THEMOVE - Chaos Reigns in the Final Kilometers | La Vuelta a España 2026 Stage 10 | THEMOVE

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Bastien Tronchon's win on Stage 10, where he upset the pre-stage favorites on a tough uphill sprint on a day that saw order break down and chaos reign in the final few kilometers. They also give an update on Tadej Pogačar's recovery and Mathieu van der Poel's decision to contest the road Worlds, before predicting the outcome of tomorrow's Stage 11. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team Ultra Pouches: Ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch — delivering instant focus and mental clarity, without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use code THEMOVE to get 15% off at https://TakeUltra.com. After you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. PLEASE support our show and tell them our show sent you. Eight Sleep: Use code THEMOVE at https://eightsleep.com/themove for up to $350 off. 30 days to try it at home. Free returns if it's not for you.

So the procedure went well. He will remain in a hospital for post-operative monitoring for a few days. When ready, Taday will travel home to beginner's recovery and rehabilitation under the supervision of the team's medical staff. We will continue to monitor his progress closely throughout the recovery process. That kind of sounds to me like we're not going to see him for the rest of the year. No, no, no. We're not going to see him anymore. If he's being monitored after he gets home, yeah, he's probably not going to be training. I mean, that's all they can say also right now, right? I mean, they can't get ahead of themselves.

But I think, I think, first and foremost, I think, rushing it now for what? You know, I mean, even if he gets back, he can be fully competitive, you know, he can be fully competitive in those hard races that are left. So, no, we're not seeing Bogatira anymore in action this year. It's better for him. It's better for his recovery and long term for his career.

It's a lot better, I think. Everybody, welcome back to the move. podcast. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernille. We're breaking down stage 10 of the Volta, Spain, as well as preview and doing our outcomes preview for tomorrow stage 11. But we'll get Johan's move

of the day, but just quickly I'll run through what happened. There was a six-rider breakaway, getting away early. We didn't see it because there was no TV coverage until about 100 kilometers to go. The TV cameras come on. We see Vizma and Kofidis controlling the front of the Peloton in a way that would suggest

sprint finish was inevitable. Well, it wasn't simple because the finale of the race was incredibly hard finished on a 5k long climb at about 3% the logic must have been make it hard drop the pure sprinters brian kakard walt van art matthew bennan can duke it out well kind of worked like that kind of didn't it got a little bit too hard the sprint was incredibly selective attacks going hard to control and bastion tronchon from groupama fdjj wins the stage huge upset victory with magnus court second tibonies third Woutvin'Art, fourth, not what we expected at all. Johan, I'm going to ask you for your move of the day.

The move of the day during this Volta is brought to you by eight sleep. The mattress topper, it's going to cool your bed. It's going to heat your bed in the wintertime. Get it right at the temperature you need so you can sleep comfortably. And if you want to get $350 off, if you want to be just like Tadipagachar and the UAE team at this throughout the entire season, sleeping on it every day, go to eightsleep.com slash the move to get $350 off through the end of this welta. but Johan what is your eight sleep move of the day for this stage yeah Spencer well move of the day has to be bafthianne tron what a surprise winner you know it was not a real

sprint the you know the pure sprinters were not there I mean first of all the pure sprinters are not at this race and then then some of them were not we're not here anymore but I did definitely not expect him to win he kind of anticipated the sprint. What a nice victory. You know, and the French teams are actually doing okay. You know, Confid is won a stage already with Brian Cockar, now Grupaima FDG with Tronchon.

Definitely my move of the day, Bastian Tronchon. Yeah. Yeah, hard to argue with that. 24 year old from Chamboree. Great town, by the way. Great place to be from. Spencer, before we start to talk about the stage, let's do a quick update. before I forget about

Todai Pugachar. Pugachar got surgery yesterday, I think. So he was, first, he was at the local hospital. I don't know. I don't remember where it was. Somewhere in the Valencia area, I think.

