THEMOVE - Cold, Rain & an Unhinged Final Few Kilometers | Giro d'Italia 2026 | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down a long, difficult day of racing at the Giro d'Italia, which saw UAE's Igor Arrieta win the stage in dramatic fashion over Bahrain's Afonso Eulálio, who took the overall lead from Giulio Ciccone. They then preview tomorrow's Stage 6, which takes the peloton to Naples for what will likely be the final bunch sprint before a block of GC-focused days. Listen in to see what the duo thinks of the stage, how the action will play out tomorrow, who will come out on top, and which riders present the best betting value. Become a WEDŪ Member Today to Unlock VIP Access & Benefits: https://access.wedu.team  

That's also a very, very difficult objective, Spencer. Then something needs to happen to Jonas. It's not excluded, but. Yeah. Well, I mean, you and I know that it's very hard and something would have to happen to Jonas. I would like the mentality inside of Red Bull to be. We're going to happen to Jonas.

You know what's going to happen? We're going to kick his butt. And we don't need the Megalio Rosa right now. Just today, I was like, ooh, like, Jonas has already won this race. was my thought when I saw that. I think he basically, I mean, if nothing happens to him, he has won it since he announced his participation,

and we saw who the rivals were. But it's three weeks, so a lot can happen, and a lot will happen. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Bernal. We are breaking down stage five of the Giro de Talia, which was won by Igor Arejato from UAE team member. It's her second win in two days,

not a bad, not a bad jurid Italia for losing three key riders on stage two. Afonzo Ullario from Bahrain, Victorious was second. I'm not also not doing this stage finish justice. We'll get into it later in the show. It was absolutely bananas. Ullario gets second, two seconds behind Areta, but takes the GC lead by almost three minutes over Areeta and six minutes over the real GC group,

Giulio Chukone, who held the Maglio Rosa coming into the stage, stage finished the stage over seven minutes down. So he's six minutes, 12 seconds out of the GC lead now. He looks like a truly sad man out there pulling for himself in the in the Meglio Rosa. There could be there could be police going to the race village, Johan to arrest Little Trek management for making that happen. But just a quick primer on what happened. The stage starts. It actually was decent weather at the start turned into terrible weather. Some of the worst weather you could imagine racing through around not that cold, like 13 degrees Celsius, but rainy and probably felt a lot colder than that.

Very hard fight for the breakaway on the first climb. A move got clear with Afonzo Ullario in it, and then Arelletta bridged up with Ben Turner and a few others after the climb crested. It was like a kind of a chaotic moment. I think Victor Campanard jumped across then. We'll talk a little bit about. why Vismo wanted a rider in the breakway. And then Little Trek has to get on the front and pull.

They're managing the gap well. They get to the toughest climb of the day with around 64 kilometers to go. Red Bull comes to the front. The gaps 155 to the break. I'm thinking, well, they're going to blow this up. We're going to have the GC showdown. Maybe we'll have Pelazari win the stage. We'll see what happens.

They kind of stall out. They only have Alexander Vlasoff left on the front, like halfway up the climb. The gap's actually going out. Igor Auretta attacks, drops everybody. He looks fantastic. A little scuffle behind Ullario emerges, bridges up to Areata, which is super impressive, by the way. That's not easy to do. Probably helped.

The climb was super tough, and he was just stronger than everybody else. And then the chaos began. Back in the GC group, things calm down. Chaconi gets to the front. There's no one left from Little Trek other than Derek G. West. So he has to pull. He doesn't really have a chance, though, because it's two guys up front. He's pulling by himself.

The gap's going out. It's clear he's going to lose. the jersey because Ullaria entered the stage a minute behind him. Coming into the final, Areetta crashes with 13K to go. Oh, no, he's out of the race. Ullario continues on. He can't wait for him because he doesn't want to lose time.

6K to go. Ullario crashes. Oh, no. Arieta catches up. We're going to have a two-ups sprint. 2K to go. Areata misses a turn. I don't know if he missed it, if he didn't see it,

if he thought he was going to crash and just kind of went off in a little ramp that ended up being a good ramp for him to have because he didn't crash. He goes off the road. It looks like Ullario was just going to float to the stage win. The leader's jersey. Arieta, this was an impressive performance here, Johan. The last 2K, he looks like he's in his biggest gear, like a 40 RPM turnover. I thought I was watching a replay in slow motion, but I was watching the actual finish in real time.

