THEMOVE - Paris-Roubaix 2025 Preview | OŪTCOMES

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Spencer Martin and Johan Bruyneel break down the course, contenders, and likely outcomes for Sunday's Paris-Roubaix, the third, and most spectacular, one-day Monument of the 2025 season. Listen in to see how the duo thinks the race will play out, which riders can even hope to challenge the red-hot World Champion Tadej Pogačar or defending champion Mathieu van der Poel, and who presents the best betting value. Caldera Labs: Skincare doesn’t have to be complicated—but it should be good. Upgrade your routine with Caldera Lab and see the difference for yourself. Go to https://www.CalderaLab.com/THEMOVE and use THEMOVE at checkout for 15% off your first order.

I have to say Mathieu van der Poel. I thought last week he was going to be the big favorite. I thought at least that he was going to be able to stay with Pogacar. That wasn't the case, so I was wrong. But I don't think I'm going to be wrong this week by predicting Mathieu van der Poel. Of course, we all know that there's another element in Paris-Roubaix which nobody can predict, nobody can plan for, and that's material problems, punctures, crashes. They will happen. And so it kind of depends which of these

favorites is saved from a bad fortune. Right. Hi, I'm Spencer Martin, along with Johan Bernil, and this is Outcomes. Outcomes is for informational entertainment purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be considered financial advice. Please gamble responsibly. And if you or someone you know has a gambling problem, seek help from a professional resource. Host and guests may have financial interests in the bets discussed. Passed performance does not guarantee future results. Everybody welcome back to Outcomes. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johann Bernil. We are

predicting the 2005 edition of Perry Roubaix, probably the most famous, at least in the US, famous races outside of the tour to France, one day race, 260 kilometers long with 30 brutal cobbled sectors packed into the last 165 kilometers. Johan, how do you, well, we'll get your take on how this is going to play out and who's going to win, but let me read the betting odds. This is on Unibet and Europe. The U S prices are similar. Like US

books would be like FanDuel, DraftKings are the two biggest ones. BetMGM has been having some pretty good cycling prices on it recently. So make sure you hunt around for the best price. The favorite is the defending champion, Matthew Vanderpoel plus 200. Tadipa Gautra, last week's winner, plus 400, which is kind of, we'll talk about the kind of interesting that he's plus 400 and he was negative last week. Like usually these two races are correlated. So it could be value there. Wout Van Aert plus 450, Mads Pedersen plus 500, Philippe Ogana plus 900, Jasper Philipsen, second place the last two years plus 1000, Stefan Kuhn plus 5n plus 5000 Jasper Stooyven plus

5000 Jonathan Milan plus 2600 Josh Tarling plus 6600 Florian Vermeer plus 6600 it goes on and on. The winner probably won't come from down there though. Johan, who do you think is going to win and how is it going to play out? Spenser, we've talked about it before the show, you're right. Unfortunately, we have to talk always about the same riders because they're so dominant. In Alsthain-Rémy, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, especially, you know, the other two monuments, Liège, Bastogne-Liège and Tour of Lombardy are different courses, of course. But I have to say Math Matthew van der Poel. I thought last week he was going to be the big favorite. I

thought at least that he was going to be able to stay with Pogacar. That wasn't the case, so I was wrong. But I don't think I'm going to be wrong this week by predicting Matthew van der Poel. Of course, we all know that there's another element in Paris-Roubaix, which nobody can predict, nobody can plan for, and that element in Paris, rubé, which nobody can predict, nobody can plan for. And that's material problems, punctures, crashes, they will happen. And so it's going to depend to which of these favorites is saved from bad fortune, right? I've heard that Van der Poel is recovered from his

illness. We didn't know that last week, but apparently he had been sick before the Tour of Flanders for three days. He also had a crash in the Tour of Flanders. Apparently he's recovered from all of that. I also think that his pride is hurt really bad after being dropped from Bogacar last week. And he has a strong team and he knows the race. He's a two time winner already.

