THEMOVE - Giro d'Italia Stage 14 Analysis & Stage 15 Preview | THEMOVE+

Episode Date: May 24, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down Kasper Asgreen's incredible solo win ahead of a fast-chasing pack on Stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia, and dissect the GC repecussions of the late crash, which split the peloton, caught out multiple GC contenders, including Juan Ayuso and Primož Roglič and allowed UAE's Isaac del Toro to continue to build his GC lead. They discuss a few takeaways from the stage before previewing tomorrow's Stage 14, predicting who will win, how the action will play out, and which riders present the best betting value.

The fact of the day is another crash which impacts heavily the GC. If you look at the GC today where it stands, it's two big crashes who have made the crashes in the gravel stage and today's stage that have impacted the GC. And the majority of the bulk of the wins and losses in time come from those two stages and those two crashes. So that's unfortunate, but you know, that's part of bike racing. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the move plus I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with the Ohan Berniel and we are breaking down stage 14 of the Giro d'Italia before predicting tomorrow's stage 15.

Before we do that, let's walk through what happened early in today's stage. It was a 195 kilometer stage. I thought would be a routine boring one from the Pope plane of Italy into the light hills of Slovenia that we might get a little just routine bunch sprint. But no, the day started off odd. There was a big super breakaway with Wout Van Aert, Casper Asker, and a bunch of other really strong writers up there. Of course, the teams like Tudor and VF Bardiani who missed it, didn't like that,

chased it down. It was a frantic chase. They finally get caught. Casper Asker goes clear again, this time with a smaller group of, you would, you'd say like more routine breakawayist like Mirko Mastriotti Mastri Mastriotti on Pulte Visit Malta and Mirko Mastri and then Martin Mars. What's this? Last year Mar Marcella on VF Bardiani, VF group Bardiani.

And they never really got much of a gap, Johan. They were just being held at about a minute and a half. And I thought, well, this is it. This is over. Then it starts to rain. Then they get into this little finishing circuit and you text to me, this could get a little sketchy and right after you texted me that there's a crash in the group right at the front of the group.

And a lot of GC writers are caught up in it. Isaac del Toro and Richard Carapaz are at the front. They jump back into the lead group, which I guess Visma got through almost unscathed. They don't miss a beat because they have Olaf Koi. They've been chasing all day. They want to get to that finish line and contest the sprint. But Primoz Roglic, Juan Uso and a bunch of other GC contenders, takes them longer to get up. They're now in a chase group. And then we have the Visma group with Del Toro chasing the breakaway, which is soon just to be Caspar Asgren, Caspar Asgren, because he drops everybody else. And then you have the Roglic, Juana Uso group chasing them.

And then behind them, you have the Tibiri, Antonio Tibiri group chasing them. And then behind them you have the Tiberi Antonio Tiberi group chasing the Roglic group. So we have multiple pursuits going on. What happens is the Vizema group runs out of riders. And as soon as they do that, the chase loses some juice. Askren holds on for really incredible stage win, like super impressive stage when he was actually gaining time in the final kilometers. I thought he had no chance at the middle in the middle of that stage. Wanauso loses time to his teammate, Izik del Toro in the final kilometers. I thought he had no chance at the middle in the middle of that stage. One of you. So loses time to his teammate, Isaac del Toro in the race lead,

who just keeps gaining time every day. It's becoming actually quite impressive how much time this guy can gain on seemingly in innocuous stages and Primoz Roglic loses time with one of you. So, but before we get into the GC stuff in the crashes and whatnot, you hunt, let's talk about Casper Asren for a second. His first win since 2023, actually just saw a thread on Reddit. It's like, what happened to breakaways and grand tours? Like we haven't really haven't had one since that,

since Askren did it in the Tour de France a few years ago, but this was vintage breakaway. Didn't have much of a gap. Like, how did they hold on? Like, I guess they got lucky with the crash, but still like, yeah, well, you know, lucky, you know, a guy like Askreen, it's true. He won his last stage in, in 2003, if I'm not mistaken, it was a stage in the Tour de France. Also, you know, miss or hit or miss at the last moment he won from a sprint, but a rider like that, from that kind of caliber, you can never really write them off. When they have their day, they're able to do some incredible things.

