Visma and their history, they have never, that's what they said.
So, you know, or a record statistic, a record statistic can be broken, which, you know, they will try.
“And I think it's very realistic to think, you know, you know, tomorrow we could be there already. The more we could be at seven stages.”
And then stage 21, I think we just looked at the profile, I think it's, you know, and definitely within reach for phonart, and maybe even also Matthew Brennan. I, I'm going to predict the tomorrow is Brennan and stage 21 is phonart. So, next stages. I agree with you, by the way. I think Brennan's got a tomorrow tomorrow. I think stage 21, perfect for Venart. At this point, I'm just, I'm already, like, crafting my news that are for,
wow, Venart winning the World Championships. It's in the books, put it down.
No, okay. Nothing bad on this. The misfortune never just falls this man.
It's, he's got it. It's going to happen. Everybody, welcome back to the move. I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Brennan. We are breaking down stage 16 of the Valtus Spania, as well as doing a stage 17 outcomes preview for tomorrow's stage. Well, we'll get Johan's take on who's going to win. Probably, Johan will be Matthew Brennan. Winner of today stage, spent finished 181 kilometers through the heat of southern Spain.
Beats, Brian Cacard, on Cofittas, veto, Barat, on Lotto Intermar shake coming in third. I mean, I could say I could name names. I could name all the names I want. It was a one man sprint, basically. Well, Venart, let out Matthew Brennan. Wasn't even really close. We had a little bit of drama. Some splits in the crosswinds of the around 20 kilometers to go. It was red bowl up there, splitting it, just trying to stay at front.
Not quite sure exactly what they were doing. There was a breakaway. Five rider breakaway got real in. Vism is not. Vism is keeping these breaks on an extremely tight leash. So there wasn't even really a risk of the break staying away. Kevin Romarcha, your pick for the UA rider to win a stage. There's up there once again. Keep an eye on him as this goes along.
But our move at the day, Johan is brought to you by as it always is by eight sleep.
Eight sleep is a mattress topper that makes your bed colder and warmer. Sponsors, UA team members say use it for every race throughout the entire year. Every race and every training camp keeping the riders comfortable helping them get quality sleep, which is the most important thing. So I could write her at this fault that he said, he's been focusing on sleeping better.
And he's felt the best he's ever felt in this career. Who would have thought sleep is important? But if you want a mattress topper and eight sleep mattress topper, go to eight sleep dot com slash the move for $350 off through the end of this welta.
“But Johan, what is your eight sleep move of the day for stage 16?”
Okay, Spencer. I think my move of the day, eight sleep move of the day. I'm not going to say matu Brennan. I'm going to say what one art, what one art for having control that final.
Basically, you know, guided matu Brennan the whole stage, especially in the final of the race.
And just, you know, motor to the front whenever he decided to. And again, you know, again, those are certain things that I don't really understand, you know, Visma obviously down to six riders, so it was only one art and Brennan left. So there was no real, nobody really left to do the lead out before the lead out of the sprint. But, you know, there were other yellow guys who were leading them out, the guys from, you know, ex.
But my move of the day definitely walled on art and in which fashion yeah, he delivered matu Brennan. You came to the front right at the right moment and then basically dropped them off with 150 meters to go. You know, there was nothing else to say, you know, there was a Cocar was at the wheel. Meows came back a little bit, but you know, it was not even close. Love and arts might easily move of the day.
I like it. I mean, he is really important. The question is good, well, I mean, this is such a good position, Visma's in. Good, well, vinar to one this sprint probably, you know, there's a good chance. But there, Visma's sitting there picking between what's which of our riders that is likely to win is giving us a greater percentage chance to win.
And going with that rider. This gives Brennan four wins at this Valta vinar to two. So that's six total for the team through 15. We have 16 stages 15 with the stage winner. So that's 40% of the stages have been won by Visma.
“If you try to map out like, well, how many can they win here?”
They probably win tomorrow. So give them seven. They could win stage 21. Are we sure they don't win the time trial at this rate? But let's say they win 17 stage 21.
They have eight wins. I would give them 40% of the of stage wins at this Valta.
That is extremely impressive.
Like, and that's even without. They're, they don't even have their eight. Like, this is their B plant. They don't even have their top GC rider. They came to this race to prepare for worlds and vinar.
