Axel Laurance, French rider of the Belgian team Alpecin-Deceuninck, teased his teammates and staff members a little after the victory of the Blues against the Belgians (1-0), Monday in the 8th finals of Euro 2024.
The Euro football championship animated part of the peloton on Monday during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France. The French and the Belgians took advantage of the calm of the stage to joke and take bets before the 8th final between France and Belgium which finally turned to the advantage of the Blues (1-0), a few hours after the arrival in Turin. Axel Laurance (23 years old), French in the Alpecin-Deceuninck formation did not hold back to joke.
“I asked my coach if he wanted me to look at plane tickets for him”
“We had a bit of a laugh about it,” said the Breton before the start of the 4th stage on Tuesday. “They told me that if I lost, I would go home, I told them: ‘If I win, you all go home’ but in accounting terms, it wasn’t really possible, otherwise I would have been a bit alone on the bus.”
For his first Tour de France, the 2023 Espoirs road world champion remained fairly sober with his team while allowing himself some ironic digs. “Yes, I asked my coach if he wanted me to look at plane tickets for him,” he smiled. “It’s nice but it’s true that the two teams didn’t necessarily play very well yesterday (Monday) evening, there wasn’t much to say about the match.”
The football result added to the team’s gloom, also beaten on the road since Jasper Philipsen was caught in a crash 2.5 kilometers away and was unable to fight for the stage win in the sprint. “Unfortunately, it was bad luck, we were on the right side of the road and it happened on the right side,” explains Laurance. “There’s not much you can do in this kind of situation. We started off on the right foot, we tried to do a good job together, to get our act together and be united as a team. The crash is racing. Jasper is fine and that’s the most important thing.”