Areeta, it's a slightly uphill final kilometer, just reels in Ullario, blows right by him, wins the stage. Ulario gets the leaders jersey, big for Bahrain, victorious, because they lost San Diego Petrago on stage two, big for UAE because they lost Adam Yates. And now they won two stages in a row. What were your takeaways from this crazy stage? My first takeaway, Spencer, is, you know, days like this bring back memories, like really bad memories. Like a cyclist, and you've done ground tours. And that weather is, is just horrible, you know, horrible. It's the worst you can imagine.

It was raining. It was cold. There was hail more than 200 kilometers. You know, you're struggling with the clothing all day long. You know, you have to put layers on and take them off. It's chaos. Plus, you know, your legs don't work. You know, you're riding with legs that are at some point so cold that, you know,

everything looks in slow motion. A horrible day. You know, I mean, it was a hard day, 3,700 and something meters of elevation. It was hard on everybody. The breakaway, of course, there were some riders there. I mean, especially the moment the breakaway was established. It was a long fight. You know, I mean, it was coming down so hard, pouring, pouring, pouring.

I think one of the first guys actually to go was Silva, right? The guy who won this. The former Maglio Rosa was really active. Yeah. So impressive from him. And you could see it. I mean, everybody was just like, okay, we were going to, you know, push through this, push through this because everybody in the back is suffering too.

That's what goes through their mind, you know, because it was so hard. And finally, this, you know, this break goes away. First, these five riders. Then, you know, when all these that are joined, there was 12 riders. And then there was one writer who really impressed me, Spencer, this guy from EF, Darren Rafferty. Yes. He britched up by himself when the break had already more than a minute. That was, I mean, when you see something.

Andy was in the breakaway yesterday. When you see a move like that, obviously, you know, they had instructions to be in the moves. They were not. They got yelled at. And then he goes and everybody says, what kind of a stupid move is this? That's the first thought, right? Yeah. But the guy made it to the break.

That was impressive. So ultimately 13 riders, and you could straightaway see that Little Trek could not control this, because they only had three riders at some point. I think that. And then afterwards, Sobrero came back, but they had this, what's his name? The guy who's pulling. I think he's from Eritrea. Yeah, I don't remember his name.

His name is, I should not be the one to say his name. It's Amman. Emmanuel, I believe. he was his first name and his last name is I'm not even going to take a crack at it. But he did a lot of work. He was on the front for a long time. Say his name. I'll say,

I'll try to say, what do you think of this? Oh, my Lord. It's like, I'm going to spell it. G-H-E-B-R-E-I-G-Z-A-B-H-I-E-R. G-B-R-E-B-R-E-R.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it said. Okay, there you go. Listen, I mean, that guy was pulling forever, forever. and could initially keep the break like it was three minutes and went back to two minutes he was doing a good job like it was staying where it needed to be yeah um but you know they just lacked manpower and nobody else nobody else was was going to try um especially also because visma had companards in the breakaway so initially i thought i don't know what you thought i said campanarts is in there you could see he was super motivated from the very beginning uh

to be in that break. And so my first thought was, okay, this is just a strategy. Jonas is going to go on that climb with 50-k to go. Has somebody in the front already and then, you know, use him afterwards. But none of that happened. Campanards couldn't follow the acceleration of Arieta and O'Lallio on the climb. And finally, you know, couldn't really do anything for the team. But yeah, I was surprised to see that there was no action in the GC group.

On that was a really hard climb. But I think that the weather contributed a lot to, okay, you know what? Let's just try to save the day. Let's try to get safe to the finish because, you know, if you attack, that also brings with it that you have to afterwards take risks in the downhill to stay up front. Yep. I think from that moment on, I think it was just, okay. let's just be conservative status quo let's save everything let's not lose any more riders

and bring it home safely and i think that's basically what happened in the gc group but didn't take away from the spectacle we saw between you know for the stage win between those two riders there was so much drama um going on and we didn't know until 50 meters to go who was going to win but listen well deserved for areeta man he was he fought for it son of an ex-professional writer who is a grand tour stage winner also his dad in the tour of spain jose louis arieta was for a very long time on i would say very long time on he was on banesto and movistar

actually movie star as a writer i don't think so he was on banesto and then he was it was benesto AG2R Well, in between, you remember this team, Il Barreale's? It's the same. The Case de Parm is what it became eventually. And then Agia