It's getting over like a near fatal sepsis. So not, not bad considering that. Yeah, and especially Spencer, I think.
“I think they will definitely try to win a seven for sure.”
Visma and their history.
They have never, that's what they said.
They have never won more than six stages in a ground tour. So, you know, for the record statistic. A record statistic can be broken, which, you know, they're, they will try. And I think it's very realistic to think, you know. I mean, tomorrow we could be there already.
The more we could be at seven stages. And then stage 21, I think we just looked at the profile. I think it's, you know, definitely within reach for vinar. And maybe even also, Matthew Brennan. I, I'm going to predict that tomorrow is Brennan.
And stage 21 is vinar. So next stages. I agree with you, by the way. I think Brennan's got a tomorrow tomorrow. I think stage 21.
21 perfect for Vinar. At this point, I'm just. I'm already, like, crafting my newsletter for Welfan Art Winning the World Championships. It's in the books, put it down. No, okay.
Nothing bad on this.
The misfortune never best.
But falls this man. It's he's got it. It's going to happen. You know, it's funny. You're seeing the other day.
“It's not the best we've ever seen him because he won a time trial.”
A mountain stage and time trial. The same tour, which is really impressive, right? But we spent spent the rest day rewatching old Welfan Art Wins. He's almost more. He maybe he doesn't have like the raw ability to do it every once.
He's a much more focused rider now. He threw away a lot of races back then. Yeah, 2020, 2021. It's much more of a focused strength now. Like, I will see how the rest of the season plays out.
But. Yeah, I obviously he did great amazing things back then.
There was a lot of times where you're like,
What are you doing? Wow, like, just maybe chased down. I'll sleep and win that World Championships. But he's he. He definitely does things now better than he did back then,
even though maybe doesn't have the ability to win a time trial. We don't fully understand why riders who's there ability to win time trials. But it happens, especially with injuries and time off. But we also.
“If you look at if you look at this far, for example,”
Spencer, that's also even that's also impressive. You know, if just off the top of my head. I want to say. They have tried with a plan to win the stage eight times, like eight stages.
They won six of them. And then one was won by Brian Cookard. And then another one was one by. Thrash on the French guy. Oh, yes, yeah.
So they out of the eight times they tried. They won six. That's very, very seldom in cycling that happens. You know, you many times you have a great plan. You have a great team and you just don't win.
That's usually the case. Usually that's the case. Yeah. Yeah, that's the norm. I mean, they could have a eight out of ten record at the end of this.
Well, they're also down to riders, like two of the hoard riders. Ben to let in Christophel. Yeah, but it was six riders. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, to control with six riders, that's also impressive. By the way, you know, hats off to Steven Kreuzweik. This guy has been riding on the fronts for so. Oh, every single stage. I mean, it's like it's crazy.
Crazy, crazy. Yeah. I don't know if you, if you notice, they, you know, it's his last year. It's his last race in his career. Actually, he retires.
So they gave him a special, a special bike. He rides with a different bike than the rest of the team as an homage to his career. But man, he's, he's up there until the very, very, very end of his racing career. You know, today, he gave an interview and he said, you know, I'm feeling good. You know, and I told the team that they are allowed to squeeze every single drop out of the lemon.
I am. Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty impressive. That's a pretty impressive statement.
Yeah, he's an interesting rider too, because he represents. These men's very good at this. They get guys that were GC riders and another life. And then you think of like, vocal, color men, Steven Kreuzweik. These, these were guys knocking on the door of Grant Tour Wins 10 years ago.
And then now they're dumbest steaks for Visma. Like, I don't quite know how they convince them to take on these roles, but they're very good at it. And I, I kind of think, I know there's, if there's a big talk at the move, if there was a lot of talk about They're in the tour, it's like, you know, Oh, we got your just racing to LA, then he's going to retire right after the Olympics. Oops, no, he renewed until 232. He's probably going to be racing for a long time, but a lot of these GC guys.
They just find it like stars just find new roles. And then just keep racing.
This guy was on, was on Bravo.
He was on Bravo. He was on Bravo.
Bravo, bonk professional team in 2010 already.
So 16 years ago. What was, tattooed, what was, yeah, tattooed, I forgot you doing in 2010. He would have been 10 years old. Yeah, something. A toddler, a toddler now.
