French national coach Thomas Voeckler opened up about his team's successful tactical strategy after Julien Alaphilippe won back-to-back world championships on Sunday, revealing that his 18km solo attack was not planned in advance. Alaphilippe even questioned at one point whether he should go for a sprint finish for his teammate Florian Seneschal.

Voeckler, who will lead the French team in 2019, said he and his team planned to launch an attack early on during the 268.3-km race in Flanders. That came to pass when Anthony Turgis and Benoit Kosnefrois launched their attack with 180 km to go.

Alaphilippe then made his first of countless moves with 58km to go before returning to his machine when he was spotted by a following TV bike. Voeckler revealed that Alaphilippe had asked if he should work for Seneschal.

"He was wondering if he should work for Seneschal in the sprint," Voeckler told Cycling News after the race.

"He asked me and I said no.

"And you have to follow your gut. He asked me, 'To attack or not to attack.' I said, 'I'm going to follow you on the attack and then we'll go,' but in the end I said, 'You have to decide on your instincts,' and after a couple of attacks

"The attack at the 58 km mark was planned, but what didn't work out was that he overpowered on the first attack.

"I think it's one of those things. Either it worked and he went on, or it didn't and he stopped. I took the liberty of telling him to stop. Then he came to me in the car and we had an important talk.

"I wanted to attack before the others and make them think I was crazy. I knew it was going to be a moving race and I wanted to start before anyone else. I always wanted to be one step ahead."

Voeckler added that he told Alaphilippe to only keep going when no one was following him. Alaphilippe eventually broke away on his own and swept away the rest of the 17-man lead group at the Sint Antoniusberg in Leuven with 18 km to go.

This proved to be the deciding factor in his victory, as Alaphilippe steadily built his advantage from the first 10 seconds to nearly 30 seconds at the finish.

But moving so far from the finish was not planned, Voeckler said.

"It wasn't planned. It wasn't planned to move this early; I might have to quit this job because I have to live 20 to 30 years. Julien did the opposite of what I said and scared me."[23

While the French exploded the race early on and put their project into action to make it one of the most exciting and action-packed World Championships in recent years, other teams were more cautious.

Voeckler said that defense-first tactics that made teams race reactive rather than proactive were not in his mind.

"I told the French press that if they concentrated only on Wout, they would end up like the rest of the world. Since we are in Belgium, it would be worse to concentrate on Van Aert.

"So we had to care about the Belgian team and Wout, but that was not the goal and it was forbidden to concentrate only on WVA. In soccer, it's like if you put four players on Mbappe when you play PSG, the others will benefit."

"What a champion Alaphilippe is!" Voeckler concluded.

"I want everyone who loves French sport to savor this moment. I have tried to make it seem like I have a part of it, but it's only a small part. I could install a kind of spirit here. Without a radio, I was able to clarify when and where to go on a course like this. We wanted to race in motion, not suffer. We were actors with the most beautiful rewards."

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