I guess De Parne and I think then he went to AG2R. Yeah, for actually quite a while, like five years. Then he was DS on Movistar for a long time. Something happened. He left and he's now DS at DeGatrol. well

age 2R I mean I don't know if he's still on decathlon but he was definitely for as long as AG2R was a sponsor he was a DS there after

after leaving Movistar but listen adietta I mean you could see this coming you know this is I think this is his third year pro from the first year

from the first year he was on I don't know if he started on Kermfarma or on Yeah, that's right, confirmer. Yeah, I saw him do already some really good things. I remember seeing that guy in Ograng Camino up there with the best.

You could straight away see, okay, this guy's a real, real, real racer, big talent. And, you know, for a rider like this, on UAE, somebody who always, always, always works for everybody else but himself to get this opportunity because of the unfortunate crash of three of their, the three. three best riders or three leaders. And now have this stage win. That's just unbelievable. I mean, what a way to turn it around, man, UAE. They, you know, they lose three riders and stage four and stage five.

They win. And it's not over. It's not over. The ambience is going to be pretty good at UAE. Well, you hear the hot take I had in my head during the stages. Is this going to work out better for them because of the crash? Because now they have these, these stallions. They're sending after stage wins.

I mean, these guys are, when we saw Arieta attacked, it looked like he was in a junior. He was a grown up in a junior race, which actually is a bad analogy because if, Johan, if you and I were in a junior race, we wouldn't do so well. But he looked like a professional in a junior race. He was going twice the speed of the other guys in the climb. It was, these guys are so talented and now they're untethered from having to do teamwork. Obviously, maybe Adam Yates wins this race. So that's a tragedy that he's not here.

But what's funny is as you're going through that, early in the race, I know Rubio was the concern. That was the guy everyone was worried about was Rubio from Movistar because he was only 10 seconds off the race lead. He's a pretty, you know, I think at UAE tour, did he not have a high finish? Did he maybe he won UAE tour?

Maybe I'm losing my money. You won the hardest mountain stage. He won the hardest mountain stage. And he was the concern, but then he's hold in. He's reeled in with like 50K to go. And then now there's a new concern. O'Lario's up the road. Yeah.

You would say little trek. I think initially that was the purpose also because he had another movie star writer with him. Milesi was really strong. Also a young rider. Really strong. So he was pulling a lot. But then Rubio just went, you know, the lights went out. He was one of the lights went out.

the first guys dropped actually on that climb and then got caught by the main group and then got dropped from that lost 10 minutes from the main group so that's like okay completely out of energy um and as you say people were pulling over to put clothes on to put on jackets take jackets off it was a disaster back there yeah no it's it's uh days like this man oof it's it's it's hard It's hard to be a cyclist on days like this. Well, and we were just talking a few days ago about, wow, everyone's so skinny. How are they 68 kilos of heavy guys, 72 kilos? The flip side of that is when it's, even when it's 13, you know, 13 degrees Celsius, you know, for big boys, it might not be that cold.

But if you have the, these people must have 2%, 3% body fat and 13 degrees in the rainy, it's going to feel so cold. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a plus, plus Spencer, it's not just, being in this riding your bike and trying to stay upright, you know, on slippery roads. With your hands numb. It takes a lot of it. It takes a lot of. And luckily, I mean, luckily the clothing nowadays has improved.

I mean, the clothing now for rain is, is so much better than 10, 15, 20 years ago. But still, you know, there's nothing that can really protect you from getting wet. They're all wet, you know, whatever you put on. you're wet and cold from top to toe, which makes riding a bike pretty difficult, as we have seen with the crash of Arieta and the crash of Eladio. I mean, it was, I mean, it was really too dangerous corners. It was okay, where Areta crashed.

It was a hairpin, but still, I don't know how many other hairpins he took today. So it's also, you know, the reflexes are a lot less at the end of a stage like this. I mean, where Erlalio crashed, it must have been slippery, but he did not even enter the turn yet. And he was on the ground already. He crashed. It was before the turn. Which could exist. Also, the stage was five hours.

So can you imagine? And it was not raining at the beginning. So nobody was, nobody had the rain gear on at the start. Then they had to try to put it on. That's the worst of every world right there. And you're in the rain for five hours. As you said, Victor Campanart's going in the breakaway. It's like, well, what's going on here?