He was not a teenager yet. It's pretty crazy. Right. And then Kreiser gets a key rider riding against that guy. Yeah, I mean, he was on Bravo Bank and then he lived through the, the terrible, terrible, like,
and the whole bank of years, yeah, the whole of his career on the same team. That's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah. He won the 2014 Arctic Race of Norway. I mean, the different stuff he's done is incredible. I mean, sure.
That was the first thing I started in the tour. I started in the tour to France in 2019. Yeah. Yeah, that was a funky tour. So it was Bernal Thomas Kreiswick.
I'm a manual bookman. Wow. Why the way? Yeah, I'm, he's in this race, no. He's still racing.
“I'm telling you all this guy is, is he not in the welder?”
I'm pretty sure he's in this welder. Let's look. I think he's in the welder.
He's guys never, never go away.
He is racing the welder for co-photis. Well, which is comfortable. That's comfortable. Yeah. That's not.
I haven't seen it. Yeah. Yeah. He's looking at an invisibility cloak. You can't see him.
I, I was so high in this guy after 2019. If I was a team manager, I would have been, you know, buy out clause. No, no number two high contract. No number two high. I would have been all in on bookman.
I thought he was, he was, I thought he's the next big thing. But on on bookman on co-photis. These may as controlling these stages in very, very well. They do have a lot of help from co-photis. Co-photis was helping them today.
Was was there room for them to be agreed on stage 15 when co-photis helped Visma control the break and then Visma attacked and had their writer go away and went from the break away? Is there an understanding there that you're not supposed to do that?
That's the first thing I hear about it.
You know, initially you go for the common goal. You try to bring the break back. Then what was what Vinar to attacked? I don't know. I'm a bit surprised that you told me that there are people not being happy about that and saying that you don't do that stuff.
No, I don't. They were upset. They should have sent somebody with Vinar, right?
“Yeah, you should know that it's a very, I should say it's an unusual situation.”
You would rarely have two teams working to pull the break away back. First sprint and then one of them even has the ability or the option to attack up to the break away. Yeah, you got to know that that could happen, right? Especially with Vinar and Brennan as two potential stage winners. You know, co-photis once a bunch grid with co-car, right?
Visma once a bunch grid with Brennan, but they also have Vinar. If you can go in a break, he'll do it. So I don't understand why there's so much such an upset about this. I think they're right thing and they're entitled to do it. I mean, you know, there's nothing that says that if you work together with two teams,
and then all of a sudden there's an opportunity to catch up to the break, just go for it. Yeah, there's not a contract you're signing at the start of the stage. No, this says we don't agree to do this and not attack each other. It also shows you, like I, you know, I was about to say, like, you know, co-photis should have had a shadow on Ben Art.
I'm like, if he moves, you move, but I think what happened on that stage is it was so hard. Like line to line. There was no tactical. No, should canary there. Like just nobody could, you know, if you could go with him, you went with him.
And you probably were at the limit when he attacked. Well, there was one rider with him. Right, was it not people nice who went with him? Well, Rome, what's his name, Romeo? Romeo.
Romeo started it. So he starts to move. Van Art just following him. So he makes it. And then Tibonese, yeah, follows him as well.
Okay. Tibonese is one of the strongest guys in this race. You know, like, not everybody can just bridge that gap like Tibonese can. Yeah.
“By the way, I don't know if he paid for that effort or not, but I think I guess he's sick of it.”
But today, he finished 31 minutes behind Tibonese. Second to last finisher. Yeah. I think he must be sick. Otherwise he must be sick.
Interesting. Got sick on the rest day. That can happen.
You start moving.
Like your body gets a chance to take a take. Like take stock of where it is. And that doesn't feel good. And he gets sick. Let's see.
By the way, Spencer, quickly back to the stage enough of Matthew Brennan. You know, I mean, if you look at it or nothing, nothing much was going on in this stage. You know, those five writers. Then, uh, be smart and COVID is and a little bit a little bit red blood at some point. But, you know, if you have the fastest rider in the bunch, like like Matthew Brennan,
you show him that he's the fastest initially.
Now, the first few stages we said, okay, you know, he's fast, but it's in hard finishes.
Now, it's flat finishes. He's also proven that he has the biggest speed. And then you have the strongest lead out guy with football, Bernhardt. It can't go wrong, you know, it can't go wrong. Well, Bernhardt literally dropped off Matthew Brennan with 150 meters to go. Whether luxury, whether luxury and then, you know.