Oh, I know. Castellon, Valencia, I don't remember. So he got, for some reason, he got transported to Barcelona. Yeah, which is pretty far away. You think he did that by ambulance? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, for sure. We had a concussion, so he couldn't fly. He couldn't fly, yeah. Yeah. And so he got surgery there. It seemed to be a complicated fracture. So what do you think? I mean, other than that, the cervical fracture doesn't require surgery because it's a clean fracture.

Yeah. Yeah. Of course, he needs, and he's still in the hospital. He's for the concussion, I think. And then I'm seeing reports about, you know, okay, can he come back? Can he do the world? So I'm going to call it here. I said there's no way he's racing again this year.

What do you think? Well, here, I'm going to read you a message from Luke McGuire, the press office for UA. You know, you tell me what you think of this language. So the procedure went well. He will remain in a hospital for post-operative monitoring for a few days. When ready, Tate will travel home to beginner's recovery and rehabilitation under the supervision of the team's medical staff. we will continue to monitor his progress closely

throughout the recovery process. That kind of sounds to me like we're not going to see him for the rest of the year. No, no, no, we're not going to see him anymore. If he's being monitored after he gets home, yeah, he's probably not going to be trained in. I mean, that's all they can say also right now, right? I mean, they can't get ahead of themselves.

But I think, I think first and foremost, I think rushing it now for what? You know, I mean, even if he gets back, he can't be fully up. know, he can be fully competitive in those hard races that are left. So, no, we're not seeing Bogotter anymore in action this, this year. It's better for him. It's better for his recovery and long term for his career.

It's a lot better, I think. Yeah, because like, let's just say, it's like, well, I want to win Lombardia, right? Because I need, what is it? What would it be like the seventh straight win? Gotta have that win. Sixth. Sixth, yes. I guess he's won it every year since 2021.

So yes, it would be a sixth win. I don't, yeah, that's the hardest monument of the year. It's not a walk in the park. It's not clear to me he would beat Remko-Evina-Pol. So the upside is probably limited. Plus, Spencer, whatever is left now in the season. If he wins it, it changes strictly nothing to his career. Yeah.

Even the worlds, you know, the world's, okay, you can say, well, you know, he won the world street dance. He's going to win another world championships for sure in what remains in his career. Does he want to win four? Probably. Is that possible? Yes. But anyways, I think this is more important to take a proper and full recovery and take his time.

Yeah. I mean, and I don't know if you've had, so I had a displaced clavicle, had surgery, but I was home like later that day. So the fact that he's still in the hospital would suggest that that's not a normal. That's not a run of the mill. We fixed your collarbone and now you're coming. I had one, two, and three. Oh, that sucks. I broke in two, but it was each side, but I've not done the double break on one side.

That's, that hurts. That's not good. Yeah. But, you know, typically a clavicle surgery, it's, it's not bad. I mean, it's not complicated. I suspect this is also quite okay. I think probably it's more because of the concussion also that they had to wait a little bit. Can really mess with your recovery too.

Yeah. Yeah. And before we do a quick ad break, with Pagacchar now laid up in the hospital, you had a bit of news in the pre-show that Matthew Vanderpolle is now doing world championships. Yeah. He's now decided to do the worlds. I mean, I had never seen it. It was not in his plans, but he announced it. So obviously it opens, same as in the Vuelta, you know, it opens possibilities for a lot of other riders.

And I think, yeah, without Pogacar there, it's a different race. And I think more riders will see an opportunity. So Womberpool is definitely one of the candidates again. And then Tom Pitcaug, we are saying, what stage race could he do to prepare for worlds? Well, we're fools because there's the tour of Britain that he's going to do it. Yeah, starts tomorrow. It starts tomorrow. And by the way, Spencer, I think I jokingly said, you know,