Is Visma going to do something? Nothing ends up happening. GSI wise except Chaconay sadly loses. The saddest, I think, loss of a jersey I've seen in a long time. The most slow motion disaster unfolding before our eyes. But all the GC stuff gets called off because imagine if the GC group is racing into the final like the two lead guys were. Like it could have been really ugly.

So maybe everything got called off because it was like, well, we don't want to risk crashing. This isn't worth it, especially with four, you know, tomorrow's a sprint stage and then it's four G.C. days in a row would be my best guess. But what, why? Because Victor Canberrains put a lot of work into that. Like he was, he wanted to be in that breakaway from kilometer zero. Do you think that was to set up a Visma move or just to have it as an option?

I honestly think so. I mean, you know, obviously it's always good to have a rider in a break, especially if it's a big one, like 12, 13 riders. It's good. but, you know, didn't really bring anything to, to Visma, other than if Jonas had plans to attack on that climb. Because with all the riders that were there, it would have been very difficult for Kampanaf to win the stage

with that steep climb. I mean, he's good, but he's, you know, there are always riders who are going to climb better than him. Well, that's not, shouldn't really be a concern right now. Getting Victor Kampenarts up the road to get a stage win. probably should not be a list of... And it's not. In my opinion, it was to set up an attack,

but the plans changed on the road. They just wanted to keep everything safe. If it's a dry day, I think it would have been different. A thought I did have is, is he doing this just to mess with everybody? Like just to create chaos. Because he's up the road.

Visma now doesn't have the pole. They get to the steep climb. Red Bull comes forward. Looks impressive. but they're not taking any time out of the breakaway. What was that about? That's the impressive part, Spencer, about those few riders in the break, you know, like Arieta and Elalio.

When Red Bull was pulling, they were not going slow. And they did not take any time back on Arieta and Eulalia. So that was the sign that they were most likely going to make it to the finish. So what Red Bull was doing exactly, I don't know. I think were they trying to, you know, make it to the Red Bull sprint and get the bonification for Poli Pelizade and take the jersey? That could be one of, I mean, it's also, I mean, I don't know. It was a weird, a weird decision.

I think they tried and they probably thought that they would reel in the break easier. finally they didn't really did it at all but yeah I don't know I don't know what the thinking was behind and then go for the stage win and then get the leaders jersey I mean I guess that was the

the plan well I mean if if Belizari gets the Red Bull sprint there's six seconds that would put them in the leaders years already but that would mean that Chicone doesn't take any seconds which would also be difficult right Yeah, that would be really tough.

Actually, if you really start to think about it, anything they were trying to accomplish is tough as long as Chaconis there, because is he going to lose the Red Bull sprint and the final sprint to Pellizari? Probably not. But the thought is you get a young rider in the Magliarosa. That's a success. He feels confident. He feels good about the team.

I assume that's what they're trying to do. Yeah. Although I think, I think Benazadezati should focus. on the podium. That's what I think. That's the main concern and not really worry about being a day in pink. Although, you know, we cannot, we cannot judge what it means for an Italian writer to have the Malia Rosa. We cannot know the importance of that.

It is magical, you know. So I could also understand that if that was their goal, then that they tried, but didn't work out. Yeah, I'd rather have them thinking, well, we're going to have the Meglia Rosa in Rome. Why do we need it now? That's also a very, very difficult objective, Spencer. Then something needs to happen to Jonas. It's not excluded, but.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you and I know that it's very hard and something would have to happen to Jonas. I would like the mentality inside of Red Bull to be. We're going to happen to Jonas. You know what's going to happen? We're going to kick his butt. And we don't need the Megalio Rosa right now. I just today I was like oof like that yonis has already won this race was my thought when I saw that like

well I think he basically I mean if nothing happens to him he's he has won it since he announced his participation and we saw and we saw who the rivals were but you know it's three weeks so a lot a lot can happen and a lot uh a lot will happen I have a lot of uh I'm not looking forward to blockhouse after today I feel like Jonas I think it was a difficult day for everyone and then yonis looked like he was back there smoking cigars, not too worried about what was happening all day. Here's a few questions for you. So Bahrain now has the city, the race lead. Afonzo Ullario.