And today was one of them. Today was a stage win in real Ask Green fashion. He know, purely, you know, he was the motor of those three guys. He did the majority of the work. You could say, well, you know, the crash contributed a bit. I don't think so actually, because, you know, they also had to be careful, the three guys in front.

It was also sketchy through those corners on the circuit. And as soon as the crash happened, I mean, Vismal went to the front and they were at the front. It was clear that their goal was to try to win the stage with Olaf Koi. And of course, they didn't look back. There was only Groves who was there from all the other sprinters. Plus they had Simon Yates and they were already on their mission. It's not like, you know, the race was full on.

It's not like they took advantage of the crash. They were doing already what they were doing. So I've seen some debates on social media, you know, well, they shouldn't have done this. They should have waited. No. I think they did what they had to do. There's absolutely no blame on Visma at all. But yeah, I mean, Asgreen today was, as you say, vintage Asgreen. It's been a while, but today was, you know, he's a huge engine. He looked great. He's probably also pretty good in the bad weather. It was not, I mean, it was not extremely bad weather, but I saw a lot of guys with rain jackets on

at the beginning of the stage, so, or in the middle of the stage. So, you know, it was not hot. And yeah, this was a perfect stage for him. At the end, he was motoring. I mean, he was taking time on on on a guy like what one art and then at the end, even Simon Yates himself had to pull for Olaf Koi. Because he was the only guy left. And he was he was he kept gaining time after having been

in the breakaway, the whole stage. So, you know, hats off to him was an incredible, incredible stage with for ask green a long time since he hadn't won. But, um, you know, once in a while, these guys pull off something incredible today was one of those days. It was last three world tour wins are Giro d'Italia stage, tour to France stage, tour of Flanders. Yeah. Let's not forget, Spencer, let's not forget this guy beat Mathieu van der Poel in a one-on-one

sprint in the tour of Flanders. And I guess it was 2021, right? So it's, I mean, it's, it's four years ago. But still, this was already more or less prime Matthew van der Poel back then. And because I think Van der Poel had won already the Tour of Flanders that year. He was the champion. Yeah. Yeah. And Asgreen also was second in the Tour of Flanders another year. Um, so, you know, it's, he has, he's still a great rider. Uh, it's just, you know, we just would like to see him a little bit more consistent, but, uh, today he had a great day and deserved that win.

Well, yeah, the consent he's clear. Cause he's clearly great. Like you don't do what he did today. As you said, Wout Van Aert was pulling as hard as he could to the point that, you know, he blew up and he wasn't really bringing him back Askren. I think he, what he wrote him off, like he just, he kind of was on the descent. And he just like rode the other two up his wheel with six K to go 14 second gap. You think, well, six K to go 14 seconds. I don't know if that's enough,

but the weird thing is this gap like wasn't coming down in a linear fashion. Like with, I'm just looking back now with 45k to go, it's a minute 22. And then it starts dropping fast to the point where it's down to 45 seconds with 30k to go. But then by the time the crash occurs, it's at 54 seconds. So it's going back up. And then it's coming down fast, but then it doesn't stay down. And he, you know, I, and I wonder if Vismo was even getting concerned before the crash that they

were like, that's why they were at the front. And that's why they didn't even pause when the crash happened. Cause like, we got to get this guy cause we might not get them. And if you noticed he was wearing an arrow helmet, like a super arrow helmet. So clearly this was, this was a plan they had. They were definitely prepared for this. That's for sure. Yeah. I, I saw a message somewhere from, what was it? Was the sport director. Let me see if I can find it. Yeah. I mean, and I, it said, it said, you know, like, okay, this is the plan.