he should also be world champion on the track. And we said, you know, yeah, he has no experience. It's actually not true because some more listeners messaged me with results from the juniors. He was on the British track team and he was British champion on the track in the team pursuit, I think. He could do it then. I mean, that's really what it's all about. Having that like initial base and experience. Yeah, that background.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. All right. All right. I mean, and then so like I've seen Isaac Deltoro riding around close to my house. Training. I assume. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You sent me that picture yesterday. Yeah. So he's, he's preparing at altitude for the world championships. Yeah. And it kind of makes a lot. It makes a lot of sense now that I saw him because you could train. It's warm here. It's not Madrid hot, but it's pretty hot. You're at altitude. And then you're close to an airport. You could just fly to Montra. I assume he's just going to fly to Montreal or Quebec for the GP and then stay there. for the worlds. Maybe he would come back. I don't know. But it's a good place to train. You get altitude. It's nice and warm. You don't have to worry about being on that much different time zone than Montreal. But how are most of these riders going to handle the travel over? Like when Vanderpul comes over, is he just booking like a commercial business class ticket? Is he flying private? What do we think? I don't know. I don't know. He has a deal with a private playing company. So I think they'll send them private. But I think they're probably, I mean, they're normally there, but they're there. They're there. a week before the race. So, I mean, if some riders go to those Canadian races and take that as the preparation, they're probably going to be there like three days before. And then they're, you know, basically adapted to the time schedule by the time the

world championships happen. And what do you do with your bike and stuff? Because you don't have your trade team. Do you bring your own bike to worlds? Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, the federations are organ, I mean, it's containers. Containers, you know, they have the, yeah, plus it's the team staff.

You know, the federation bring the staff of the trade teams. Interesting. So it's, you know, yeah, that's all, that's no problem. That's no problem. So they're not, they're not packing in the peak of packworks. They're not dissembling the bike to try to get around the airline fee. No, no, no, no. This is a massage table.

Don't worry about it. But let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about, a few kind of odd things about the end of today's stage. Everybody, this Welta, Spainia coverage, is brought to you by a presenting sponsor, Ultra Focus Pouches. Do you desperately need a nicotine pouch every 15 minutes just to feel normal? How many pouches, cups of coffee, and or energy drinks per day? Do you need to stop yourself from crashing or even feeling nicotine withdrawal?

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blue raz. Ultimate is the ultimate guilt-free pouch, delivering instant focus and mental clarity without, nicotine or caffeine and new customers can use code the move to get 15% off at take ultra.com. That's take ultra.com with code the move for 15% off. Make sure you check them out because you don't want to miss this and you don't want to miss that 15% off opportunity. All right, Johan, we are back. So Visma and COVID has controlled the stage.

It gets to, first of all, what do you think about that decision? Obviously, knowing what we know now, it looks silly. But even in the middle of the stage, I was thinking, this is, that's a tall task. And it's not guaranteed that this is not a straightforward sprint. It was incredibly hard, incredibly chaotic. What did you think about that decision? Yeah.

Well, it was also their only option. There were six riders in the break. Pretty strong break, I have to say, because it was strong. Yeah. Those last two guys, man, it took them forever to catch them. This guy from UNOX, Dwerton Dvon. He was the stage in the Gero.

He was strong, really strong today. So I took them a long time. I mean, you know, obviously Van Ard and Brennan for Visma and then Kokar for Kofidis. It's their kind of sprint. And you could see it was hard. I mean, it was hard terrain. I mean, guys like Pedersen got dropped. Obviously, Matt doesn't have the legs here in this Welta or at least not yet.

I actually just saw a little headline here that he's debating whether he should maybe exit early this Welta to prepare for the world's. I probably would recommend that he don't come to the Volta. But yeah, actually early's next best thing. Yeah, because he really, he spent a lot money to Tour de France. There was no way he was recovering from that. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, it was the only, thing that could happen. Otherwise, they should have

played on like a bigger breakaway with Van Art in it. That's what I was thinking would be the move. But I guess we don't know how that played out also. And of course, Spencer, you have all. It's always difficult. You know, if Van Art is in the break on a stage like the day with a finish like this, who's going to ride full gas with Van Art? Right? In the breakaway.