Plus, I think in terms of technique on the cobblestones, he's the best in the world. That's why I'm going to pick Mathieu van der Poel plus 200. I think it's good. That's why I'm going to pick Matiwanderpool plus 200. I think it's good. It's positive odds. It's not great, but if, if there's no bad luck involved, I think Matiwanderpool is going to win, by the way, for the third time. Yeah. The reason it's plus 200, pretty, pretty good odds actually for a guy who's won it two times in a row and is very strong this year is the, the equipment, I guess let's call it like possibilities. Cause cause you know, you could turn it on with 150 K to go on Sunday and it's like, Oh, he's, he's got

a flat and he's chasing two minutes behind. Oh, he's got another flat. You can just have all these problems. It's more unpredictable because of the cobblestones than a normal race. If Vanderppool did win this, he would be the first person since Francisco Moser to win three in a row. That was in 78, 79, 1980. Yeah. Yeah. I could see it, but then he, I guess he was sick according to his team manager, but let's not forget he was setting fastest times he's ever done up the Quermont. Like he was racing pretty well last weekend. Like he would say maybe the best he's ever raced, like all those guys were racing faster than they've ever raced on that course and they got beat by Bogotar.

So that leaves me a little concerned. Like is he, and it's hard to know exactly what's going on. Like you could imagine, I guess being sick and then getting better, but, or I would just seen the natural like down slope of the amazing form he was on at San Remo. But as you say, you know, what's been haunting me is I've been thinking about this as the technique, man. I was watching like the last few years and he is unbelievable over the cobblestones. Can Tadej Pogacar be that good? Maybe he's very good. He's a very good bike handler, but Vanderpool is unbelievable. Yeah, there's nothing we can put past Pogacar nowadays, Spencer. You know, we'll talk about

it in a little bit, but you know, the guy can do it all. I'm going to go with, he's had a little bit of problems in the cobblestones. It may be not quite as smooth as Vanderpool, but I thought he looked good last week. Well, Vinart plus four 50. And I'm, I would pick fan art because I thought he looked pretty impressively strong actually when they, when they got dropped on the Quaramont, you know, Vanderpoel like looked like someone pulled a plug out. It was just like fell down that climb. Vanderpoel looks pretty good. Like maybe the strongest chasing at the top of the climb, maybe this, sorry, Van Ard, maybe this harebrained theory of like going to altitude,

skipping a lot of the spring races is starting to pay off. And we just didn't see it last year. Like it never got played to completion because he crashed out at dwarves door of Lander and, and he could be coming into the best. But the main thing I keep thinking about is this is so different than Flanders because at Flanders Pogacar can just say, Hey, like there's a lot of people here. I'm outnumbered, but there's going to be really hard climbs. I'm going to drop everybody on these climbs. I'm not stressed, but you know, if van art starts

attacking or any of these guys, like what happens? Like who's pegging that back while they have teammates to do it. And then Art won't be one of the main March riders. So I think like combination of building form, he's obviously very good on this course, like the year Vanderpool's first win when Van Aert flatted, he looked very good then. I think that's the last time he raced this event. He's pretty good. Plus four 50 pretty good odds. I think we're seeing, we could see Van, Van Art win his first Perry Rubay on Sunday. Plus, plus Spencer. I don't know if you follow the news a little bit. Visma has a secret secret weapon with their self inflating and deflating wheel system. It's called it's called Grava.

It's the same system that Mariana was used in the World Championships Grava, which she won against Lotte Coppeki. It's something that they have been testing, They have been wanting to try it, then they decided not to use it. But they're using it on Sunday. I know somebody who has been on the course and has tested because apparently Cervelo put for a few influencers and a few people who give commentary on TV, they put at their disposal some bikes with the system. So basically it's a system in the hub. Both of the hubs have a little pump inside and there's a little tube that goes to the valve. And from the handlebars, you

can inflate and deflate your tire pressure. Van Aert has been training with it. They are going to use it. And I think it's a huge advantage in Paris-Dupay because let's not forget, you know, it's 260k, but it's 55 kilometers cobbled. There's still 205 kilometers not cobbled. the system is actually quite impressive. When you have two buttons, which is already pre programmed with an app. And you just before you get to the cobbles, if you want to, well,

you say that deflate or de inflate, be a deflate, deflate. Yeah, it's continuously it takes two or three seconds and you go to the desired pressure. And then after the cobble section, it depends how, depending how long the sector is in between, it takes up to a minute to inflate again to the, to the, or a minute, a minute and a half, because it's self generating. Um, it's a self generating energy, uh, which, which then is used to pump up the tire, uh, it adds 400 grams to the bike. Um, but in a race like party, I think that that's the advantage.