Yeah. Yeah, this couldn't go wrong for Visma. You can also see that, you know, at this point in the Vota, there is not much strength left in any team or any other sprinter. You know, it's basically whoever has the legs, now there's one speed, you know, there's one speed. There's nobody anymore who can attack at the end or accelerate.
And with that kind of lead out of Bernhardt, Bernhardt just had to come out with the wheel and, you know, make it to the finish. Here's a question for you.
“Should there be more sprinters at this race? Was this a huge missed opportunity?”
Like Jonathan, Jonathan right now is probably fine on these stages. He could probably win the stage. Well, right now there has been six bunchprints, right? Does that might be more than any granteur we've had this year? Yeah, yeah, and tomorrow was seventh.
So, yeah, potentially eight when it's all set and done. Yeah, I don't think the last day will be a bunchprinter. It will be a reduced group. But, but yeah, I mean, it's there are around two or like the two of the fronts for example, or even the zero that there are no seven stages that finishing a bunchprint. And yeah, so I have a point. Look, I mean, a guy like Vito Brat, you know, Vito Brat, he's a rider, you probably never heard of him.
I, you know, he's fast, but he's not a tough group. He gets third in a bunchprint in and in the blood. You know, that's not that's not easy to do. No, no. I mean, we should say he didn't get second.
I never heard of him. I had to go back and look at the results. He did get second at a stage of Perry niece this year.
Which is extremely high level hard race. So clearly he's good. It just shows you also how many good Belgian riders are out there. You know, it's like a, like a named generator machine. Vito Brat on Lotto, and I'm gonna say it's like, what, this is a TV show.
“But like this, I've never heard of this guy. Where's he coming from?”
But there's just an endless supply of very good Belgian riders that can podium my grand tours. But, you know, you look at the zero. I think there's four stages that Jonathan Laune had a chance at. One, two, three, four, you know, he could've had seven at this fault. You just, it shows you when you don't, you really have to examine these courses carefully. Because you look at it and you think, wow, there's no sprint stages.
But you really examine it. And there's, it's a different course than you think. I mean, even Yona said the tour was a lot different than they thought it was going to be. And they kind of prepared incorrectly because of that kind of odd to me. He would say that. But I've been shocked at how sprint heavy this, this well to is. In fact, I kind of like it personally that we're, we have this little like it's like a nap section.
And so you can dig in the app. You can not, you know, you just like whatever. You don't really have to pay attention to these stages. Well, get to the important stuff later in the week. I kind of like it. It's like a pallet resetter for the final weekend. But it is a lot of sprint stages. And it just makes me think, hmm.
“I think I'm important with stage winds are grand tours.”
There's a lot of good sprinters that out there who could be competing for this. And it feels like these kind of outsmarted everybody by doing this. Bring in this type of team. Should, should we take a quick break? And then I have some questions for you.
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First of all, I forgot to cover it in the first part.
Red Bull broke the stage up question mark. UNOX was caught out. Magnus court had to chase back on still finishes fifth. Shows you the type of sprint it was. He's not a guy. You would imagine we finished fifth and a bunch of sprint.
But why did Red Bull do that?
“Or were they just trying to stay ahead of splits and cos splits by doing so?”
Yeah, I think it's the second option. Spencer, it was open. You could see the images were impressive. If you saw when they were riding to these swamps, it was all open and windy.
I think they did it just to make sure that they were at the front. It gave something happened. Nobody got caught out from G.C. And Magnus court got surprised. But you know, then he came back.
I think they went to the front.
Basically with all of precaution to make sure that they were in the front.
No other team actually came to help right to continue that effort. And there was just whatever it was. It was a 30 guys dropped and the rest of the Palatom was there. So I don't think there was any intention to split the Palatom. Behind that action of rep.
Interesting. I mean, it does show you. It's like the fear of crosswinds can create crosswind problems. Like just people wanting to stay ahead of crosswind splits. Cause crosswind splits.
“Meaning you have to be even more vigilant.”
Stay at the front. I don't. You might see some crosswinds tomorrow. We'll get that in the preview. But you know, nobody was caught out.
