Tour de France 2024 | For France, there is (finally) a life in yellow outside of Alaphilippe

Until this Saturday, the last French rider in yellow on the Tour de France was named Julian Alaphilippe. That was three years ago, during the 2021 edition. On the first stage, already. Since then, nothing. 62 stages between this first act 2021 and this first act 2024, which has just propelled Romain Bardet to the top of the hierarchy for at least one day, that is the duration of the tricolor drought, which has just ended.

But it is above all the end of a rather improbable decade. We had to go back to the Tour de France… 2014 to find traces of another Frenchman wearing the most famous and most precious of tunics. Tony Gallopin had worn it for a short day after having taken it in Mulhouse before giving it up the next day at the Planche des Belles Filles. From then on, Alaphilippe was the tree that hid the forest, or rather the desert:

Tour de France 2019: 14 days in yellow
Tour de France 2020: 3 days in yellow
Tour de France 2021: 1 day in yellow

A magical triptych for Alaf’. 18 yellow jerseys in the space of three years. Since Gallopin, there had been nothing apart from him for five years and no more in the two editions which followed 2021. Alaphilippe being absent from the Tour for the first time in a long time this year, it did not smell very good for the French cycling.

This was all the less expected as the main French leaders are in difficulty, Thibaut Pinot is retired and Romain Bardet had announced that he was not aiming for the general classification. And it is certainly not on this first stage that we could imagine a Blue winning the golden fleece. Probably not Romain Bardet anyway.

So there is finally a life in yellow outside of Julian Alaphilippe for the Blues. That Romain Bardet succeeds him in this register is a nice symbol and a great reward for the native of Brioude, so often placed, so rarely winner. He has the victory, he has the jersey. It doesn’t matter what will follow, even if he loses it tomorrow. A yellow jersey, especially after such a dense journey on the Tour de France, always leaves a mark on a career. In his case, he sublimates it.

Romain Bardet is the 86th Frenchman to wear the yellow jersey. We had to wait five years to move from the 85th, Alaphilippe, to the 86th, Bardet. Let’s hope not to wait that long to see the 87th… In the meantime, let’s take advantage of it, because the commodity is rare in our regions. Over the last 20 years, the French in yellow can be counted on the fingers of one hand: Thomas Voeckler (2004, 2011), Cyril Dessel (2006), Romain Feillu (2008), Tony Gallopin (2014) and Julian Alaphilippe, therefore. A historically low figure. Romain Bardet really came at the right time.