It was a message he sent to the team. You know, this is the plan. Uh, I've motivated Casper. Um, I think he can go in the break. There's, uh, there's not a lot of wind. The team, the teams will not chase too hard and, uh, he can put it off at the end. So they had this plan from the start. And I'm sure they even looked at the circuit and thought,

there's a possibility this isn't clean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the circuit, you know, of course, you know, these are circumstances, right? The weather, you can't predict this, but this was dangerous Spencer. I mean, remember I sent you a message, you a message, hey, this is going to be tricky. I literally just, I think you just got the text and there they were, you know, they went on the floor, you know, so I think this is obviously, I mean, a part of the great win victory of Casper Asgreen. The fact of the day is another crash, which impacts heavily the GC. If you look at the GC today where it stands, it's two big crashes who have made the crashes

in the gravel stage and today's stage that have impacted the GC. The majority of the bulk of the wins and losses in time come from those two stages and those two crashes. So that's unfortunate. But that's part of bike racing. And we have to say that a guy like Del Toro, as young as he may be, he is racing like an experienced veteran. He's always where he has to be. He is racing like an experienced veteran, you know. He's always where he has to be. He's always in good position. Now talking about the crash Spencer, I would like to make a little pause here and look at this picture, which I've, you know, I've screenshot it. It's not, it's not high definition.

But if you look at the picture, this is the moment of the crash and you see the two guys with the green circle. So the one on top is Isaac del Toro in pink. The one next to him is Richard Carapaz. Those two are the GC riders plus Simon Yates who made it in the front group. So they were stopped, but they were not on the ground and they could move forward. The two guys in the red circle, the one to the right is Egan Bernal, he's on the floor and his bike is somewhere there in between.

And then the other guy is on the floor and his bike is nowhere to be seen. That's Primoz Roglic. So those two guys, and then we have Juan Ayuso who's not in the picture, but he must have been behind these guys, so also couldn't pass. So it was based on pure luck also, because the crash happened really in the front of the peloton.

I think it was the little track guys who went down. I've been told that seven of the eight riders of little track were on the floor. The only one who didn't crash was Carlos Verona. Unfortunately, Ciccone was quite damaged and we'll see what the damage is finally. But I fear that with tomorrow's stage especially that I don't know if he's going to make it through tomorrow's stage, if he even gets at the start. So that's unfortunate. Matz Pedersen went down, wasn't too badly hurt, I think. But it was completely in the front of the peloton. And if you see courses like this, and as I said, you know, it's when it's flat, flattened cobbles, cobbles, and it rains. That's the worst Spencer. That's like, that's like ice skating. I actually

think, you know, like real cobbles, like more rounded cobbles, or sometimes in these cases better, because the guys have to go slower. These these flat cobbles, it feels like normal pavement, but it's just extremely slippery. And then, the question is, I've seen a quote from Walt Van Aert who said, some teams need to step back and think about what they're doing. They're taking too many risks. You know, it's easy to say that if you're in the front and you are, uh, you're driving the pace at that moment, but the GC teams have to be in the front. You know, they all need to fight for position because it, you know, there was,

what was it? 25 K to go 24 K to go. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's normal that they try to be in the front. So there's only that much space. And yeah, it was completely in the front of the Peloton. So there was really nowhere you could go. It was a question of pure luck. And Del Toro and Carapaz and Simon Yates made it to the front. Those are, I think, the three GC guys of any relevance,

and then Roglic and Bernal and Ayuso and Tiberi lost real valuable time. Tiberi most of all, he was not even with Roglic and Bernal and Ayuso, so he can forget about his GC. He lost a minute 40, I think he lost, he lost a minute, a minute 40, I guess the minute, a minute 44, I believe. And then the rest of them lost 48 seconds. He also forgot my guy, Derek G, who was in that front group who now moves up. Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. Watch out for G everybody. Yeah. Um, I, so yeah, so that I'm just trying to think of, we need to give everyone the information. Yeah.