So I think initially that's that was that was, that was okay to control that breakaway. I do think, however, that Visma was a bit too confident. When I saw that they started to really play the card von Ard and not bet on Matthew Brennan, Matthew Brennan was doing a lot of work in the final, bridging gaps, pulling at the end. Okay, it's obviously it's Walt Von Art.

listen, he has his status in the team. And if he says, okay, guys, today, I want to be the guy. And, you know, you're in this, you're in this wealth. And Matthew Brennan has won two stages already. I think Van Ard has enough authority and respect within the team to be able to make such demands, right? But it's not always the way it's going to play out. And the proof is, you know, he got fourth today. So I think, I think they made a mistake by being, you know,

too confident in the final. And, you know, there was, Laporte was not there anymore. Sepkuz had to close a lot of gaps. And then finally was Matthew Brennan, who had to close gaps where he would normally be the last guy for Van Art in this sprint to lead it out.

And then, of course, you know, it's been so hard that there was these attacks and they, you know, they couldn't, there was no organization anymore to chase down, was it Federov and Asparan. Yeah. love Asparin, by the way. He's been attacking a lot at this race. He's been aggressive. He has really good legs. Really good legs. And then Federov got reeled in by his own teammate. I think

Asparren made a mistake by playing it too cool and waiting too long. You know, like it's difficult to say if he would have won, but he had a chance if he would have anticipated. Also strange to see, yeah, this guy, Romale from Astana chased down the two guys. a watch of one of which was Federoff, which is teammate. So I'm going to guess he didn't distinguish because Federov is racing in the Asian champions jersey, which is a white jersey with a strange color on it. And so, I don't know, maybe in the heat of the action in the final, he didn't distinguish the blue and chased him down.

It was very confused. It's a very confusing jersey. I could not decipher what it was. So, you know, it's possible. Yeah. And everything's moving so fast. It's very possible. He didn't know who he was.

Also, you want to feel old. Fedorov, he just won you 23 worlds, right? He's 26 years old. What the heck's going on? Oh, my God. That was a long time ago. He won in Australia, right? When Remko won the pros.

Yeah, 2022. Feels like yesterday. Holy smokes. Man. Oh, I'm shook. I'm shook now. But it's safe to say peak while Van Art probably wins that sprint, right? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. We got an little off-camera debate the other day about if Van Art was at his best or not. I think today was as good of example as you could get of pretty shocking to see. If you think back to that, it was like the 20, 22 tour maybe where Van Art, there was all these stages in Switzerland. And it was like Van Art was just cleaning people up on these uphill sprints. he's a bit off where he was when he was at his best and say it was a great example a little awkward in the post-race interview did you watch it where no i didn't i didn't see

interviewer what did he say it was very funny the interviewer was like so i have to ask you an uncomfortable question now very uncomfortable for me you know if like why did you not lead out matthew brennan and then you know i had a very diplomatic answer basically saying though like i've done a lot of work for matthew and i i want some chances at this Well, but can't be how they imagine that going. I'd assume do you think Brennan was, it was Brennan working for Wout at the beginning of the stage or did that happen during the stage? Like, when does that decision get made?

Well, no, I think the decision was made that it was going to be all for Wout today. I think that's something that they decided before. But then in the final, it was, it was, Brennan had to come into action way too early. You know, I mean, listen, you can start to see the guy. are super tired, you know. I mean, like, if you look, I've seen him a few times in the back already, you know, super talent, this, uh, uh, Nordhagen, you know, Njörgen, Nordhagen, super talent, young guy. The guy's cooked. He's cooked. You know, he's struggling. He's struggling in the back of the peloton, young rider. So, um, you can start to see the fatigue. And, and Visma has already been doing

quite a lot of work also in this, uh, in this wealth, you know? And like you said, the break was strong. They were pulling it so hard to keep the gap. Yeah, it was single file. I mean, you can see guys getting dropped in the peloton on false flats. And then, you know, this, there was this eight kilometer climb, which was a lot harder than unexpected. UAE made it really hard, really hard. They attacked so much. I think that's probably what, what messed with Visma. You know, the, the UAE attacks and they were, you know, they completely lost their organization. And, um, I mean, yeah, then SEP Kus went in, went to close some gaps. Then we saw Enrique Mas closing gaps.

What about, how about that? Yeah, that was, what was going on with that? He was just isolated from his team and he thought when you're like, my might as well be on the front foot instead of chasing stuff. Yeah. I mean, listen, he's obviously, listen, he's feeling great. That's for sure. It didn't take too much of an effort.

