THEMOVE - Who Will Win the Vuelta a España? | OŪTCOMES

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

Johan Bruyneel and Spencer Martin break down the course, contenders, and likely outcomes for both the overall classification of the Vuelta a España and its opening stage, which kicks off this Saturday. They discuss what to expect in the likely GC showdown between Jonas Vingegaard and the UAE duo of João Almeida and Juan Ayuso, as well as the looming stage win battles between Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen, while examining how the race will unfold and who presents the best betting value. Use our special link to see where you can bet in your area and claim the best sign-up offers https://nxtbets.com/betoutcomes/ Hims: Start your free online visit today at https://hims.com/themove for your personalized hair loss treatment options. Results vary. Based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride. Prescription products require an online consultation with a healthcare provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Mint Mobile: This year, skip breaking a sweat AND breaking the bank. Get this new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at https://mintmobile.com/themove. Upfront payment of $45 required (equivalent to $15/mo.) Limited-time new customer offer for the first 3 months only. Speeds may slow above 35GB on Unlimited plan. Taxes & fees extra. See MINT MOBILE for details.

The thing that is super important in the Vuelta is freshness. Yeah. And, you know, it's, it's, we never know how somebody's going to recover from the tour, between the tour and the Vuelta. There's not, not that much time. It's, you know, physical recovery, mental recovery. Omeida was in great shape. He had the crash.

You know, it depends how, how fast he could train again. But I suspect it was pretty, pretty early. He could train again. and he's mentally and physically fresh. That's a huge advantage. Hi, I'm Spencer Martin, along with Johan Bruniel, and this is Outcomes. Outcomes is for information on 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. Hosts and guests may have financial interests in the vets discussed. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Everybody, welcome back to Outcomes. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Brunel. We are predicting the 21 stage Volta Espania,

which starts this Saturday in Torino, Italy, confusingly, and runs through September 14th. We'll finish in Madrid. It's the third grand tour of the season. We will also predict the opening stage in Torino on Saturday. And then after that, we will switch to the Move Plus and we will have a daily stage breakdown show with our outcomes predictions at the end of that show every day.

So if you're listening, watching, just come back to this feed you'll see us every day of this race Johan I'll just give a quick overview of the course and then I'll list the odds about who the favorites are to win and then we win the overall and we'll predict it and then we'll go to

stage one after that but as we said 21 stages the big highlights are this is extremely hard climb heavy course for example there are 11 summit finishes which is a lot like a lot there are two as I've

No, there's 10 summit finishes, one like difficult uphill finish, one less difficult uphill finish on a hilly stage, only three stages that I've classified as a sprint stage, two time trials, one 27 kilometer individual time trial, one 24 kilometer long team time trial. We're getting that back, 11 stages over 3,000 meters of climbing, three stages over 4,000 meters of climbing, six stages with climbs over 10K in length, and nine summit finishes over 8,000. kilometers in length and two stages over 200 kilometers. It stays after it leaves Piedmont in Italy. It goes into France. And then they go into Spain for the first time trial on stage five. And then we're just hugging that northern coast. You know, the most southern it gets is your hometown, Madrid.

But expect mountainous, cool, to chilly, perhaps even rainy weather along that entire northern coast. It's beautiful. It should be pretty exciting racing. all this off the favorites for the overall and then we'll guess who's going to win. But Jonas Findergarde is the massive favorite. The Tour de France runner up at minus 250.

Jabalameda plus 550. Wanaiuso is teammate plus 550. Giulio Chocone plus 2,000. Antonio Tiberi plus 2,500. Eganmore plus 3,300. Ben O'Connor plus 4,000. Jai Henley plus 4,000. Felix Gall plus 6,600.

Mateo Jorgensen's plus 6,600. It goes on and on. And again, we still have our partnership with next bet. So if you want to get the best deal and the best sign-up bonus and know where you can bet wherever you live, go to nxteebets.com slash bet outcomes to find that out. But, Johan, who do you see winning this race? I mean, the obvious choice is Vindigard. The market thinks that, but I'm not totally convinced this is going to be a cakewalk.