So they lost 48 seconds. Tiberi lost one 44, I believe. Is this, was this a bad day or good day for UAE? They have Del Toro extend his lead. I used to lose his time to Del Toro, but in theory, they don't care about that. And then really only loses time to Simon Yates and Richard Carapaz. And I guess, Derek G. Is that necessarily that bad? I don't think, I mean, on Spanish TV, they were debating and they were saying, yeah,

it's a bad day for UAE. I don't think so. And I actually think that, you know, if you look at what happened during the stage, you have at some point, you have three groups. Yeah, you have the front group. I mean, the you have the breakaway, then you have the group with Del Toro and Simon Yates and Carapaz. Then you have the group Bernal, Ayuso Roglic. And then behind that, there's, there's another group with three, four UAE guys, at least three UAE guys who were chasing. The moment those two groups get together, group two and three,

so then Ayuso has three teammates, at no point did they go to the front and started to chase, which means to me that UAE has the confidence in Del Toro compared to the guys like Simon Yates and Carapaz and Derek G. They have the confidence in them and Ayuso stays equal with the big favorite from before, at the beginning of this Giro, Primoz Roglic. So the big favorites from before the, at the beginning of this Giro Primoz Roglic. So I think it's a good day. Um, they don't seem to have any damage from the, from the crash. The pink Jersey extends his lead to the big favorites and, uh,

Ayuso and, and, uh, Roglic or Stavros Kovol. I think it's a good day for them. Yeah. And if, if Ayuso can't make up six seconds, Simon Yates wins this Giro because del Toro collapses and I used to can't make up six seconds on him. That's a, that's a bigger problem. And then if Carapaz who is now roughly 30 seconds behind him, 31 seconds, maybe if he overtakes him, then he's being overtaken by more than just Carapaz. So it is a good position. I mean,

I don't know how deep we wanted to get into this right now, but right now it looks like it's like, well, this race is over del Toro. Oh no. But I just, uh, but he has lost time in both time trials, which I feel like is not insignificant. He's really gained time is, as you said, on crashes, which is cause he's very good at positioning and positioning, time bonuses. But so far at this year, just to highlight how much this year has even yet to begin.

We haven't had a single stage with more than 3,900 feet of climbing. Meters. Meters. Yeah. That would be a flat, flat race starting on Monday, Sunday, or sorry, Tuesday. We only have one stage with less than 3,800 feet of, no, no, two stages. Once, yeah, no, one stage with less than 3,800 meters of climbing and multiple stages of 4,400 and more meters of climbing. Isaac del Toro in his entire career has only raced over 4,000 meters in a world tour race and it like gained more than 4,000 meters in a world tour race three times in his career.

And one of those, he got sixth in a breakaway at the Vuelta a España where he got dropped, but he was probably sick with COVID. So it's kind of a bad. I don't think we can take that as a standard Spencer. This guy, you know, he's completely capable of doing this. You know, if he loses the pink jersey, it's going to be because he cracks completely. Every day, it's a day less. Every day, it's a day less every day. It's a day closer to Rome and he has not shown too much weakness for the moment. Um, so yeah,

he's not, he's not shown weakness, but it is a unique Giro in that the stages that we've had almost don't even resemble the same sport as the stages. No, we'll have like Like no, that's true. Like this. Yeah, that's true. There's four extreme hard mountain stages, uh, starting actually tomorrow already. Tomorrow is a, tomorrow is also a hard stage. It's not the mountain top finish, but it's, it's already hard.

Uh, and you know, we have accumulated fatigue by now, uh, two weeks of racing. So, um, yeah, tomorrow we'll, we'll, we'll see a different, a different game already. All may, although maybe not decisive, not decisive. I don't think so, but, uh, yeah. Um, I mean, it's, it's, it's a cliche, but, you know, I would say the real Giro still has to start. The writers will hate to hear that. And I hate that. I hate that like so much. It's like, well, okay, sure. But in this case, it actually is kind of true. Like this is a really bifurcated grand tour. It's wild.