But somebody could have been caught out. You know, you got to be really careful for these GC riders. Like that could decide the race. Especially with 20 K to go. You know, a group could motivate a group could hold you off.
You could lose one or two to three minutes. Quite quite quickly in a split like that. In the sprint. I noticed. Wow.
You don't see this very often. Hold off from his lead out to these. Just kept sprinting as hard as he could. Finishes six. Why is that?
Yeah.
“I think I think it's also out of precaution Spencer.”
You know, he, you know, he keeps sprinting.
The second guy in the point of yours is Matthew Brennan.
There is still, I don't know. I think he has a 90 point lead. No or something like that. But he kind of has to do it because if Matthew Brennan wins. I think the more it's a 50 points state as stage.
Yeah. So mathematically he's not sure yet to win green. Although I do think, however, that Matthew Brennan would not contest. Sprinting to get well one art out of the green jersey. But you know, if something goes wrong and wealth and art leads out and doesn't score points,
which to me, it seems like he's going to get automatically. Well, when art is now in a position where he. When he leads out, Matthew Brennan and keeps just just completely stop. He's still top 10, which is, you know, which is what he needs. But I think it's out of precaution for the moment.
He needs those points because Matthew, he's not sure yet. So Brennan gets 30 today. Benar gets 15. Let's say, Benar set up. Okay.
Then let's say he's set up today. Let's say he sits up tomorrow and Brennan wins. It'd be a 28 point difference, you know. I can, it's still be applied. Then let's say Brennan wins on the final day.
Benar sits up. He's lost to jersey. So yeah, yeah, it was. I did notice that. I think it's just.
To make sure that mathematically he's safe, you know, even. Even if Brennan wins those three stages. Like today tomorrow and then on the last day and Bernard doesn't score points. He will score points in the intermediate spreads. Yes.
And I'm pretty sure that Brennan will not contest those points. So, but I think it's just to make sure that mathematically he hasn't jersey. I mean, I love Matthew Brennan. I think he's the star. He's the future of the sport.
But like stage 19, I don't think Matthew Brennan. That's that's a big boy. Intermediate sprint.
That's going to take everything Benar has to get over those times.
And that's just now. I don't think that's something Brennan has.
I mean, Spencer, it's maybe also, you know, the reason why he does it today is basically because maybe he doesn't want to go in that break away.
You know, and save everything.
“Well, yes, I think it's like an easy 15 points he got today.”
Yeah, it's like right hard for 10 more seconds. And you get 15 points, which is what you'll get by bust in your butt to get over four mountains to get. Yeah, 16 points in a couple days. So it is smart. Yeah, no, 12 and aren't knows what he's doing.
So Matthew Brennan, 21 years old now has four stages in his first Grand Tour. Who's the last rider to win four stages in their first Grand Tour? It's the first part of the question. Yeah, I looked his up, Spencer. And it did happen.
The last guy to do this was in 2017 in Giro Detalia. In his first participation in Grand Tour was Fernando Gaviria. One four stages in his first ever Grand Tour at 23 years old. Matthew Brennan, 21. So look, looking pretty good.
Well, I don't know if that is like in your head. That's not the best. But then what did like Gaviria only went on to perform worse after that, I think. Well, he actually was a one. He also won two stages in the Tour for once, by the way.
Have you? Is that the same?
“Did he only ever win two stages at the Tour?”
Two stages. Yeah. Two stages in the Tour, yeah. That's great. And he's really easy to think about.
Yeah. And he never won. Was that in 2017 when he won two stages? I think it's 2009. I'm guessing.
I'm not sure. I'm not sure anymore. Yeah. You might be right, actually. So did he go to the Tour in 2017?
No. He won in 2018. No. 2018 is when he won two stages. Yeah.
He won another two stages. And another stage in the Giro of 2019. And that's the last time he won a Grand Tour stage. Yeah. That's nuts.
Well, Spencer, listen. Okay. We can say whatever we want. But if you finish your career, any rider who has won seven stages in ground tours, 95% of the Peloton doesn't have that.
Okay. We're great. We're great. We're great. Come here.
Let's say, if you finish your career with fewer than double the amount of wins you get
in your first ever Grand Tour, save to say you probably could have accomplished a little
bit more. How'd you do that yourself? Yes. For sure about media. Early in the early years was incredible.