But I'm a bit, I'm a bit worried that he was so alone because they didn't have to do any work today. And they were nowhere to be seen. He was completely on his own, which, listen, if it's a day like today, you can say it's a good day to have that happening in the team because there's going to be a lot of other riders

around you who are closing the gaps. Yeah. But Movistar didn't look didn't look strong today. So yeah, that's something that they need to turn around. Yeah, I found it really jarring. Even when Matthew Brennan was on the front, Moss was sitting on his wheel and second wheel, like going into the sprint. I guess not leaving anything to chance.

Something to be said for that. That's for sure. But keep an eye on that because that team, I mean, it was a hard day. It was 10,000 feet of climbing, Johan. Like that's not a sprint stage. So these teams were depleted. Riders were depleted by the end. I thought it was one of the more interesting stages we've had of the year.

It's a really tough riddle to crack. I thought, yeah, I don't know. I rather would have been in the breakaway as a team. I mean, look at UnoX. They had a guy in the breakaway all day. They almost win the stage with Magnus Court. And they would have looked like geniuses because then someone else controls the race for them. They win the sprint.

Probably that that's how I would have wanted to attack the stage instead of doing what Visema and Kofa just tried to do. That didn't look like fun at all. Magnus Cort not selected for the world championships. Wait a second. What? Yeah. Not selected. Not selected for the world championship.

Well, not to sound like you, but like nothing's given, right? Like we don't have any, there's no free selections. Yeah, yeah. And it's like they do have, I am shocked because they have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight spots. But do you, I mean, when you look at this list, it's like they're Sorin Crowe Anderson, Michael Vogren, Andreas Kron, Mateuskomoza, Mattz Pedersen, Casper Ascran, Miko Berg, Mikkel Onorei. It's hard to go through there. Yeah. Maybe you'd say.

Well, it's probably, you know, he didn't have a great season yet. He is a Danish national champion. He is Danish national champion. Yeah, okay. So maybe after the day it will change, you know. I don't know. But I had seen that he was quite upset that he wasn't selected for the world. In the U.S. there's all these weird rules where I think if you like go to Pan Am championships,

which is really a random. championships. It's in the middle of the season, usually in South or Central America. If you win that, you get an auto world's birth. So you have like, you know, people game the system. But you would imagine, in my opinion, the national champion should usually be on your on your world's team. Well, it depends also. I mean, it also depends on which form you are, in which shape you are. I mean, the national champion of Belgium is most likely not going to be on the world champion, on the team. Wait, who's a national champion of Belgium?

He's on UAE. And he leaves you for... No, no, no, no. He's on UAE. He leaves UAE for a movie. He just signed for three years for Movistar. I forgot his name now. He was really strong in the Belgian championships.

Who's the other Belgian on UAE? Hedegels. Looner Hatterholz. That's the national champion. Yeah. Whoa. Holy smokes. And so,

before the championships already he already knew that they were not renewing him won the championships then everything's okay everybody said okay of course he's now Belgian champion he's gonna

he's gonna go to Lotto right or to Sudau he signed for three years with Movistar yeah man this shows you how strong UAE is this like you know to win Belgian championships is hard that's probably the hardest national championship to win

and they just have this guy sitting on the bottom of the roster, you know? Yeah, yeah. My son, he's like, are there any panicookens on UAE? Like he's now a big of Panakukukens. I'm like, there's no panicookens on that team. There's no panicookens. But do we want to talk about the weather really quick? Well, no, I mean, I think we need to, you know, spend a bit of time on Bastial-Trenshaw, you know, like his win.

24 years old third win as a pro but definitely not the expected winner I mean he's fast I saw he won a stage in the tour of Burgos a few years ago

when was this it's 2022 oh already just yesterday yeah so he was but he was really young I remember he was a stagher on 802R yeah and then he won Troubrot-Lion last year where that's like a hard race.

That's a really hard race. Yeah. Yeah. But good rider, you know, third place in a stage in the Basque Country. Second in a stage in Tour of Handa-Cia. Fifth in the stage in Tour of Down Under. I mean, he was seventh in the sprint two days ago. Right there was the signal that is pretty fast.