If you just go look at the profiles and you really look at these stages, they're so different than the stages we've had. And it's almost slight of hand because we've had some climbing, but then you start to look at the climbs and you're like, well, they don't really resemble the climbs that we have to come. Even like we just, once we get to the North, we rise up like literally in elevation. And then everything changes when you're doing multiple, you know, you four or five first category climbs in a single day. It's a,

with no flat in between and not so easy. Couple of questions. One thing, one thing I also want to point out Spencer, we've had different scenarios of writers who were in a position that they were behind Roglic, Bernal, Diberi, mainly these three, and I've seen that they had teammates around them and they, I'm of the point of view that a leader, when he's in a situation like this, when it's really, you know, like it either you come back or

you lose too much time, the leader also has to pull, you know, it's not just your teammates who pull and you're sitting in, in third or fourth position. and then you start to pull whenever your teammates blow up. Your teammates are not going to close the gap. So they need help because they're going to ride until they blow up and at most, they're going to maintain the gap. So in order to decrease the gap, the leader has to pull. And I have not seen, I mean, Roglic, I mean, they didn't show too much footage of the pursuit, right? But I've seen the teammates of Roglic pull, the teammates of Bernal pull, Tiberi with three teammates,

but they only, these guys only started pulling when their teammates were gone. That's never gonna work. You can't then all of a sudden, unless they get you to the bottom of a climb and you fly up that climb and you close the gap, that's different. But this today was not the case. So I think they often make the mistake to not collaborate with their teammates and contribute

to the chase. It's not because, I mean, you can't just stay there in the wheel until they blow up they blow up, you know, you have to, you have to help them. And I haven't seen that today. Thinking about that when I was watching it, because in theory, the leader is the strongest rider in the group. You would imagine. In a group of teammates, the leader should be the strongest. And if, if your teammates are rotating through, but then Wout Van Aert is, is pulling in the group ahead,

they're not going to be faster than Wout Van Aert probably. They're best the same speed. So you need the strongest guy to actually come forward to start chopping. Yeah. I mean, and at least, at least, you know, I mean, and the leader doesn't even have to go a hundred percent because if his teammates are pulling a hundred percent, he's at 80%. He's still going to come through. Yeah. I, I, yeah. I was curious about that. Johan, thanks for mentioning it. Also, where would, where would Roggich be without Giulio Pelasari speaking of teammates pulling today, today Trotnik was back. Trotnik was back.

Maybe it wasn't because in Slovenia, by the way, Spencer, I forgot to mention at the beginning of the show, we made a mistake yesterday. We mentioned the mountain bike world cup race in Novo Mesto. There's actually two Novo Mestos. This one is in Czech Republic. Okay. Yes. There's two.

This makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So there is, it's not in Slovenia, the mountain bike, it's in Czech Republic. When I Googled Novo Mesto, the first thing that showed up was Slovenia, but some attentive listeners or viewers of our podcast have mentioned in the comments that it's in Czech Republic. So apologies for that. And also, Matty van der Poel didn't race today the short track because he's not qualified. He doesn't have points. He can only race tomorrow. So yeah, I saw another, I wanted to correct that. Yeah.

Didn't race today because they know the points. I didn't know that was so restricted, but Christopher Blovin's an American won the short track. Yeah. Very impressive. Very impressive. Puck won the women's short track, I believe. I'm sorry for the spoilers on the short track, but if you're working, if you're saving your day around the short track, I apologize. But I think that's it on today, right? I mean, it really sets the stage for it's, it's unfortunate. It kind of sets an interesting stage though, for the rest of this race.

Yeah. But I think, you know, listen, it's still, it's, it's great for Del Toro. Um, but it's still wide open, especially we just know in the, in the preparing the podcast, we've previewed a little bit to some of the stages to come. And, uh, yeah, we have not seen anything compared to what they still have to go over these multi, multi, multi climb stages when it's four or five climbs. That's, that's, that's horrible. That's it's really, really hard. I mean, Del Toro is going into a situation where like even just the rock climbing vertical, like he won't have done in a, he will, I guess he did one, he's done one stage. It's 5,000 meters of climbing state, 20 of the vault last year.