It is higher than the added weight. Um, because it, you know, it's, it's, it's mainly a flat race. And also, the added weight is also in motion. It's a circle, it's a movement. So I'm curious to see, but it's a huge advantage. And as far as I know, the teams that are on Shimano are not using it. So Alpecin is not using it. UAE is not using it. Ineos is not using it. Don't know about Red Bull, they're on SRAM, I think.

But it's, I think it's mainly for the moment, Visma, because they have helped develop it and have tested it. So it's probably available already because otherwise have helped develop it and have tested it. So it's probably available already because otherwise you wouldn't be able to use it. And the rules, it says, okay, whatever equipment you use, it has to be commercially available. But I think that for this year, the other teams have not had any time on it to test. And so they will probably won't use it. You could imagine this being quite helpful. Also, SRAM, just between SRAM and Shimano, I feel like SRAM is always like, yeah,

we got this new tech, let's try it. And Shimano always like holds back longer. But this is where you could imagine this being quite useful because imagine like the Arnberg forest, extremely rough cobblestones, like a rider in the race told me last year, if you were on a full suspension mountain bike, you'd think this isn't enough. Like it's that rough. And then you leave the cobblestone sectors and a lot of times that's when the moves go, when you go back onto the pavement.

So if you could increase your pressure back up, like that's a huge advantage once you get back on the pavement, you're launching moves. Everyone else is stuck in the proverbial mud. Yeah. And not to forget also Spencer, the final of Paris-Roubaix after Carrefour de l'Arbre, the final, whatever, I need to check, but the final 15, 20 K, there's no more cobbles. Yeah. And you're sprinting on a melodrome. And the sprint.

And the sprint. You know, so I think technically it's, you know, you could probably say to a certain extent it's kind of unfair, but anyways, it's, you know, you could probably say to a certain extent, it's kind of unfair, but anyways, it's available. So everybody has the opportunity to check it out. Right. But it's, I mean, it's going to be used on Sunday. And then I think it's going to be become very popular, especially also in gravel races. Yes.

Yeah. Where, where there's a lot of different surfaces and it's great. I've been following the development a bit, but apparently it's improved. I remember last year's World Championships gravel women's. So as I said, Marianna Vos won against Lotto-Koppecki in the sprint with that system. But the interview of Lotto-Koppecki after the race was, I knew there was nothing I could do because every time we came off a sector, I heard her tires were inflating again. So if you think about the watts that I'm losing here compared to her, she was mentally broken

already before the sprint. You know, and Bradley Wiggins told me something interesting that I never losing here compared to her. She was mentally broken already before the sprint. You know, Brad and Bradley Wiggins told me something interesting that I never thought about. He said, when you run tubeless on the cobblestones, your pressure decreases all day. Cause you're burping out small amounts of air. So if you start at 4.4 bar, you might finish at four bar.

And being able to like replenish the air that you're burping out is a huge advantage because everyone else is just getting lower and lower. You also mentioned the weight. We should talk about that. This is probably the one race of the year where the heavier you are, the bigger advantage it is because there's so few clots. There's such little climbing. I mean, I think the beginning is rolling, but once you're on the cobblestones, it's very flat. Like that's why Matthew Vanderpool, wow, then our meds, not so much meds, Patterson fleet Pagana, Stefan Kuhn, Jasper Stoven, Jonathan Milan. Those guys are huge, massive and it won't penalize them because it's just all about power. How much power can you put

out on that note? Do you, who's your second pick? Do you think Tadej Pogacar can win this? Well, I mean, uh, so you're picking Van Aert, right? That's your, your first pick. He's my number one. I think, I think I, I agree. Um, I, and I think Walt Van Aert on Sunday is going to be stronger than last Sunday. It seems like, you know, his peak is just now.

