(In second paragraph corrects Alaphilippe’s team) <\/p>\n
CARCASSONNE, France, July 20 (Reuters) – Julian Alaphilippe endured a chaotic, emotional stage 15 of the Tour de France on Sunday, crashing early, soldiering on with a dislocated shoulder, and then mistakenly celebrating what he thought was a stage win – before discovering he had been beaten by two riders. <\/p>\n
The Tudor Pro rider hit the deck in the opening kilometres, suffering pain and a shoulder injury that cast doubt over whether he would even finish the day. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a crash at the beginning of the race,\u201d said team sports director Raphael Meyer. \u201cHe had pain and a dislocated shoulder. He was seen by the doctor and he still has some pain. He’s going to do x-rays.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the Frenchman fought on, eventually crossing the line \u2014 arms raised in triumph, believing he had pulled off an emotional comeback victory. <\/p>\n
Unbeknownst to Alaphilippe, Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had already powered away from the breakaway group earlier and claimed a convincing solo win. <\/p>\n
Victor Campenaerts had also slipped away and crossed the line nine seconds ahead of Alaphilippe. <\/p>\n
“He thought he was first on the line \u2014 but the radio didn\u2019t work,\u201d Meyer said. <\/p>\n
For Wellens, the victory marked a brutal show of strength, and another chapter in the dominance of leader Tadej Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates, as they continue to exert near-total control over the race. <\/p>\n
For Alaphilippe, it was a bitter-sweet finish – a gritty ride, a brave comeback, and a win that wasn\u2019t. <\/p>\n
It was not the first time such misfortune happened to Alaphilippe. <\/p>\n
In 2020, he raised his arms in celebration before the finish at the Liege-Bastogne-Liege Monument classic, only to see Slovenian Primoz Roglic effectively beating him to the line. <\/p>\n
The Frenchman was then disqualified for deviating from his sprint line. (Reporting by Julien Pretot) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(In second paragraph corrects Alaphilippe’s team) CARCASSONNE, France, July 20 (Reuters) – Julian Alaphilippe endured a chaotic, emotional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,1154,784,10592,10591,85,2845,10593],"class_list":["post-8829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crash","tag-cycling","tag-emotional-stage-15","tag-julian-alaphilippe","tag-sports","tag-tour-de-france","tag-victory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}