Yeah, it's difficult. I mean, let's start with the fact that it's the Vuelta, Spain. So it's the third stage, big stage race of the year. usually it's kind of the rematch or you know somebody who has not gotten what they got what they thought they would get then it's kind of the second opportunity um i mean it's difficult to say that vingerard has failed right i mean he was still second in the tour he was the second strongest rider um and uh yeah i mean i can i he's he's the big favorite he has to win this um especially as you said 11 uphill finishes, mountain heavy.

Plus, you know, he has a really strong team. Fisma obviously came here with a lot of ambition. They sent Seppkuss and Jorgensen and Campanards and Kalderman and Fambarla and named them, you know. So, yeah, I think Jonas means this. The only thing is I just read actually today a little interview. I only saw the title, but it said somewhere that he had been sick. In this week, leading up to the Vuelta, never a good sign. We don't know if it's a smokescreen or not, but normally, quality-wise, he's the best rider.

I mean, he's the second best rider in the world in terms of stage races, especially on climbs. And this VELTA is in the mountains almost every day. We also, I mean, we've been in a situation like this two years ago, right, where Jonas was the second strong I mean um actually had he won he had what he won the tour i guess yeah so he won the tour in 2023 he went to the welta yeah and then sepcus won right sepcus one and uh um difficult for me to see an identical scenario um and i think jonas wants to go for this sepcus i think is not in the same shape as as back then um although he did a great two to the france Uh, but, uh, but yeah, no, you almost finger guard, my favorite to win this.

Yeah, I actually kind of wonder if he regrets giving, because, let's be honest, he could, he was flying at that vault. He could have won that volta. He gives away that win, or he gives the win, doesn't contest the win against Suckus. And then that's the last major. I mean, I'm stretching the definition of the word major here, but the last grand tour at least that he, he could have won. He has not won a grand tour since that year. He won Torano. He's won Tour of Poland. He's won Algarve and O'Brien Camino since

then, but it kind of goes to show you, like, why you should just take the opportunity when you get it, because you don't know when it's going to come again, because he's rolling up to this Volta now. And yes, SEPCUS might not be on the form to challenge him, but that UAE team, I mean, we should say, Jonas's

Vizma team, incredibly strong. Like, Tour de France team strong. Outside of him, they have Axel Zingle. Victor Campanarts, Mateo Jorgensen, Wilco, Cattleman, Supkos, Ben-Tulet, Dylan Van Barrow. Like, that's a very strong team. They are ready to go here. But UAE has Juan Ouso and Jualameda to the two G.C. cadets for them.

Iuso didn't look great at San Sebastian, got dropped. I never liked to see that at the beginning or a few weeks out of a grand tour target. But if there's pressure on Yonis, like if Yonis has to win this, these guys also have a lot of pressure on them because they are on a team. with Taday Pagachar and Isaac Deltoro and they're fighting for a very limited number of GCE leadership slots and like this is kind of it

this is the time to prove that you can take one of those spots you know you could imagine losing to Vindigard and that's okay but they almost can't afford to lose to each other so they're going to be very motivated to do as good as I can I think Vindigard at minus 250

like well he is the favorite he's probably going to win but coming out of that tour I don't know. I just, the longer I have to reflect on that, he had a decent third week. He matched Pagachar, but I don't know. Like, was he stronger than he was the year before after he had the disrupted run-in? The failure to win that stage with Orensman hanging out there that still just like doesn't sit that right with me. And then I think about Ameta, like eventually these guy, these younger guys will start to put pressure on the established stars, Jonas Finnegar being one

of them. I'm going to pick this as Juala Amada's breakout race. I like him at plus 550. I'm going to go out on a limb and pick Zuelamata to win this race. I'm not going to pick Wanda Uso because we've not heard great things about his preparation, but he's another guy. Like if he's as good

as we hear he is, he should at least be in contention for winning this. I'm going to pick Almeda out of those two. I was super impressed with this season up to the tour when he crashed out. I think he recovered from that pretty well. He went right into training for this race almost so it's almost worked out as if he's targeting this race all along i'm going to go

joel ameda yeah well i think in terms of quality and and you know being the big engines we're looking for i think almeida is the guy who could eventually match yonas i don't see anybody else who can even come close let's not forget they don't have a horsepower right it's it's a long time ago it seems a long time ago but there is one rider who beat jonas vingerard in two uphill finishes before the tour, one in Algarve and one in Parinise, and this is Joe Almeida. Yeah.