So I press with the confidence. It would be it would be almost a miracle. But as I said, we can't put anything past this guy that a Pogacar first participation, no experience in the race with the pros. I think he's done it as a junior, but you know, nothing, nothing, nothing compared to this. Um, but you know, he, okay, he's right now, I think he's 66 kilos or 65 kilos. Um, I think he can win it too. Uh, you know, if you see the way he rides on the cobbles, here, I think he has the advantage

that he's not the main favorite. So he's a bit of the underdog, whatever, if he wins, great. But if he doesn't win, who cares, right? So I think he can use that to his advantage. And he only, he knows there's only two or three guys he needs to watch out for, you know, it's Vanderpool and Van Aert and Peterson and Ghana basically. So Tadej Pogacar is my second pick. Especially because last week he burned me and I don't want to be burned again.

I would feel very stupid if Pogacar wins and I didn't pick him. Well, just like last week, it'd be very easy to sit here and say, where is Tadej Pogacar going to drop these guys? He can't do it. He's not big enough. He doesn't have enough power and he's your pick, so I'm not going to steal him. But something that I was surprised by is, is so much overthinking when it comes to rubay. There's all these theories, this being tall help, cause you can look over everybody

and have a better line of sight. A lot of times it's just the riders that do well at Flanders do well at rubay. Rubay's had some like, like it didn't happen in 2020. He got moved to the fall in 2021. If you take those two out, it's like seven out of the last 13 additions where they've lined up riders that won Rubé finished on the podium at Flanders. So, and it's like, I think it's four people, one, both just in the last 13 years. So a lot of times it's as simple as who's on really good form because it's a

fitness test. Like if you're, if you can podium at Flanders, you're really, really fit and you'll probably do really well at Perry Rubay. So that would be the case for Ted Ippagachart. Just like don't know what to do. Favor also is the equipment nowadays, you know, like the compensation of the, the more lightweight of all the favorites with, you know, the, the, the material right now, and especially the, the width of the tires, lower tire pressure is a benefit for

lighter guys like Bogotar. Is that cause if you were, let's say on 25 or 28, whatever used to run back in the day and it's jacked up to five bar, like six bar. Are you like flying off the cobblestones if you're too light? Yeah, it's a lot different. You're kind of humping from one cobblestone to the other. It's actually amazing if you see the images now from, I mean, even 20 years ago, you know,

like when Musée went born and all that. These tires were not that big, you know, like when Mousset, when Bonn and Marder, these tires were not that big, you know, I think 27 was the biggest, the biggest tire. Now, in almost all the races, they're using 30. I'm pretty sure that in Paris-Roubaix, a lot of teams are going to be on 32. I remember last year, last year, Vandrupool was on 30 millimeter tires. I wonder what he's going to use now, but, uh, I'm going to guess Pogacar is going to use at least 32 tires, 32 millimeter tires. I remember even among them and I don't know, 15, 10, 15 years ago,

like tour Hushoff got second and they were there on rim brakes, obviously. So how big a, you can't fit that big a tire in and like Cervelo move the brake bridge up, probably would be illegal now. It was like a non-compliant bike that they moved the brake bridge up and they put like 28 and then people's mind were blown. Maybe it was thirties and like, Whoa, that's way too big. And you'd probably like do gut was like, do Gost make, you know, it's like all these so ups that they were so just for, yeah, like, and then there was another brand I'm trying to remember. I don't

know if it was not FMB or FB. Yeah. Something like that. It was also handmade. And I remember because we always had the problem, you know, we had our tire sponsor and then, you know, the guys for Paris-Dubé wanted to do gusts wanted to gust. So we had to, like with a marker, we had to make sure that you couldn't see the brand. Almost all the teams did that for Paris-Roubaix. Almost nobody was on the tires that they were sponsored of. Nowadays, it's different, of course. One thing that also in the Vanderpool case, I don't want to jinx it, but you know, they were on, they were on Vittoria and they changed tire sponsor this year to Pirelli. I hope they're as good as the Hutchingsons, as the Vittoria, because the Vittoria's last year of Vanderpool, they were really good.