Yeah. So, I mean, I kind of like it, the fact that these sprint stages are so chaotic and there's not really a clear favorite. You know, we kind of don't know. The other day, we didn't expect Ocar to win. No, we didn't know. Tomorrow is probably going to be a bunch sprint,

a pure bunch sprint. We don't know how that's going to play out, you know? Yeah, and if you think about, I always think after every stage, I think, what have we learned? What are the lessons learned today? And usually, you know, let's say we're going into a sprint stage. We'd say, why would these teams,

teams work on the front. Why wouldn't Groupama work? But this is why, right? Because you don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. It's much more random than you think. Your mind, like the human mind likes order. So the mind will simplify everything and you're like, well, it's going to be, it's one or two guys can win this stage. But it's not. Actually, these types of stages are the most, most likely that you can have an upset win, which tells us teams should probably actually work on the front more than they do. Like Groupama kind of got lucky today. They didn't do anything, right? They're just sitting there.

Yeah, Guillo Marta closed the gap at the end. Okay. Smart, which was smart thing in retrospect. You also think Group Hama, what were they, what are they hoping to get out of this Fualta? They come in. Their hope was a stage when they have it. And that's what they got. Yeah.

Yeah. Same thing with co-fitus where you think, well, what is co-fittes's aim at this race? They must have achieved it, right? With the stage one? Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, especially after the. And speaking of Coffield is, Spencer, you know, we've talked about Coffield is, you know, being relegated. They're scoring a lot of points, man.

You know, they won this race in France, the Britannia Classic. Yeah. They got 400 UCI points for that. Yeah, let's look at the rankings. They're, yeah, they're good. They're up there. They're up there for, I mean, I mean, they need to be first, second or third, right? in the pro team classification.

They are first in the pro teams. Yes, they are. Which is super impressive. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. They are good. They're way better than last year.

So it's them and Tudor and Q36 and Pinarola, right? Yes. So then that leaves out outside looking in is in Unibet and Total Energies. Yeah. So now the question, the question is, Spencer. if because there's if picnic

because picnic is way down so if they lose their license which they actually should lose their license I think classification-wise and especially also financially they only got a one-year license

compared to all the other teams that had a three-year license what happens then does number one of the pro teams get promoted to World Tour it's probably potato potato because let's say they don't get a license next year

let's say they're pro team and let's say the top pro team doesn't get promoted so there's just one fewer world tour team it just means everything will shift down so they're going to be four invitations yeah and then if the top protein does get the license

then it would just mean three so it doesn't matter yeah Yeah. Well, it does in that in that point of view that if because the license is over three years. So yeah, there's two more years left. Yeah. Yeah. I'm obviously for COVID-Dish, you'd rather get the light. It matters for COVID-Ds because yeah. They would, they would rather have a three-year license than living year to year, living paycheck. Yeah, exactly. Who it does matter for is Picnic, because Picnic is screwed. If they don't get their license for New Deohan, they're not going to get any race invites.

They're going to be right now amongst second division teams. They are ranked one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, 13th amongst seven second division teams. Yeah. So they're not top 30. They're 30th. So Ouskedel's closing in on them. If Ouskidel passes them, they're ineligible to go to world, to go to grand tours next year.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they'll probably hold up. off Uskedel just because they have they do have quite a few strong Dutch riders that can score points if they need them to. They better, they better wake up though. It's like, what are the

I don't really get the past. So if they don't get renewed, they need to get renewed. Because if they don't get renewed, you're not going to see them at any races next year. Because who's going to wildcard invite Picnic Post-Nel over like Pulte visit Malta, you know, Nipo Fantini, Equipo conformer. Those teams are all going to get invites over them.

By the say, by the way, the same trend is going on in their women's team as in the man's team, like riders leaving before the end of their contract. Yeah. Yeah. I've noticed that. Same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyways. Should we go to break and then talk about tomorrow's stage? Yeah. Let's do that. Okay. We'll be right back. All right, Johan, we are now previewing tomorrow's stage 11, 151 kilometers. Pretty straightforward. It's kind of straightforward. It's a stage to get to this welta. We have one categorized climb, Cat 3, 8K long, 4.5% tops out around 30K from the finish.

