitterness later that evening. “I said whatever the result, I wouldn't have any regrets, and today I don't have any regrets. I have everything,” he said.

Alaphilippe went on to finish fifth in Paris that year, head held high as the man who helped the home fans believe. You’re not supposed to have favourites as a journalist, but that Tour instilled something in me, too. I was there in Pau when he won, and ever since, I am yet to hear a crowd’s roar pierce like that at a bike race.

It’s that Tour that will form a large part of the Frenchman's legacy, as well as the back-to-back rainbow jerseys that followed in 2020 and 2021. In those years, he was the best rider in the world; a versatile talent capable of winning Flèche Wallonne or Strade Bianche with a fierce kick, but also more tactical duels like Milan-San Remo and De Brabantse Pijl.

Alaphilippe collected 45 victories throughout his career. It bears reminding that he was neither a dominant sprinter, time triallist, nor climber; instead, he had to outmanoeuvre his rivals, beating them each time with power and panache.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t get it wrong. Over the years, he became a star of the Fédération Française de la Lose (FFL), a collective that celebrates its country’s sporting shortcomings. Alaphilippe – who the FFL warmly nicknamed Alain Philippe, and refer to simply as ‘Alain’ – made headlines twice: when he celebrated early at Liège-Bastogne-Liège in 2020, letting Primož Roglič dip under his outstretched arm and beat him; and on stage 15 of the 2025 Tour, when his celebration was late rather than premature, a fist in the air for what turned out to be third place.

“Like an idiot I went for the sprint,” he laughed afterwards in Carcassonne, blaming the confusion on a broken radio. “I have to see it in a funny way.”

That sense of humour only made Alaphilippe’s allure stronger. If Romain Bardet was the intellectual, Thibaut Pinot the dogged soul, then Alaphillipe was the playful sprite, the musketeer who sparred with his rivals, and then grinned cheekily to the onlookers.

To spread cheer during the Covid lockdowns, he posted a one-minute video of himself dancing around his living room dressed as the Easter Bunny. In 2018, he matched his green leader’s jersey with a pointed hat to make a Robin Hood costume when the Tour of Britain visited Nottinghamshire. The following year, during his two-week stint in yellow at the Tour, he became an online meme after he looked down the TV camera, smirked, and twitched his eyebrows, in the presence of French president Emmanuel Macron behind the podium gantry.

And then, of course, there were the heartfelt moments, the emotions that show us this is more than just bike racing. Alaphilippe cried as he dedicated his Tour stage win in 2020 to his late father, Jacques, who died two months before. It was from him that he had inherited his love of music, brought up as the son of an orchestra conductor, who he honoured by taking the yellow jersey.

Five years later, Alaphilippe had fans dancing to his tune at the GP de Québec, where he earned what now stands as his final career victory. “I’m here to try to win. I’m not here to make the show,” he said in his post-race interview. In the end, he did both.

As sudden as reports of his retirement may seem, it's fitting that Alaphilippe’s last hurrah came at the race that made his career. Last month, flanked by thousands of adoring cries in Montmartre on the final day of the Tour, he wafted his arms to gee up the crowds, then clapped along with their ovation.

“For the past few years, I’ve felt that I’m getting closer to the end,” he had said the day before. “As far as cycling goes, I’m not exactly young anymore. But in life, 34 is still young… All I really want is to hold my son in my arms.”

The time has now come for Alaphilippe to wave goodbye to the peloton. The hall of fame will welcome him as one of the greats. Thanks for all the panache.