On Friday afternoon in Quebec City, the sun is casting a shard of light across the ‘Tudor’ banner which is carefully placed to be in prime view of the television cameras filming the finish of GP Quebec. Sprinting past it, throwing his body from side to side in his trademark style, is Julian Alaphilippe, Tudor Pro Cycling Team’s swashbuckling superstar. In the race for which the watch brand who pays his salary is a title sponsor, the Frenchman understands the assignment. He is showing off, beating the best, back at his best, winning right when it matters.
There is perhaps no race more perfect for Alaphilippe than the Canadian one-day classic. GP Quebec is set up purely for entertainment. It is five hours and eighteen laps around a city centre circuit with crowds lining every corner, face-to-face with the sport’s biggest names. Free of charge, these are front row seats to see every bead of sweat, every grimace, every bottle thrown from cyclists who are normally only alive behind television screens. Some may argue that it is a model for how all bike races should be: a spectacle in front of the fans, designed solely for the fans – but that is a whole different debate. Right now, we are talking about how a race that is theatre, set in one of Canada’s most beautiful cities, was won by the sport’s greatest showman.
It’s true that plenty of riders can get in a breakaway that goes clear with 75 kilometres of the race still remaining like Alaphilippe did in Quebec, but there are not many who can get away with skipping every single turn on the front until the last lap and then have the audacity to launch a detonating attack from the midst of the chaos they have caused. This is who Alaphilippe is: a creator of madness, a master tactician, with a unique combination of cheek and class that makes him so likeable.
In a season that has, at times, felt suffocated by the dominance of UAE Team Emirates-XRG and world champion Tadej Pogačar, it was starting to become easy to lose faith in the riders who we once relied on to surprise us. But we never should have doubted Alaphilippe, a two-time world champion, a three-time Flèche Wallonne winner, a six-time Tour de France stage winner and one of the best this generation has ever seen.
“The more races that passed this season I started to think to myself, shit, I’ve never had a season in my career without a win,” Alaphilippe grinned as he spoke to media in his post-race press conference, his Tudor watch on his wrist glinting in the evening light.
“I know that if I managed to win this year it would be special because this is a new chapter in my career joining the Tudor team. I’m happy for myself because it’s a lot of work rewarded but also happy for the team because they gave me confidence, they took me in. So today is a reward for everyone.”
It has been 485 days since Alaphilippe last won a WorldTour race. He has come close – we should not forget that it was just a few months ago, on stage 15 of the Tour de France, that he thought his moment had come. At the finish in Carcassonne that dreaded day, the Frenchman did the unthinkable, sprinting round Wout van Aert before throwing his hands in the air in celebration, not realising there were two riders up the road ahead of him. Many would have hid from the embarrassment of the debacle but Alaphilippe, shameless and loveable, came out and managed to smile about it. Two months on and he has got his win for real, a fitting reward for a bike rider who always fights for it.
There have been times when Loulou, as he is affectionately known by fans, looked like he was past his prime. It is true that the sport has changed since the early 2020s when the now 33-year-old could win back-to-back rainbow jerseys and punch away from everyone with a few pedal strokes. But just as we start to forget him, Alaphilippe reminds us that in his 12th year as professional, he is very much still here, able to take his 45th career victory – which by the looks of his current form will not be his last.
GP Quebec might not be the biggest one-day race of the season, but the 2025 edition brought a stacked field of superstars who Alaphilippe managed to outsmart in a way that only he can. He perfectly turned the clock back on a day where, of course, because Alaphilippe knows what he is doing, Tudor was keeping the time.