And then it's a slow descent down to the finish line with a slightly uphill sprint, sprint or not sprint to the finish. First of all, and we keep going further south every day. So everything's getting slightly hotter. oddly though we're in the south of spain we're going for the south you think oh it's going to get hotter every day right no not not necessarily because johan you're right there in the middle of spain it's a way hotter where you are versus the south of spain so you know it's like 29 30 degrees roughly in the hottest part of where they're going which is actually not terrible for august in spain right

for sure for sure i mean like i'm in madrid i just checked the weather i mean luckily i'm leaving now the weekend towards the north of Spain to Cantabria. But so it's going to be a bit cooler. But yeah, it's back here. Madrid is unbelievable. It was super hot the whole summer. You know, high 30s, sometimes 40 degrees. Then it came down to 24 last week.

But it's back now. Tomorrow's 37 degrees. I've just seen the weekend is 39 and 40 degrees here in Madrid. So I don't know. I don't know what, I mean, so I think going to the south is definitely in their favor now. If the temperature stay around 29, 30, 31 degrees, it's still hot, but it could be a lot worse. Well, I mean, what's crazy to think, like, I'm looking at Granada right now. So Granada is pretty hot, like 33 degrees.

You would have bitten someone's arm off during the Tudorfronts to get 33 degrees. Yeah. You know, like it was significantly hotter than that. and everywhere they stay is going to have air conditioning. So you're not as uncomfortable outside the race as you would be in a race in a more cool climate, traditionally cool climate, if that makes sense. But is this going to help Enric Moss? He's very good on hard climbs.

He's very good. In the heat, we have a lot of both. Yeah, I mean, I think Eric Moss is in great shape. He's gaining confidence. He's in pole position right now. I mean, for the rest of the wealth. I still think that his biggest rival is going to be Primoz Roglich. You know, he's biting his time.

He's getting better bit by bit. I had a little crash again the other day. I just saw in the neutral zone. Primus, you know, he needs to stay on his bike. Yeah, two or three days ago, he had a crash. I thought his jersey looked a little torn. Yeah. Also, did Sepp Kuz go down with Tari Pagachar?

That's another thing I wanted to say, Spencer. You know, we said this, Sepp Kuz is off, you know, he was down there. Also with Pogacha, he was on the floor quite a long time. So he went down really, really hard. Yeah. And so the day after, obviously, he was feeling that in the mountain stage. Today, he looked like he was having some pretty good legs in the final.

Yeah. He still has a work cut out for him. Four minutes behind Enrikmas. Not totally where you want to be. You'd say, though, like, I don't know, who knows what could happen. Remember, he won the Volta because he got in a breakaway and got a huge, he gets huge chunks of time. Yeah, but they're not going to go in a breakaway. I don't know.

I don't know, man. No, no, no, no. We could see some weird stuff later in this race. Who's going to, it's like a few good men. Who's going to stop him, Johan, Movey Star? Are they up for the challenge? Enrique Mas. Enric Mas was all over him today already.

That's true. Is that sustainable for 11 stages? No. All right, Eric Maas, you mark everybody out of the break. good luck buddy i think i think movie star will you know they they will they will they will up their level they they they'll they had an off day today uh day after the rest day you know they were not they were not very impressive today but uh at the same time they don't really need it to be uh but they'll they'll they'll be there for him and how do you think tomorrow's going to play out breakaway

tomorrow's punch sprint spencer bunch sprint yeah it's uh what is it's 1400 meters of elevation total I think. Which for this wealth is like nothing. Yeah. Short stage. The only thing, I mean, it's I think bunch print, but the only thing that is at the end, there's a few, the lead in the last 5K,

there's a few roundabouts. And then you have with 400 meters to go, which is, I mean, so if you look at the profile of the last kilometer, it's slightly uphill. With 400 meters to go, there's a 180 left turn. So they're going to come there. So that is actually,

I think, not bad for a guy like Matthew Brennan to get that really explosive power. You know, you have to be top three, top four after that corner. And then Brennan could probably win it because it's not a fun. It's not going to be a high speed sprint because they have this turn. Okay. All right. I'm looking at this now.