You know, it's a long time ago. You could say, okay, it's irrelevant, but he did beat Jonas. And Jonas was going for it back then. It was the beginning of the season. So I think, you know, we said it all along. I mean, without the crash in the tour, that Almeida was the third strongest state.

racer in in the in of of this palatone at least this season yeah um he already showed before the crash that he was going to be the key guy for for today finally you know today didn't need him but you know at least since his crash he could focus on himself and his own ambitions his own goals and this is a great opportunity for for joe almeida um yeah i like that pick spencer it's not bad especially what is it plus 550 plus 550 he's won three world tour stage races this year like yonis vindigard hasn't won a world tour stage race since 2024 so you know for just picking recent form it's not great and as you said like he was doing well i also would love i think i started the season by saying yeah and also spencer you know one of the things that is super

important in the welta is freshness yeah and you know it's it's we never know how somebody's going to recover from the tour between the tour and the world that is not that much time it's you know physical recovery mental recovery omeda was in great shape he had the crash you know it depends how how fast he could train again but i suspect it was pretty pretty early he could train again and uh he's mentally and physically fresh that's a huge advantage yeah i mean think of that third week of the tour how waxed everybody looks like even pagachar looked miserable and I made a missed all of that

so you know we'll see it's unclear to me if like completing a tour that hard and then rolling up to the Volta is the best preparation you could do or if specifically preparing for it is better I'm just going to bet that preparing for it is better

than the death march that was the tour I also would love Almeida to prove me wrong because ever since I said he can't win he's just been doing nothing but winning And so I want to see this street continue to go. In terms of who can challenge them, who do you think could finish on the podium here behind them? Because someone will finish third. Yeah, of course.

Yeah. I mean, you know, we have a Uso, we have Jay Hintley, we have Ben O'Connor, Egham Bernal, Felix Gall, who just finished fifth in the tour. You know, Pitcock, I don't think so. I mean, you know, I think Pitcock's goal is being a top 10. uh and and stage wins but you know we have never seen pitcock compete at the podium level you know i personally think that he has the potential to do it but he hasn't prepared specifically his season for grand tour for grand tour so um i'm going to go with i mean there's okay there's ben o'connor who's been second at the volta there's jay hindley who won

Giro and was second the Gero. I'm, I mean, I don't know if I'm saying this because that's the way I think it will go or it's just because I have always been a fan of him and I would love to see him do well. I'm going to go for Egan Bernal for the third spot. He's plus 800 for the podium. I think, you know, he's a solid writer. He's definitely not the Egan Bernal anymore that we saw coming onto the scene. I mean, maybe.

he is numbers wise but he probably is better he probably might be a little bit better actually yeah but unfortunately you know he won the two in 2019 unfortunately that uh if you produce those numbers you're not you're not there anymore um but yeah i'm going to go agam bernal for for the podium i well okay so i i don't agree with you i think bernal the i worry because bernal was losing time in the jrero on the climbs and that then this is like nothing but climbs. So that has me concerned. But we're going through the podium contenders here.

And it gets dicier than you think. Because like I used so would be the obvious choice. But I don't we, we've not, I don't know. I don't feel great about that situation. Like we was potentially not at a team camp prior to this. Yeah, I saw somewhere. He actually said in an interview that this is the first time he does a ground tour without having specifically prepared for it, which, you know, sometimes may turn out to be the

right way because you start without any big expectations, not much pressure, but I think a writer like Iuso has the pressure on no matter what. He puts pressure on himself, plus it's through Spain. All the Spanish media expected to do well. So I think we should take him to account for the for the podium, although we haven't seen anything that could indicate that he's on that level right now. Yeah, and so if you assume he's not on the level, then it starts to get dicey fast because Julia Chaconne is the next favorite. Looks enticing, right?