As a writer we don't know a lot about, like got fifth a Saudi tour earlier this year. Fine result, but that's not a grand tour win. He is minutes, like six minutes up on Chicone, Bernal Arnsman, Vindigard. Vindigard's probably going to beat people in the top 10 by 10 minutes. So let's say he is a 16-minute buffer to the end of the top 10 overall in this race. Can he hold on? Like, what can he do, G-C-wise? I think he definitely can be top 10.

Yeah. Also, I mean, the fact what he did today shows that he's in great shape. He's going to hang on to the jersey on State 7, I think, on Blockhouse. He's not going to lose six minutes. Probably not. you know oh look who's here look who came hey bobby this guy's back bobby's back i have to get him on my lap because he's uh yeah he's asking for attention so that's why he comes and say hi bobby you got to close that dog food sponsorship for us look at that right there but yeah you probably will lose it tomorrow or sorry on

on Friday. No, on blockhouse. It's hard. It's hard. Although I did hear some today, former ex-professional cyclists say that, yeah, blockhouse,

it's not steep. It's long, but it's not steep. And I looked at the profile. I said, wow, if that's not steep, then I don't know what steep means.

It's 13.5 kilometers at 8.5%. 8.5%. 8.5%. A lot of, a lot of sectors of more than 10%, so it's definitely a hard climb. But I think it's, Al-LU is going to hang on to the Jersey, which is probably also a good thing for Visma, you know, because Bahrain is a bit, I mean, not to the same extent,

but they're also a bit in the same situation as UAE. They lost their leader for G.C., Santiago Bidrago, in the crash. They bounce back, they win the, they get the jersey, today and so that they are definitely going to try to defend it for as long as they can, I think. So plus, plus I think that Ullalio is going to become the lead. I mean, there's still Caruso on the team, but, you know, his days of GC rider are gone. Probably we would assume.

I mean, he's like 38 or 39 years old. I mean, it's his last year, his last year, by the way. So, yeah, I think, I think, but I, will defend the jersey and i'm pretty confident that after state seven all right you're still going to be in the lead with three minutes four maybe maybe three uh how much does he have on on yonis six and six and a half basically yeah more than three minutes the problem is in that time trial what's he going to lose uh yeah he's also going to lose some time there could be two minutes there yeah this is crazy about caruso it brings us to stage 10 that brings us to stage 10

already, Spencer. So, you know, that's a, yeah, through the rest day too. You know, four days in pink. So anybody in this race would take that, you know, four days in the leader's jersey. And many teams would sign for that straight away. Especially a team that just lost their leader on stage two. Yeah. Yeah.

Butrogo. Guess where Caruso finished in last year, zero overall? Top 10. Fifth. Pretty good. Yeah. That guy is really good. He finished second in 2021, we all remember.

But he's still putting up impressive. I mean, that's actually not talked about enough. He's 38 years old. And he's probably riding the fastest he's ever ridden in his life. I would assume to be getting fifth at the Giro? You got to be flying. You know, he's very undervalued. He has a strong career, man.

So a few more questions for you. Lido Trek. Could they have done anything differently here? Or no. They just exhausted all options. No, I mean, you know, they came with a team that is basically built around Milan. Plus, you know, Chicona was in the pink jersey, but their leader for G is really Derek G. So he was not going to pull.

No. So they only had Gabres Cabier. And then at a later point, Sobrero came back, but it was too late already then. I mean, because when you split your two. Yeah. Yeah, I thought he came back. could be out of my mind. But when you split your team like this, you start to run out of riders a lot faster than you think.

Because one of them is Jonathan Milan. You know, he's not going to help. One of them is Dergis. One of them is Chaconne. So that's three protected riders right there. So you only have, what, four riders left? Five. Five riders left.

Presumably three of those are lead out riders. And then you have two guys to work. So, So Brero. and the gentleman who was exhausted because he had worked for 50K going into that client. So try to say his name, Spencer. Come on. Give it a try. Emmanuel.

Emmanuel. I don't even think I read. I listened to that closely when you said it. But this, I mean, but this is also what happens when you split a team like this and then you're not winning sprints. It starts to get really dicey, really fast. And that's what's happening in the little track. Sure.

Yeah. And then so, I was sad for Chicone also because. he would have deserved, you know, to be a few days in pink. But yeah, listen, today's stage was not a good one. Not a nice one for anybody. No, I mean, and Chaconne, like, he did what he could. Like he was out there, he showed respect to the jersey, as we all agree is the most important thing about professionals. There was nothing else to do for him, you know.