Everybody thought, okay. This is the new dominator of all the sprints. And it didn't last very long. He was, he was extremely good early on. And I don't know what happened.
Somebody would say, I mean, I think people would say it's probably. I mean, there's been a lot of, you know, stories out there that he's not very professional. Or he wasn't very professional at some points in his career. So I think that's probably the main reason why he's career didn't succeed better than the way it's promised at the beginning of the season at that beginning of the career.
The funny thing about that is, I mean, I could, I can totally see that kind of makes sense. But then you're like, was he not professional in 2017 and 2018? I did a deteriorate.
I always have more questions when I hear that.
Like what? Was he professional for the first year and then he wasn't? Yeah. Well, I don't think so. I think he was just, he just came.
He was, he was a super talent. You know, was also, I think he was work champion on the track and on him early on. Very complete writer. You know, he could, he could sprint, he could do short time trials. He could do the points race and stuff like that.
He was, he was very, very talented. He actually, before he turns pro.
“I think 2000s, I don't remember when it was 2016 or something.”
He, he beat. He was not a, he was not a world tour team yet. And he beat Kavendish in those, in those sprints in Argentina. Was it tour, tour the San Juan or something? Yeah.
Yeah. He came out of nowhere and he beat Kavendish in sprints. So I think, I think the problem with the video is that he was extremely talented. Very young and then, you know, just relied on his talent. Way too much and didn't put the work in where a cycling has progressed and cycling has evolved.
Yeah. I mean, that shows in, like, it makes you appreciate Kavendish more.
I think I, like, think I'm a long Kavendish is win-win-no was,
and this guy's win-win-no was recesions two seasons really. I mean, that is, like, yeah, that's, I don't know, maybe I'll have a comeback. Is he, is he at this race? You're virier? No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, Kavendish is not here. Kavendish is not here. You're not here. He's, I guess, he's at the tourfronts. He did the tourfronts. Yeah.
Did you get a top 10 finish at the tour? Which is not nothing. But man, yeah, I, I, Kyro, all, that is weird. They're not here. I guess there's too many Spanish teams for, no, it's, it's, it's, it's a rolling, like,
that, so there's four, I mean, until this year, there's four pro teams. It's, you know, Kaviru al, is Kaltel, Gurgoz, and Kernfarma. And so it's, it's one year, yes, one year, no. But the next year, won't be like that, because Kernfarma is going away.
“Yes, and, and, who's Kaltel still needs to move up because they're not top 30 right now?”
Oh, yeah. But they could ever take DSM for the 30. Well, that's, that's in the bait. That's in the bait that is not clear. Is that does the top 30 apply for teams who have a word to license?
As far as I mean, today, I heard on, on, on one, I think it was on Dutch Euro sport, that that one year license they got, it only has to do with their financials, not with the sporting criteria. So if their financials get in order, they would automatically get year two and year three. That's what they said, I don't know.
To the rules stipulate if a World Tour team is outside the top 30, do they, do they still get an invite? Oh, yeah, we don't know. We don't know. It doesn't really matter Spencer, you know.
I mean, you know, in those cases, do you see I just makes up the rules and the conditions on the go, you know? I would say this is one area where I would say the UCIs is off the hook for not having thought of this, because who would have imagined that would happen? It's crazy.
It's crazy that that could happen. That a World Tour team could be out to the top 30. It's unusual for them to be out to the top 20. Top 30 is mind-boggling. So you're very at one, four stages in the 2017 Bureau,
but he was 23 years old of the time.
“Who's the last rider to win four stages at the age of 21 or younger in a grand tour?”
Yeah. It has happened. I also looked it up. I don't know if I have it here in front of me. I don't, but it has happened twice.
But it was in the 1930s. One rider, one four stages in the Tour de France when he was 20 years old. And then another rider, one four stages in the Jiro when he was 21, but just a little bit younger than Matthew Brennan. But so post in modern cycling post World War II,
it hasn't happened, so it's pretty impressive.
So essentially, it's never happened.
I do, it just happened. It did happen. Not really the same sport though, you know? Well, it's not their fault, right? It's not their fault.
I know. I find it unhelpful in sports though,
“and it's like the Boston Celtics won 55 NBA championships.”