He just won San Sebastian, guys flying, Gallo to grade at the Giro. Here's the issue with Chikone. He's never top 10negrant tour. He's never finished on a podium at the one of the top seven one-week stage races. he's 30 years old potentially he's not a stage racer we'll never know how he would have finished it this year's year I think maybe he would have struggled

on the on the finestra but we don't know so if you don't feel super confident that you go to Tibery well is he a good enough climber I don't know and then you Bernal well he's a pretty consistent actually so maybe he's not a terrible pick Ben O'Connor how's he going to be that's a lot of consistency

needed Jai Henley we don't know how he is I think this all takes me to Phyllis Gall plus 800 he just finished fifth at the tour unless i'm mistaken yeah and this race is much better for him than the tour was this is actually just felix gall's best terrain surfed up over and over again so i'm going to go golf for the podium at plus 800 okay yeah with the confidence you know obviously the fifth place for him at the tour was a huge result and you know he's shown in some of the mountain stages that he was able to be you know the best of the rest you know you know was able to attack a few times.

So, you know, does he still have his form from the tour de front? That's not a question. But, yeah, I mean, Houston, we have to, we have to dig into account, Felix Gall. He's one of the guys. Well, let's take a quick ad break. And then I have two more GC questions for you. And then we'll get into the stage. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by Hymns.

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See website for full details, restrictions and important safety information. All right, Johan, we're back. So my first of my two GC questions, young rider for classification. Also, remember, if you're listening to this and you just want to bet, you can always wait on GC.

Like if none of this sounds convincing to you, you can just wait. Like, you know, if Almeda comes out and is, is, what's going to happen is also Chaconay is going to have the Red Jersey after stage two. He's going to win stage two. He's going to be in the race lead. Everyone's going to be, oh, Chikone. So the odds might even move in your favor.

Like if you want to bet on Almeda, maybe Almeida doesn't look great. Maybe Vindigar doesn't look great. You don't know. So you can always wait. Just keep your powder dry. But just for the sake of fun, young writer for classification, Juos at plus 100, Tiberi plus 300, Pelezari, Giulio Pelazari. Julio Pellizari plus 450,

Matthew Ricotelo plus 1,200. Who do you think wins this young rider's classification? I think you have to go, I yourself. I mean, something tells me, okay, he's been a bit off, you know, after his abandoning the Giro. But, you know, the VELTA is one of those races

where sometimes you see a guy grow in the race. He's definitely going to be motivated. Yeah, I can't see any of those other young guys do better than Ayuso, actually. Unless Ayuso is all or nothing. You know, I mean, that's also a possibility. He just goes, you know, winning is difficult, but, you know, second or third. If he doesn't get that, then he may say, oh, you know what, I'm, you know, I'm giving up or, you know, I'm not motivated anymore and try to go for stage wins. Yeah, yeah.

He's got to show something to the team, though, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, actually, Spencer, to see how we've seen it already many times. But, you know, UAE without Pogacar has been sometimes, I mean, a circus. Oh, they could get lost. They could just take a little turn. Like a spectacle of, you know, what's going on here, you know? So, yeah, I mean, Almeida and I Uso, they're both ambitious. Personally, I have to say, though, you know, we always, I mean, we, as I say, you know, we, the media, I think we always make it bigger than it is. I don't, I don't,

I don't really think there's a big issue, you know, with internally. We like to see an issue. You know, we like to make it an issue. But is there really an issue? I'm not sure. It's usually the road that decides who's the strongest and especially the writers themselves. They know amongst each other who's the best, you know. And I saw, for example, I mean, not that it's you know very significant but you know iusu has been criticized for being you know another team player i've seen him do some of those races in the basque country and of course it's easier to do that when you're not in top shape right but he's done the job for del toro for example um there's one race that del toro won there in the bus country i forget now which one it was but it was an unbelievable