He didn't, I mean, he didn't really chase. He just was up there in front. He knew he couldn't do anything. I mean, it's also kind of, you know, not, not nice, not cool for, you know, an Italian to wear the pink jersey and actually not being able to show it off because he was, he was in rain jackets all day, you know, just at the start. And then he had the pink jillet over his rain jacket, you know, to show something. I mean, maybe he, maybe he could. No, because it's block, you know, because it's blockhouse and then, yeah, that is kind of a bummer. It's too bad for him, but he had the pink helmet.

So, well, we could see him in there. He gets his day in kind of pink. He loves pink letters on the bike. That was cool. Yeah. This is also, people forget May. They think May. Oh, summer.

No, May, especially in Europe, especially where I live too in the U.S. in Colorado. May can be a miserable month. And that's like you get reminded that every couple days. And especially in the zero, especially in the zero. There's always bad weather in the zero at some point. We didn't even get to the high mountains yet. So no. But you know, you go to all these places in Italy and France. And it's so green, Germany, it's green. And you're like, well, how is it so green? Because it rains all the time. And when does the rain come in April and May? And that's when it gets green. But should we talk about tomorrow's stage, Johan? We can take a quick break.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. We'll be right back. So, Johan, tomorrow, we have a lot. 141 kilometer stage into Napoli. We've done this the last few years around this time of the Gero. This is probably the most straightforward. I think we had, you know, the Thomas Degentzs circuit race. That was a few years ago where DeGent held off the like a Vanderpull and Benyam Grimmaigrmi group, perhaps if I'm remembering that correctly. And then we've had a few chaotic sprint stages into Naples.

Tomorrow it's 141K, not a lot of features. I think last year, too. Remember how it was a bad weather stage, tons of crashes. Caden Grove, wait, somebody won. Wattvinard launched with like 600 meters to go. Caden Grove's one. Caden Grove's one, yeah. But that was a crazy stage.

I don't think tomorrow is going to be as crazy. 141K with one climb, a bonus sprint, a Red Bull kilometer. They do go right into the heart of Naples. So I guess anything can happen. It does seem to just promote chaos. But after today, everyone's so tired and ready for, I guess, a simple stage. I would guess that it's a sprint stage. It's kind of a flat last kilometer.

And then it kicks up. And it looks almost like it's on cobbles for a few hundred meters before the finish. So let's hope. I didn't check the weather. But, you know, if you go into Naples, you need to pray for dry weather. Oh, if it's, yeah. It's slippery over there. But I think, you know, it should be a guaranteed bunch sprint.

You know, the usual Milan, Brunovagen, Manier, Andersund. Oh, no. So it's warm-ish, like 19 degrees Celsius, 66 Fahrenheit. 65% chance of precipitation, though. Oh, that's not good. 21-kilometer hour wind. That could be tricky. Yeah, yeah.

If it rains. If not, it won't be tricky. Let's hope it doesn't rain, man. Nobody wants crashes more. I mean, there's so many, so many people already abandoned, man. In this, in this year, we're only five days in. Yeah. Lotto Marchet is also down to five days.

I saw that. Yeah, they have three guys out. But these three guys, these three guys were, those were the three sick guys. Oh, okay, okay. They were all sick from the same race leading to this. That makes sense. Which is a bummer because, like, Milan Menton was one of them.

It was a really good sprinter. You know, there with DeLea. And then Josh Giddings. I was excited to see how he did. Wait a second. I think he got called up last moment, if I'm not mistaken. I don't know if he was not in a crash, actually. You're right, because the last.

He got called up to replace one of the sick guys. Okay. Yeah. And then he's out. Bummer. I think it's going to be, I mean, I could be wrong. I don't have the odds in front of me because they're not out yet. I think it's going to be a battle between Paul Marnier and Jonathan Milan again.

What do you think? Yeah, it should be. Yeah. I'm going to keep going for Marnier because I just think he's in better shape than Milan overall. Although in a flat stage, a sprint stage like this short, doesn't really matter. And maybe we see finally Milan and I can. action, you know, he's going to get there at some point, you know, and we should not count him out. But I was still going to back Paul Manier.

