Cycling. "He couldn't breathe anymore," as Marion Rousse looks back on Julian Alaphilippe's crash in 2022

In the documentary Crash, peloton sous tension broadcast by L'Équipe , Marion Rousse returned with emotion to the violent fall of Julian Alaphilippe during Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April 2022. On that day, the French champion fell at high speed on a descent, ending up unconscious several meters below the road. "It was almost his main objective of the season. You know he's ready. The fall happens and then you feel that it's serious, that he's not moving," she says.

Alaphilippe, then leader of Quick Step Alpha Vinyl, suffered serious injuries: fractured ribs, a broken scapula, a broken collarbone, and a punctured lung. "It was hard because almost all his limbs were affected," she continues. "And I think what traumatized him was that he couldn't breathe, couldn't move. At the time, he thought he was going to die. It could have been much worse," confided Marion Rousse, his partner and mother of their child.

"Some people will feel the need to talk about it to free themselves, others prefer not to talk about it again because it's too painful. I think that was the case for Julian," explained Marion Rousse, current director of the Tour de France Femmes.