This is actually really tricky. Yeah, you come in and you are tracking like opposite of the finish. And then it's like it's a hot dog, basically like a crit hot dog course turn with 400 years to go. That is hard. Am I crazy for being out? I'm going to be in. I'm going to be on Brennan. Have we seen all the Brendan we're going to get at this welta? No, no, no, no, no. He was amazing today. He was super strong. I mean, he's far from, he's far from cooked.

When have we seen him do extremely well in a flat grand tour sprint finish? I mean, it's his first grand tour. Yeah. Especially with that turn. I mean, he did cite the, I mean, and he was right to be. He seemed a little whacked out by how crazy the finish was. What was that stage? Eight.

I was like, well, that's kind of the name of the game in Grand Tour Sprinting. It's bananas. And so I don't know. I don't know who's going to win. I kind of would pick Jordy Mays. Yeah, Jordan. I think this is like what he's here for. It's a 50-point-a-day.

I mean, he's not in the green jersey battle, but the Volta clearly thinks this is there's like two 50-pointer days, and this is one of them. One of the big flat bunch sprints, I'm going to go Jordy Meos. I don't know if Brennan, the position he's going to be so, so, so tough on the stage. And, you know, Brendan could win. You could prove me wrong, but.

He looked to me. Today, he looked really strong, really strong today. Do you feel like your crackpot theory of mine? If you're as strong as Matthew Brendan and you can win on as many different types of courses, does it make it harder for you to emotionally sell out on these crazy sprint days? Versus if you're Jordy Mayos, you're like, this is all I'm good at. Yeah, I've got to do it. And you can kind of switch your brain off.

Yeah, but I think tomorrow tomorrow's different. You know, it's already, it's already 11 days in. It's not the same anymore. You know, typically after the first rest day, although the rest day is, you know, the word rest day says it's to rest and to recover, but it's often a milestone in a grand tour. Like you get to the rest day and then it's like decompress. And then the fatigue kicks in after that in the peloton.

Usually after 10 days, man, it's a different race. They're not that many riders fighting anymore for what they think they can accomplish, you know. By now, everybody knows what they can accomplish. I'm going Jordan Mayuse for the sprint. Okay. If Brian Gercard wins again, I don't know what to say. It could have happened.

He lived pretty good in that sprint. Yeah, I think Mads Pedersen probably not, the legs are not where he needs him to be to contend on a day. Listen, they're not robots. You know, this guy, I mean, he's given so much. If you look at, if you look back, Spencer, imagine what it took for him to, first of all, to get ready for the classics. You know, he broke both of. his arms in Valencia in February. Yeah.

And he managed to get at the start of Milan San Remo, which is what a month later, finished fourth. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. So imagine what it takes, that kind of, that kind of catch up in your preparation. You know, you're basically doing a time trial to get ready. You know, then after the classics, a bit of decompress.

Russian, he did an amazing tour. He was incredibly strong. I don't think, I don't think we're going to see Matt Spaterson here at the level that, you know, stage when is always possible with a guy like that. You know, he has the engine, but definitely, I mean, a stage like today is, is Matt Patterson. You know, it's Matt Patterson terrain today. And he got dropped.

Yeah. I mean, he gave. So, and we talked about it at the time. The final week of the tour was bananas. Crazy. Crazy. Yeah. you're going to pay for that effort.

Well, we'll see who wins tomorrow, Sprint Day. And then the rate, this is a tricky vault. Then stage 12, I believe, is a summit finish, like a hard summit finish. So we're right back into the G.C. We'll talk tomorrow. And then preview stage 12 as well tomorrow. Well, thanks, Johan. Thank you.

You got to get you. You got to pick Bobby up from the groomers. We got to get you out of here. Yes. Tomorrow, tomorrow Bobby's coming on the show to show his fresh, his fresh cut. fresh cut. All right. We'll talk to you soon.