I mean, Manier looked not easy today, but he was handling those climbs impressively well. We don't really, I mean, Milan probably went into the stage with a very simple brief. Like, it was just to get through the stage. So maybe that wouldn't have been too hard on him. I'm going to really zag here, though. Not really zag. I'm going to pick Dylan Grunov. I thought he was quite close at the last sprint back in Bulgaria.

We saw he sprinted exactly as fast as Paul Marnier just wasn't as good of a position. I thought his Unabet team looked really good. I'm going to go Dylan Grunnevegan, but Paul Manei is also a very good thing. I think one of the, you know, against Brunovagan today for tomorrow, I think is, you know, that a rider like Brunewagan has, even if he was in a groupetto, he has spent a lot on a stage like today. you know, 3,700 meter stage in bad weather, a rider of the stature of Grunovigin suffered a lot to make it. So that could be, that could be in his disadvantage tomorrow. And we might say Milan would be the same, but he's actually a surprisingly good climber.

Yeah, especially for someone as big as him. So maybe, yeah, maybe Milan was a little less fatigued in Dillon Gronobegen. I mean, if we're being frank, probably the smart money should be on Paul Monnier. It's just the only thing is I can't. And what about Lund? I don't know, Lund. He was so out of position. I mean, what happened back there in the last sprint stage? He just was out of position. He was never quite there. Well, I've heard, I've heard he, I mean, he seems to have had a bad crash last season or something. and he's still dealing with, you know, fear. Interesting.

Which is not good if you're a sprinter. No, no, especially in Naples. That's a problem. Yeah. That is a problem. I mean, I'm just looking at, I mean, if the thing about Lund is a lot of his wins, especially recently, are in like fitness-based competitions. So like think of Cadill Evans' Great Ocean Road Race.

Like that, that, you got to be a. really strong rider. That's not a real bunch sprint. Gintmuelgum, he was second. Like that's fitness. Torano, he did win stage three against the Lee, Phillips, and Manier, Wellsford, but that was a hard stage, you know, quite a bit of climbing. I, yeah, I don't know. He's definitely going to win now that I say he's not going to win, but I would not pick Looned because I would doubt him in the chaos of like the final few kilometers in Naples. It could be, yeah. Now he will absolutely.

win. So now bet on him. After I've said that, now go bet on him. I hope for him. I mean, he's fast, obviously. Like in a, if he's beating Philipson, who's the best stage race sprinter in the world, just by the numbers, De Lee, very good,

Manier, obviously, very good. So he's clearly, and Milan was in that sprint. So he's physically capable of it. It's just, he looked a little, but that was last year, right? that was this year at terrino we just don't remember it because it was like the most boring at all time yeah yeah yeah yeah um that was yeah that was yeah that was like a

it was it was kind of a funny terraino because you know it starts with a t-t he wins that sprint stage and then van der it was like that vanderpool wins and then the final stage i think that's when like vanderpool blew it up do you remember that on the climb and then i think lund was one of the only sprinters to stay in that group yeah and then Milan won that stage, and that's Milan's last win. I'm going to go Grunovagan. I just, I also feel like I never have a handle on Giro sprints. I think one thing and then the opposite happens.

So I'm just embracing the chaos of the short of time. The speed he developed, the speed Grunovagan developed in that last sprint was definitely on par with Bormannier. Yeah, yeah, like literally the same. His speed was equal, so he can win. And has a good, good team for the leadout. Yeah, the team is dialed in, and this is what they're here for. That would be the case for Grunovig. It's their only objective with a stage with the Lamped.

So it's the whole team in for that. In this, not, I feel like I'm piling on Lidl-Trek, but the sensations in Unabet will be very positive. You know, like, we got close. We're here. We're almost, we could win a stage. Little Trek, I feel like everything's just cascading down on them. You know, it's like, we're not winning. We lost the leader's jersey.

I just don't feel like it will be as positive. And they gave a lot today. You know, they burned through a lot of riders today that Unabet didn't. All right. Well, thanks, Johan, and we'll be back. So Paul Monnier wins tomorrow. Like, that's pretty impressive. Three wins, three, basically sweeping the sprint stages at 22 years old in your first.

Is it his first year to tell you? Has to be. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no. He did the last year, but he abandoned. He did. started last year. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I do vaguely remember that. Well, thank you. And we'll be back tomorrow to talk about stage six and then preview stage seven, which is our first big GC showdown on Blockbuss. Yeah. Okay, Spencer. Thanks.

See you.