They were amazing. I mean, I feel like they've been getting more flats, but that could just be, I could just be seeing things because they've changed tires and it's on my mind. But before we get into some wild cards, some interesting longer odds, let's take a quick ad break and we'll be right back. Everybody this episode is brought to you by Caldera lab. Let's be honest, cycling is not great for our skin. Whether we're out riding on warm sunny days

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lab.com slash the move and use code, the move at checkout for 15% off your first order. All right, back to the show. So Yohan, we've, we've covered, we've, we've been bold. We've covered Vanderpol, Pagachar, Vanhart, but assuming one of those writers doesn't win and it's actually kind of, it gets hard to imagine how that would happen. Cause these guys go from so far out now and they're so good. That's why you just see the same people win. It's hard for anyone to anticipate and get ahead of the race. Like if you think back to Johan van Someren, he just anticipated,

and then there was a stalemate behind, but one guy I'm pretty curious about. And I think he's going to be very, very excited for Sunday. I think I said tomorrow, I meant Sunday, very excited for Sunday because he's been like, he's been handicapped. Basically, he has to go up the climbs with these very light gentlemen, but Filippo Ghana plus 900, I bet on him like a month ago at plus 2000. He must be licking his chops because it's like, okay, skinny boys. Now you have to be me,

meet me on the flats and we're going to go pedal stroke for pedal stroke over cobblestones, which he's pretty good, pretty good on by the way. Um, I think if Ghana wins, like if Ghana is going to win a monument, it's this one. Oh yeah. And at plus 900, especially with how good he's been this spring, he's a pretty intriguing pick to me. He's my wild card. He's been on amazing form. Also, let's not forget he's very fast and there's nobody of these guys who has more experience on the track than Philippe Pogana. You know, it's after 260k, yeah, but still, it's still on the track., he's probably not going to be as marked as van der Poel and

van Aert. Uh, so there could be a scenario where, I mean, last, in, in last week he was in a break and, uh, he was, he was in front already before the big guns started in, uh, in Flanders. So, uh, why not? Um, yeah, I like that one plus 900 on top of that. That's a really good price. In unlike Flanders, Roubaix is a rare race where you can get caught. You can be in the break and get caught and still win like Matt Heyman. If you remember that one Flanders, it's like, it's just too hard. You'll get dropped at the end.

It's not, you can't really latch on from the breakaway. Also, and you mentioned the sprint that did remind me like this is a, and you would think her Bay would have more solo winners and other races. It actually is fewer. Like between, I believe between 2013 and now there's only been four solo winners. And two of those were Vanderpool last year and the year before. But, and then, and then van borrowed the year before that. So the last three additions have been solo winners, but a lot of times you get these, you know, think of Matthew Vanderpool in 2021, he loses it cause Sonny Cabrali out sprints them on the velodrome. Like it can help to have velodromes fronting experience. It can help a lot at

this race. Um, I was at set, but you remember set them mark that he lost to Fabian Cancellara kind of like mismaneuvered on the velodrome and then lost that race. But yeah, I, I, I was at seven, you remember set them Mark that he lost to Fabian Cancellara kind of like mismaneuvered on the velodrome and then lost that race. But yeah, I like Ghana a lot. I mean, some of these other ones you could imagine like Stefan Kung, he was another guy that was in the breakaway last week. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, a guy like Kung is strong.

He's riding really well. He's going to be in the front. He's going to try to make a move. But to win, a lot of things need to happen. You know, the only other guy that I see really with chances to win from the favorites, we haven't picked him because we're only entitled to riders. But you know, as Matz Pedersen, of course, I think this is probably the race that suits him the best. The guy's a warrior. Always gives it his all. And we saw in Flanders that he's an amazing show. I mean, we saw again, the wave again, but also Flanders. He was incredible.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. And this race suits him better than Flanders. And on top of that, I would say, I haven't looked at all the teams, but I dare to say that little track probably has the strongest team for Paris-Dubé of the whole Peloton. Well, the interesting thing about, yeah, little track probably does have the strongest team. There's multiple people on this list. You could see winning the race, but like John Milan probably won't even be in position to contest it. So she like, he has a long ties it like pedigree on the track, but he's kind of new to the road. It seems like an odd race

to come in and be like, I'm new to the road. I'm going to win this. But like Jasper Stoibin, he's plus 5,000 and he's gotten fourth, fifth and seventh here. He would have to win it though. Same thing with Kuhn. You'd be like, well, he'd have to get out in front of the race. And the problem with getting out in front of the race these days is if Vanderpol or Pogacar go, they're going to eat up so much time. It's, I'm, I'm kind of curious to see what happens. Like if someone does anticipate,

