Many of us will have been in the position of riding through an injury, or keeping quiet about a little niggle in the hope that it would go away. Few of us, however, would have fractured part of a knee and then managed to finish ninth at Milan-San Remo.
This has been Julian Alaphilippe’s year to date, as the Soudal Quick-Step rider broke part of his left knee, his fibula head located at the knee joint, according to an interview with Le Parisien this week.
Despite the broken knee, the Frenchman still managed to complete 11 race days after the crash at Strade Bianche, including all of Tirreno-Adriatico, and the longest race of the year, Milan-San Remo.
The reason for him keeping the injury a secret? He didn’t want people to think he was making it up. Alaphilippe has faced loud criticism in the media, including from his own team boss, Patrick Lefevere, in recent years.
Since winning a second consecutive World Championships in 2021, he has won just four times, although that does include stages of Itzulia Basque Country and the Critérium du Dauphiné.
His injury goes some way to explain why he was off-colour at the cobbled Classics, finishing 70th at the Tour of Flanders, 7:43 behind the winner, Mathieu van der Poel.
It will also interrupt his Ardennes Classics campaign; the 31-year-old is a three-time winner of La Flèche Wallonne, and has come incredibly close to winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège on multiple occasions, but will not compete at those this year.
“I didn’t want to say it because I didn’t want people to think I was making something up. I suffered a lot from that fall in Strade Bianche,” Alaphilippe told Le Parisien this week.
“My morale was damaged because I had good legs before and because it is a competition that I really enjoy. This fall was a big blow to me, and I had pain in my left knee.”
He had his knee scanned after San Remo, which explained the issue.
“The tests showed that there was a fracture in the head of the fibula,” he continued. “This explained why the pain wouldn’t go away. It was very annoying, but not something so unbearable.
“The doctors told me before the Flemish classics that the choice whether to race or not was up to me.”
He said he now regrets the decision to keep racing. The Giro d’Italia is on his schedule too, but it is not known whether he will still ride this.
“It was the wrong decision to do that. In those tough races, you have to be 100 percent anyway. With my injury, that was impossible,” he said. “I was motivated, and I didn’t want to pass after all my efforts, but I should have taken care of myself.”