Again, there's four teams in the NBA. I guess that's an easier one. I have to, I have the names here. So, yeah, and the Tour de France, 1934, René Vietto, one four stages,
and he was 21 year, 20 years old. Then 1936 in the Vuelta, Vicente Carotero, Spanish rider, one four stages,
and now the third one is Matthew Brennan in the Vuelta.
So it happened three times in history. So he's the first guy post-war to do it. It's not really the same sport. It's not really honest, yeah. Like, you know, you could be a four year old,
wake up in 1904 and win the Tour de France. You know, there's just wasn't the level of, there was not a great pool of competition. Yeah, it was still special. We have to have, I mean,
when you see those images from like, you know, the 1903 Tour de France, the first Tour de France ever. Man. The Tour de France was six stages, six stages of four, five hundred kilometers.
They basically rode around France,
like this, like they all bring that bring it back. That's what we want. If you were stages longer graded, that they invented gravel cycling,
You just are just describing gravel events right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For Tour de France is the first gravel race.
Before we go on to super interesting topic,
“actually, did you want to talk about or lease or lawyer?”
Yes, yes. Today I meant I know something, but I don't know if you noticed something about or lease or lawyer, which I had to check it,
but saw something very strange. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, unless you're doing my hand being a mountain domestic now, I don't know. No, no, no.
It's the first time I have ever seen a rider, during a ground tour, change. So he was Venezuelan champion, right? Yeah.
Today he rode in a normal movie star. Yeah, what is the deal with that? Well, this, the Venezuelan championships were just now the 6th of September, and he didn't participate.
So in the middle of the, Guelta, he lost his win, not lost the win. He can't wear the jersey anymore. So he had to change to the normal movie star jersey. Interesting.
You know what? In theory that could have happened at the zero to the American National Champion, until just recently, because the National Championships were during the Zureta Tia. Yeah.
And so probably a good sign. He should change your national championship date. If it's during. Yeah. I mean, what?
I guess, I don't know. It's just packed. The weeks are packed there. They can't fit it in. I don't know.
But there's, I don't know if it has to do with the climate or I don't know. There's also not that many riders from Venezuela riding in the European calendar. So.
I mean, a result lot has been, I think, five or six times. National Champion time trial, and three or four times already on the road. So I don't think he, I don't think he cares that much.
Who's the best Venezuelan rider ever?
“Uh, was it, uh, wait, was it, was it was his name again?”
Uh, there's, there was a small timer. Uh, he was third in the giro. Fuck out his name now. José Rujano. José Rujano.
What year was that? Um. Let me check. Rujano. I mean, he's, he was the guy who was the most present at, uh,
José Rujano. He was. Right, let's see. Who was the custom recon cyclist? Do you remember this guy?
Yeah. He was still in the giro in 2005. 2005, third in the giro. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh, the custom recon rider, who was that again? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Um, so last topic before we go to the stage preview. So as a dinner last night, someone was about to go to the,
I'd never heard of this event before.
It's like the world athletic ultimate championships, which is different than the world athletic championships, which is like the UCI championships where let's be honest. It's a bunch of bullshit.
So the government body can make a lot of money. But you go and erase for your team, for your national team. But this world athletic ultimate championships, it's like an invite only skinny version of that. So they are just inviting like the best runners.
So it shrinks the event instead of being like two weeks long. It's just a few days long. It's best on best. And we got into the beta of they're like, well, there's no, there's no point in any cycling season
where the best riders race the best riders. You'd kind of say the Tour France, but Matthew Vanderpool's ruining that. He doesn't really care about the Tour France. He's not really trying.
He's not putting his whole heart into it. So maybe the world championships, but then you get guys that are hurt because it's the, you know, the year. And it made me think about,
you know, we saw this collective cycling group thing launched the other day. And what one of the things in the, in the article about the collective cycling group is they want to increase the occasions
on which the best riders compete against the best riders. One way to do this is to make the teams in the collective cycling groups, and their best riders to the Gerrit Italia, as a way to force the hand of ASO to like playball with them.
Is this going to work, Johan? I mean, I kind of like the idea, but how does ASO not just crush this? It has to, it has to, it's going to be difficult.
“I think this, this union is going to happen.”
And you have to start somewhere, right?
The thing is, the problem is that
the Tour de France so big,
That, and so much bigger than any other event
if you look at the, the, the return on investment, the, the viewership, Tour de France compared to other events. I would say it's probably 70% of the whole calendar is just the Tour de France, the three weeks in July.