I do think one of Stoiven, Pedersen, maybe not Pedersen, Stoiven, Ghana, Milan, Kuhn will probably be in the early breakaway just to put pressure on the, on the favorites behind. But I don't know. I mean, I'm scarred by Vander, you remember last year, he put so much time in everybody when he attacked. Like, could you even anticipate that move? Like if he's on form, is there any amount of buffer that is? No, it was, it was, it was also, it was incredibly fast. It was mainly tailwind, and his team already set a really hard pace. I personally think it's going to be super fast again. So, breakaways, I'm not very optimistic that a breakaway can get enough time to then make it with the selection when the big guys go. The weather, it's a bit unclear. There are certain reports that there might be showers in the morning, whether that's already in the race

or not. But if it rains during the night, which looks like it's going to rain during the night, those cobbles are going to be wet. And so the first four or five sectors, I would recommend everybody to watch on TV already from the beginning because that's going to be carnage. Yeah. And that, I mean, that goes back to favoring probably our two guys, our first two picks Vanderpolen and Venart because I mean, who knows? Pogatier can seemingly do whatever he wants, but it's blowing my mind to consider a Tour de France contender. The top Tour de France contender, I guess, is going to be at the front leading into the cobblestones at Paris-Roubaix.

It's crazy. Kind of mind blowing. Yeah. It is crazy. And that's where a race would end. You know, if you're imagining like this all going really bad for Pogacar, it probably is those first few sections. Like even on TV, I mean, you can

like, you can feel the violence through it's just, it's really almost uncomfortable to watch. You can tell how much they're fighting to be at the front, like the nerves, the anticipation. So that, that will be key to the race. Probably won't rain during the race on Sunday. Could be a gusty wind, like cross what let's say it's cross wind with some tailwind on key cobbled sectors. Who does that help you think? The guys who are in the front, the guys who are, I'm just checking the teams here, Spencer, you know, so actually, okay, little track has a strong team, but man, Alpecin had the good and has a strong team too. Visma has a strong team.

Although they're missing, they're missing Tichpenot and Matteo Jorgensen, but they still have a strong team. And Pogacar's team is strong too. The first four teams of the big favorites really have a very strong team composition. The thing I like about Alpecin is that it's just such a focused team around. I mean, you have Phillipson who can kind of play his own card, but that, that causes a lot of problems for Vanderpool's rivals. Like everything is just built around Vanderpool there, which I really

And Phillipson, you know, two times second in the last two editions. Um, if he has some kind of decent legs, he's going to be there. Uh, he knows this race already. There's obviously a race that suits him. And, uh, yeah, I mean, who's going to ride with Phillipson, right? Um, if, if on the pool attacks, they'll, they will have to ride with him, but, uh, then at the finish, they're kind of screwed. But then at the finish, they're kind of screwed. Yep. Yeah. It's just, he's an anchor on any group he's in.

I, yeah. I mean, I think Van Aert, I would pick Van Aert over Vanderpool just because of the odds, but I think Vanderpool is very decent pick, obviously. It's an unknown in this sense, Spencer, that we don't know exactly how recovered Vanderpool is from that illness. What we do know, however, is that the curve of the form of Van Aert is in crescendo. It's on the up. That's clear. He was much better in Flanders than in all the other races before his confidence must be really high. He has really good equipment. I mean, he would deserve to win a big race, man. I would really be happy if an art wins.

I almost don't even want to talk about it too much. It's like, I just want to see it. I want to be excited for it, but potentially my emotions are getting in the way. But I think if you want to look for, if you really want a big payout, Ghana's the best pick because a lot of these look appealing, like Josh Charlie and plus 6,600. Well, it's like so much has to go right for Josh Charlie to win. Stefan. Coon so much has to go right where Ghana just has to get to the velodrome with the top guys and he could win a sprint. And he's, and it's not like, it's not a hail Mary. I mean,