lead out on the climb of juan uso first time i saw him do this by the way for someone else But, you know, I think, I think we kind of exaggerate those situations a bit for the sake of sensationalism, you know. Oh, it's fun. Yeah, we need it. Yeah. I need to think that they're fighting constantly. And, I mean, you do hint it like this race could get really weird, really fast, especially if you imagine Jorgensen's in a breakaway. I mean, the same thing that happened in 2023, Sep Kus gets up the road that everyone's staring at Sudol, Quickstep. Quickstep says, we're not going to pull. And everything falls apart. really fast like there is a danger that like jai hinley gets in a move and gets five minutes six minutes exactly what we saw last year with ben o'connor so this will be a i think a difficult

race to navigate i'd assume with two riders like i use so in almeda that uae will try to have a writer in a move like that but i don't know j vine maybe but actually if jvines up the road with Mateo Jorgensen, who feels more confident in that, Vizma or UAE? So, and if Jai Henley's in there, maybe Red Bull feels the most confident. The funniest outcome would be

Jai Henley winning this race and then adding to the drama at Red Bull next year where they have a guy coming off of ball to win. I mean, you know, it's been a while since we've seen something of J. Hindley indicating that, you know, there might be a possibility. You know, this year

his best race was Tirano, I think, other than that, you know, two of the Alps, he was okay, not great, then the Giro he crashed out. You know, that's obviously not a standard. And then, yeah, Burgos, he was not at the level we

expected him to be. So it would be a surprise, but never count out. I mean, J. Hind is obviously a quality writer. We can never discard a rider like that, but, you know, we haven't seen anything hopeful this year.

for the moment. The world is special, though. You know, it's, it's physical, but it's especially mental. You know, at the end of the season, there's many, many riders who don't want to be there. And they have to be there. Well, it's kind of intriguing. So this young rider, I would also love to see Matthew Rickettello plus 1,200 win the young rider classification. That would be amazing.

But it's actually, it's kind of seen as like a fluky grand tour, but I went back and looked. It's actually more predictive of the following year than you think. 2011 Chris Frum's first, but not really. He finished his second. Bradley Wiggins finishes third. The next year at the tour, it's Wiggins winning the tour Frum second, and then Frum is dominant for the next, like,

eight years of the tour to France. 2019, Teddy Pagachar's third. I think he wins three stages. Yeah. And then he goes on to win the tour the next year, and then it's been dominant since then. So the young rider for, young rider classification at the Vulta,

is actually quite important and can be very predictive of who's going to be a star in the future. So I am watching that closely. I think, yeah, you're right. I also probably wins plus 100. If you want to put money on that now, that might be the best price you get. The second one, Matt's Petters. So points classification. Matt's Pedersen, who's on amazing form, minus 182, Jasper Philipson plus 350, Jonas Finnegard plus 450, Axel Zingle plus 2,200, Chirconi plus 3,300, it's probably between Pedersen and Philipson, even with the lack of sprint stages. There's really only three true sprint stages. Who do you think is going to win this? Not sure. I mean, I would need to look at the way the points are attributed, but it has happened

in the Volta that, I mean, many times already, that the classification rider won the win the points jersey, many times that has happened. I would like to look into the details. I mean, I haven't studied the way that the points work. But I think Pedersen, you know, he's such, I mean, he's on great form. He's such a complete rider. There's many stages where he can score points where the sprinters won't score points. I mean, anybody who's seen in race. I mean, I was too of Denmark, of course.

He was super motivated. The field was not super, super strong, but still there was some good riders. but the way he dominated there, poof. And, you know, he's been preparing for the Vuelta as being,

you know, I mean, knowing that he wasn't selected for the tour. He'll want to make a statement. He did win the points jersey in the in the Giro, right? So if Giro, yeah,

you know, winning it in the Giro and the Vuelta would definitely be a statement from, from him. And I could see him do it. Well, in the last three welters have been Cadengroves, Cadengroves, Mads Pedersen, winner of the points jersey. So that does tell you it's quite possible.