But just being an uncharted territory like that probably isn't ideal. If you're trying to defend it. You know, there's not, I keep the pressure on him. You know, I mean, it's all right. I mean, if he leaves the Jersey, no, I mean, everybody's gonna say, man, great job, great job, you know, you did amazing. It's not like the pressures on him. So this guy can climb Spencer. Okay, it was to the laveneer. But man, the way I saw him climb

there. That was impressive in the last in the last stage. And it was a hard, hard climb. I don't remember the name of the climb was in the Alps, I think. Uh, but he, he, he destroyed the field there. I guess it's, I guess you can't dispute, of course he can climb, but then it's like situational climbing, you know, it's like how long was that stage would be, or like what was the normalized power going into that final climb? Like once you start, you know,

there's a reason 21 year olds so rarely win grand tours. Yeah. But you know what, Spencer, I'm pretty sure that Del Toro right now in this Giro, he's breaking all of his records. He's breaking all of his power. It was his best, best power. Day by day. I'm pretty sure of that. I mean, yesterday was probably his top one minute power. I had to guess. Speaking of yesterday, speaking of yesterday, Spencer, another, another listener of our podcasts mentioned that before, I don't know if before this Jiro or in the preparation

of the, of the season that Matt Patterson broke his personal record One minute power, 1000 Watts for one minute. 1000 Watts for one minute. Wow. Jeez. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I guess that's why he won that stage yesterday. That explains it. That's a lot. That's a lot of power. My God. Yeah. A thousand watts for a minute. Whoa. But I guess it kind of makes sense now that I hear it considering how much better he was than everybody else on that finish.

But let's take a quick ad break and then we'll talk about tomorrow's stage 15. Okay, Johan. So stage 15, as you said, this is the beginning of the end game. We, we, we dip our toes a little amuse, amuse-bouche into that, where I guess you would call it like pre-alps. If you've ever been to Monte Grappa, it's silly to call it a foothill, but it kind of is like, it's functionally just like right at the plane. Very hard climb though, but they get about a hundred K of, you know, roll. They're back in like the rolling Veneta landscape.

It's a 220 kilometer stage though. So this is like real Giro distance. They do Monte Grappa, which is 25 K long at 5.7% average, not the steepest climb because it's the easy ascent, I guess, but that is very long. That's, that's a lot of kilojoules in your legs. Then they descend down the other side, a little valley, and then they start climbing again, 16.6, 16.6 K at 5.3%. Again, not crazy steep, but there's a bonus second sprint in the middle of the climb,

which will complicate it. And then they have this rolling kind of plateau into Oziago. If you remember, I believe it was a 2017 Giro, they came here late in the race, the year that Tom Dumoulin won. And it was a GC group finishing together, if I'm remembering correctly, but all this off the favorites on Unibet and then we'll get your take on who's going to win. The favorite is like Del Toro plus 600, Pellobel Bao plus 1100, Tom Pickock

plus 1400, Roman Barde plus 1600, Wout Polz plus 1600, Giulio Ciccone plus 2000, Luke Platt plus 2000, Max Poole plus 2500, Christian Scaroni plus 2800, Mateusz Wodzik, who I don't think is going to win, plus 2800. But it goes on and on. We'll list them if we need to. How is this going to play out, Johan? GC or breakaway and who's going to win? Yeah, difficult, difficult choice.

You know, that last climb, Spencer, I think it's a lot more difficult than we expect. You know, I've watched the map a little bit. There's a lot of switchbacks. You know, so switchbacks usually is never good news. So yeah, it's 17, 16 kilometers, more or less 6% average, I would say. I expect the breakaway. And then it depends how far the breakaway is ahead. I also expect some people in the GC group who will try. One of them being Eran Bernal because he's tried at every single stage. That was an opportunity. So I'm still going to go for...

I mean, and also Spencer, it's the day before the rest day. So I think some of the GC guys may actually give it a try. You know, you never know. I'm still going to go for a breakaway though. And my pick tomorrow for the win from the breakaway is world pools. Uh, he's plus 1600. Um, that's another experienced guy who knows how to go and breakaways, how to manage his effort and breakaways and then pull it off with a stage win.