Ghana has been there with everybody on courses that don't even really suit them. So he should be on his, this is like on his turf. Now they have to come into his office and it's not going to be as easy to get rid of them. But do you have any more on, on a Rubé? I have a few bass country questions to ask you before we go just for fun. If we're done with Rubé. I have a few Basque country questions to ask you before we go, just for fun. If we're done with Rubé. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's it for Rubé. So it's on, by the way, it's on Sunday in the U S it's on Peacock. It's an ASL race. So it's the same setup as the two of France for, for viewing. I assume it's on max Euro sport, TNT sports discovery plus whatever

I assume it's on max Euro sport TNT sports discovery plus whatever the it's different in every country in Europe, but on one of those in Europe. So tour the best country. We have to convene an emergency meeting here, Johan, because Joel Ameda is leading a stage race by 30 seconds over Max Schachman 38 seconds over Florian Lipowitz, 49 seconds over Ilan van Wilder 50 seconds over Matej Skalmoza with one stage remaining. And also Ben Healy, by the way, if he didn't see today's stage at Tour of the Bass Country, Holy smokes wins like a really long, 56K long solo victory. So Ben Healy back to doing Ben Healy things, but Shvala made a, he draw on stage four. He just wrote everybody off his

wheel on a climb. Really like my son kept saying like, they're right there. Why can't they catch him? It's like, cause the dude is a motor and like, yeah, it was like 20%. Yeah. Yeah. He was really strong. I mean, listen, at some point he's going to have to win a stage race, right? Uh, he looks strong. Uh, tomorrow's a hard stage. Uh, it's a good stage for Almeida actually good climb for Almeida because it's a bit like irregular.

There's different steps. So I'm confident that he can win. The team is also really strong. Soler was amazing. Del Toro was really strong also. And so I think Almeida has this. amazing. Del Toro was really strong also. Um, and so, um, yeah, I think Almeida has this, the second strongest rider in the race is Florian Lipowitz. Uh,

he's very strong, but, uh, he's not riding very smart. Uh, he's extremely generous in his efforts and see him do certain attacks that are really, uh, you know, you would think, okay, if you're that strong, man, come on. Isn't there somebody in the car that can tell you, you know, be conservative in his favor. This guy only races since three years. He was a biathlon athlete through four years ago. So, um, he's, he's incredibly strong.

This guy already second in Paris Nice. Last year we saw him, I think the first time for in the big public and in tour of Ramadi. But he's the second strongest rider in the race. He, uh, I saw a weird quote from him after. So there's a time trial to start it. Three guys tie basically, Max Schachman, Joelle made up Florian Lipowitz, all finished on the same time, like fractions of a second different. And Florian Lipowitz was like, well, I'm just here to support my teammates.

And then on stage three, he seemed to be like working for his teammates, but it's like, Hey, what, what is going on here? You're the leader of the team because you're literally in front of everybody. You can look at different way in different ways at it, right? He did say, uh, he did say after the time trial that he was there in support for Vlasov and Danny Martinez, you know, two writers who have already had great results. Let's not forget. Danny Martinez already won the tour of the Basque country in the past.

Uh, he was second in the Giro Giro, won the Dauphiné. So, you know, great Palma res already, but obviously these guys are not in their top shape. And I think personally that, you know, it looks to me that they've put Lipowitz in this position of, okay, you start in support to not put the pressure on him. Let's not forget, you know, he's young, just got second in Paris. It's easy for the German media, at least to bombard him directly as you know, the new German hope, which he probably is, but it's hard to deal with that. So I think initially the plan was, okay, Lipowicz, just take it easy. We'll see how it goes. But, you know, the responsibility is not on you. And then the road puts, of course, everybody in his place. What are we reading that like, Martina has finished 15 minutes down on stage three. Obviously, really, really counter performance, you know, um, I don't know, but something must

be wrong. Um, and he's supposed to go to the Giro. I, I mean, I assume in a support role, right? For Primos, I would think so. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I saw, uh, I don't know if red bull takes Primos and Danny Martinez and Jay Hindley to the Giro. I mean, if they do that. I see Hindley on the start list actually. So obviously, you know, it's their big goal of the season, which is, I think, very smart because it's very unlikely they're going to win the tour.