And I'm trying to figure out, I'm looking at last year's race, like so summit finish. Yeah, it's been, it's similar. Spencer, it's, it's quite similar. So it's like, yeah, it's like 20 points for summit finish, 50 points for a sprint finish. Actually, yeah, Pedersen at minus one. If he stays healthy, it's actually hard for me to see him losing this. Yeah. Yeah, I would probably go for that.

Team, I don't, 15 years into covering bike racing, I don't fully understand the team classification. But UAE team Emirates is plus 130, Vizma, Lisa bike plus 275. Probably one of those teams going to win the team classification, I would assume. Yeah, I mean, listen, I mean, it's always been, I mean, the last few years, it's Visma and UAE. I also think that not a classification that these teams specifically go for and it just comes to them, right? Whenever, if you have three guys always in the front. I mean, the team classification, the way it works is every stage is the top three riders of every team. And, you know, it's an addition.

It's not like it's not a classification. It's per day. everything you start over you start over so um yeah i mean this is two strongest teams it has to be one of those teams that wins it um sometimes it can help you to have a dysfunctional team because you have two guys trying to beat each other so their their cumulative position is better than if they're actually working together back in the days it was sometimes certain teams played with breakaways and you know when when a team got let's say whatever a breakaway that caught 10 minutes and they had three riders in it. That means that's 30 minutes that day you're

getting. But those times are gone. You know, that's not happening anymore. Yeah, yeah. No. So yeah, it needs to be one of those two teams, Spencer, UAE or Visma. And then I guess mountains classification, this is a real dangerous territory. Yeah. You're trying to predict the Vuelta mountains classification? Like, I'd rather just not even touch that. It tends to be Is it the rider that wins the overall often wins the mountains classification? With 11th uphill finishes, that's very likely. It would seem hard to not win the mountains classification if you win the overall. I did see last year, Jay Vine won instead of three most.

Oh, yeah, he did. He did. He actually was, wasn't he in sprinting with Walt Von Art until Walt crashed? Because Walt was going to win. Oh, you're right, because Walt was probably going to win. Well, I was going to win mountains and points, I think, until he crashed out. And so basically, then finally, Jay Vine got it, I think. Yeah.

Well, that's a stay away from. But let's take a quick break. And then we will predict, not tomorrow's, Saturdays, stage one. Everybody, this episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. You know it doesn't belong in your epic summer plans getting burned by your old wireless bill. While you're planning beach trips, barbecues, or long weekends for this upcoming holiday weekend, your wireless bill should be the last. thing holding you back. That's why I've made the switch to Mint Mobile and you should too. With Mint, I get the same coverage and speed I'm used to, but for way less money,

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This is the grand tour for you because there's not very many sprint stages. this is like basically one of three it's in torino italy must have a lot of money i assume because what this is the third grand tour and three years that's been to terino so terino is i actually wonder how the ziro feels about the tour and the volta like stepping on their turf a little bit because this is yeah and then you have the giro not starting in italy yeah yeah yeah well is you're in albania right albania and then i hear bulgaria next year perhaps And then a few years ago started in Hungary. Hungary.

Yeah. Yeah. They're famous for, I mean, I guess the grand tours just don't want to start in their own country, which is obviously because another country pays a lot of money to have the grand part of, you know, a grand tour. Yeah. And so it is kind of funny, though, because like, so Torino is spending all this money for the Volta, but it's like, well, that's money that could have gone to the Giro. But I'm actually excited to see this region.

So I'm glad we're back. I like it there. I like the racing there. But the favorite for the stage, Jasper Philipson, plus 110, Mads Pedersen plus 450, Casper Van Uden plus 700, Ethan Verden plus 900,

Arna Maretz, plus 1,600. It goes on and on, but we'll calm out when we need to. It's a pretty straightforward finish. It's flat and straight for the last, I say straight for the last 4K, there are multiple what appears to be four or five roundabouts

they have to go through. And then a slight bend to the right on the finish line. But I assume it's going to be bunch sprint. Johan, do you agree? And then who do you think it's going to win? Yeah, I think it's bunch print, especially if there's almost no opportunities for the sprinters. And

I'm going to pick Jasper Philipson, although I mean, he's the heavy favorite, but I'm going to do that because if I look at the team, it's a team, Bill. around the sprinter. You know, they have the best lead out train. They have Philipson. They have Edward Planckar.