Um, so yeah, that's plus 1600. I think that's an interesting choice. Yeah. I'm split on if this is GC or not, like the last time, as plus 1600, I think that's an interesting choice. Yeah. I'm split on if this is GC or not, like the last time, as I said, the last time they mentioned and not the last time they finished here, or at least the last time I remember them finishing here, it was a GC group, but yeah, while polls, I could see this being because if UAE doesn't want this to be a GC day, I assume because they're happy, got to be happy with that lead

that Del Toro has. So if they don't want it to be a GC day, I don't think anyone else is going to take it up and force that issue. So Wout Poles is a good pick, but I'm going to go with someone who's looked really good lately and finished in that first chase group today. Roman Barde plus 1600, same price as Wout Poles. I think, I mean, I, I kind of hate to invoke this, but it's like, it's his last grand tour. Cause it's like, yeah, sure. I'm sure he's wanted to win a stage and ever grand tour he's ever done. Like it's not like it's my last one. So I got to win now,

but he will be very motivated. He looks very fit more importantly, and I think he could win the stage. Yeah. He was also one of the two last guys with Vács. Yeah, it was yesterday. Yeah. So yesterday, yeah, he's starting to have good legs in this Giro. Yeah, I think that's a good choice. My second pick will be a guy from the GC group.

And especially because of the price. But I could see a battle between GC guys coming back together and a late attack of Richard Carapaz. He's plus $5,000 for the win. So I think it's worth a shot. It would be another EF win and a second stage win for Carapaz in this Giro, but I think he has the legs to do it. And it would kind of serve dual purposes cause he's, you know, still gotta be thinking overall podium even when, and you know, he's 207 back. It gets to take time. It kind of the, look at the finish.

It is kind of carapazi. It has it's rolling and then the last three K are kind of downhill, but it's a flat final K. There's a little few launch pads. Like you could see it get weird actually. Like if he launches again, like what does UA do today? And also EF must be on a high, you know, two stages. Those two stages already kind of pass obviously is getting in the, in the game. He's, he has good legs. So, um, so yeah, I think that's,

that's worth a bet. And then on the, in the same vein, like you could see the stage hard for a breakaway to get away cause it's flat, it's pegged back. They don't get enough of a gap. Riders do have to like the GC has to open up at some point because we are running out of stages. As you say, the days are ticking down to Rome.

So if people get frisky, they want to take that lead from del Toro. If, you know, if they forced the issue, it could be a GC day. I think though, that would be a mistake because I think if it's a GC group at the finish, I think he's like del Toro plus six, 600 wins. So he would be my wild card to win if they do bring it the GC group to the finish because he's so fast. I mean, he's like so much more powerful than the rest of these GC guys like we saw yesterday.

Yeah, he's punchy. You know, he has this, you know, acceleration. Even today, Spencer, if you look, if you look at where he was, you could see it. We could see it on the picture we showed before where he was. He was stopped, had to go through. And then the way he came back to that group, because Visma did not hesitate for a second, they kept going. And straight away he was in the front of the group. So he must have, like really like he has a big acceleration. And so any, any other thoughts on tomorrow, Johan? Nope, that's it. I mean, what's the weather like? I hope,

I hope they stay dry and they can race, you know, without having to take too many risks because you know, mountain stages with bad weather, that's never fun. It's kind of been a tough way because it says a 20% chance of precipitation. I believe it was 40%, but like there was a lot of the day where they weren't getting rained on, you know, and then there was there was a lot of the day where they weren't getting rained on, you know Yeah, and then there was day where they the part of the day where they were and then it was wet where they crashed

So I mean especially this part of the world this time of year can it can be rainy It can be dry like all in the same hour. So you never really can be sure it's not gonna rain. Yeah. Yeah And then just programming though. We will not have a show right after tomorrow's stage We will have a show coming out on the rest day on Monday though. And then we'll be back as normal on Tuesday when the race gets really interesting. Okay. Thanks, Spencer. All right. Thanks, Johan. Talk to you soon.