So but anyway, Martinez, there must be something wrong. He's been in Columbia quite a bit. So I don't know if he just came back now. I don't remember that, but there must be something not right because this is not the level of Danny Martinez. Neither is it the level of Vlasov, by the way. Vlasov should be top five in this race, at least. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Vlasov is still a very good rider, but like the rise of Lipowitz. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, blast off is still a very good writer, but like the rise of Lipowitz. Yeah. Yeah. It's made it like, even like a peri-nice where you're like, man, blast off. I feel like should be up there. And then he's just like, not, he's like being surpassed by young talents inside his own team. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, and then, you know, the one thing I don't know, I mean, if we want to debate about that, the, the, the wind and disqualification and then win again of Alex, I do want to talk about this because it's insane that they disqualify typical professional cycling managed by the UCI. Right. So, um, there's, there's a, there's a group of all the favorites. There's some attacks

at the end, Arambuda attacks. He's the local rider, knows the roads perfectly. All the other riders go off the road book and then of instructions, probably of people of the team who have been sent ahead to scout the last few five, 10 kilometers and then report to the team car. Right. Anyways, Arambuda attacks with Almeida, I guess. Almeida misses one roundabout or kind of misses the roundabout or has to slow down quite a lot. And then the last roundabout comes. Almeida goes to the left and Arambuda goes to the right. Now at the last moment he sees a barrier which is only on half of the road. So it was blocking half the road and then the other half of the road was free.

It goes that way. It's a bit shorter. Takes two seconds. It takes a bit more seconds. Wins the stage. Finally, they disqualify him because he has not followed the course, the indicated course. So of course, big disappointment. And you could say, okay, well, you know, there was somebody there waving, there was a barrier.

It was not completely closed. So I think the organizers were at fault for not, if they didn't want the riders to pass there, they should have closed it. Yeah. This is the second time this has happened. Like in two months, like close the road that's not supposed to be taken. And the signage was not clear. Like if you, and then the, you know, the, the, they disqualify him based on, uh, based on the rule that says the riders, it's the

responsibility of the riders to know the course, right? Then, so UCI commissar, so these are not the organizers who make that decision, right? Every race has UCI commissars who make a decision. Now, the UCI commissar disqualifies, disqualifies, gives yellow cards, gives fines, a lot lately. And so, unfortunately, the local hero Aramburu is not even allowed to go on the podium. It's Romain Grégoire who goes on the podium as the stage winner, finished second. And then a few years, a few hours later, they reinstate Alexa Ramburu because the road book specifically said that this roundabout needs to be taken on the right.

And there have been no instructions in the director's meeting before the race to say otherwise. So the organizer was at fault. You see, I commissaire, I mean, and then you could say, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous, but you could say, okay, if now finally Aramburo followed the road, then all the others have to be disqualified because they didn't follow the road. You can't do this, but you know, if they really want to follow their own rules, that's what they should do. But it's, of course you can't imagine that.

But anyway, it was, it was a bad show. Finally, I think it's, it's, it's, it's fair that they gave the victory back to Aramburu, who is riding incredibly strong. And on top of that is riding incredibly strong. And on top of that is the local guy, he's a Basque guy. So yeah, that was for me until now, a bit the highlight of the tour of the Basque country. I mean, even setting all that aside,

super impressive ride from him. I think it was like three or four years ago, he seemed like, man, this sky's the limit for him. He goes to COVID is like, I don't know how this is going. I've seen this story before, but man, he looked, he looked incredible in that finish. That was a really good writer. By the way, we should, we should stop saying tour of the bath country. Spencer.

That's that's already Julia. It's Zulia. Yeah, that is actually pretty offensive. We should not do that. Well, we will let you go, Johan, unless you have something else. No, that's it. We'll be back with the move on Sunday evening. Yeah. Yeah. I believe it's going to be a tough needle threat because George Hencapy is going to be at the race for his son, inside Hencapy. They're going to watch the finish of the senior men's race. Then they're going to go to Paris by train and then hopefully do is the show

from his hotel room in Paris. So hopefully that all works out and we have a show on Sunday for everyone. We'll have a show. We just don't know if George is going to make it enough, but we'll have a show. Yeah, it might be me or George. We don't know which one. We'll be the third person. But thank you, Johan, and we will talk next week.

OK, thanks, Spencer. Bye. Bye.