They have Jonas Ricard. They have Oscar Rizabig. You know, those guys are like made for that kind of job. Tobias Bayer, also fast guy, Gallaglivar. This is a team with one mission. It's, you know, the sprints for Philipson. Same thing, a little bit as Almeida, right? he crashed out in stage three, I guess, or two, no, two or three.

It was, yeah, stage two. He won stage one. No, no, no. Wait. Yeah, Phillips then you're talking. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it must have been stage two, right? Yeah, yeah.

Intermediate sprint? No, because if, no, if it must have been stage three because, you know, it was definitely stage three because stage one, he was in yellow. When he crashed, he was not in yellow. So it must have been stage three. Yeah. Anyways, you know, crashed out early, broke his collarbone. I mean, I was with, I was with, I met him a few weeks ago in Spain. He told me he had surgery on the collarbone and he also had a few broken ribs. It was, it was really, he was, he was banged up. I mean, that was a bad crash. It looked bad. But, you know, he's back. You know, he's already raced in, where did he race? And he did, he did Germany to Hamburg classic, right? Yeah, he did tour Denmark and then the Hamburg Classic. Oh, he did tour of Denmark, correct.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Pedersen didn't allow almost any bunch prints. He was, he attacked every day. But yeah, no, Philipson, this is, for me, this is, this is the stage that this team will definitely work for it to be a bunch print and I think they have faith in Philipson.

Yeah, a little bit of a diversion, but that Hamburg classic, did you see that finish with Rory Townsend winning? Pretty impressive, holding those guys off. Yeah, Philipson is the favorite for a reason. I do agree with you. He probably wins, but I'm going to pick Mads Pedersen plus 450 just because I don't, yeah, I have some inside intel that maybe he was looking for a boat recently, maybe not so focused on his training. just you can kind of imagine like first day of a grand tour like stuff can go wrong like we saw

at the we saw at the tour of france so we should spread our bets around so we're not leveraged on someone you know dropping a chain 5k to go and they're stuck on the side of the road if phillipson has any problems i think peterson probably wins so i'm going to go with him at plus 450 yeah although peterson is not a pure sprinter but i think in this field we have to consider peterson one of the sprinters. Yeah. Do you have a wild card? I would almost have Pedersen as my favorite and wild card. I guess like... I mean, you know, you have a Casper von Uden who is a sprinter. He's not been doing great lately. No, that's a problem with a lot of these sprinters. Yeah. No, it's Philipson and

Patterson, man. They kind of stick out above everybody else. The only one that actually sticks out to me, but I wonder who he's working for is Jake Stewart. He's plus 20,00 to win. I thought he should have been probably their sprinter at the tour. But who is he working for here? Let me check really quick. Who's on this Israel team?

I mean, Ethan Vernon. Ethan Vernon, yeah. So I'll be working for Ethan Vernon. So don't pick Jake Stewart. All right. Yeah, so my favorite and wildcard is Mads Pedersen. I think it's probably one of Philipson or Pedersen that wins. Anything else, Johan, before we take off?

Um, no, that's it. We'll be back Saturday, I guess, you know, for our daily show. And I'm excited to watch these guys. And, yeah, especially on this course, man, it's, it's a hard for a lot. It's, you know, mentally, this is hard, man. Like, you know, the last grand tour of the year. Hats off to Rionosingerard. You know, like he focused everything on the tour, rode a great race, wasn't able

to win and now to be able to, you know, recharge the batteries and come back and go for it again. That's, uh, that's quite something. Yeah. I mean, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we know someone who always talks about how he would never want to go to the VALTA after the tour. I think it's probably risen in prestige since then, but I actually can't imagine like getting second at that tour and then it's like, all right, let's fire it back up. Yeah.

Doing the VALTA. Like that's impressive. Mm-hmm. It is. It is. All right. Well, Well, thanks, Johan, and we will be back on Saturday after the stage to break it down. Okay.

Thanks, Spencer. All right. Bye.