And then 30% is the rest of the calendar. So, it's not easy to, to kind of fight against that because I have in mind that teams that are funded by commercial sponsors are in a very weak position because their sponsors want and need
through the maximum return investment, which is three weeks in July. Teams who are funded by private investors, wealthy people, governments, you know, not without too much of a commercial expectation
as a return on their investment or in a better position to do this. So, I mean, it depends, it depends how many of those teams will do this. I think it's, it's worth trying.
It's been, you know, people have tried before, many times.
“But I think this going to be, it's going to happen.”
It's going to happen at some point where the teams are united and they can start to apply pressure on ASO. This is, this is completely, this is just, you know, you just need to destabilize ASO. UCI is, is not even an issue here for this kind of initiative.
You know, if the teams are strong enough and united enough, you could do this without the UCI. ASO is, is the issue. And then what we have seen historically is that, you know, ASO and UCI are often also not agreeing on a lot of points,
but whenever there's an initiative where the teams come into the play and they are looking to strengthen their position,
then UCI and ASO historically have always joined forces.
And applied pressure, threatening, trying to sabotage it, and with, you know, with real threats. I've seen letters when I was a team manager, and I've seen threatening letters, not very recently, from the UCI towards the team saying, hey, you know,
if you keep doing this, we have the power to, you know, mess with your license or, you know, we have the power to make it difficult for you.
“But I think something like this, like, you know,”
the world athletics, ultimate championships, could be something that this cycling collective, what's it called cycling collective? It's called cycling, sorry, collective cycling group, okay.
It's something they should look at. I just actually check that, you know, this ultimate championships, it actually is under the world athletics. So it's like if the UCI launched their own commercial,
which probably they, they were smart, they probably would do that, right? That you just like the UCI sort of launching good races.
They're never going to do that, Spencer.
They're never going to do that. They have the world championships. They are, I mean, I don't know. It's a little different, too, because the world championships and running aren't ever year.
So yeah, this is a way to like, make it every year, basically, without the hassle of a rule, regular world championships. Yeah, yeah. Something they've got.
“I think I think it could be a good idea.”
First of all, this is very vague, but they just say, in return for signing up as a member, each team will hand over exclusive license to its commercial rights. Collective sponsorship race data behind the scenes footage
for an equity estimated up between five and eight percent. They've been in on how many teams become shareholders. Very vague about how you would ever see any money from this. But let's just say, Spencer, I've heard the story already 20 years ago.
It's been always the same.
And nothing has happened. I personally think that now, considering the people who are driving this project, it will happen. So tell me, but what's it?
Like, what does it look like? What's the deliverable look like? Well, I mean, there's a lot of things, but I think in first and foremost, which is mind-blowing, actually,
that there is no entity in which the teams are privately and commercially represented to do business together. That's the first, I mean, and this has started many, many years ago already. There was always been a team's union,
Which is called the AIGCP, which is useless,
because they're completely under the influence of the UCI. And then back in the days, there was an initiative of by the way, my ex boss from on-semaneral side started this. It was called IPCT.
It was called international professional cycling teams. It was basically the same union without the French,
because the French are always with ASO,
but all the other teams were in a corporation, and the idea was to try to do business together. Like, you know, come with common interests. I've been in many of those meetings in the past, and the idea was good, but nothing came ever from it.
Little initiative here and there, but nothing worked really, nothing would move the needle into the right direction.
“I mean, what's the stop ASO from killing this with one phone call?”
They could just call you know, X and say, if you join this, you never come into the tour again, and then why would ASO risk that? They can't do that with X because they're in the world tour.
But they'd say by joining this year, then voting your world tour license, right? What do you mean? Like, you know, you're joining a group that is at odds with us,
so we're stripping you of your world tour license, because you've now avoided your contract with us. I'd imagine it's what they try to say. They don't have a contract with ASO. It's the ASO needs to accept all the world tour teams,
and they accept the first three teams of the pro team. So, let's, I mean, this is an aggressive posturing. Singer best riders to the zero and boycott the two or essentially.
“So, if that happened, what's the stop them from leaving the UCI and saying?”
Yeah, but you know what Spencer, and this is what I've always said in the past,
you know, because I've been in many of those meetings. There was all the, "Ah, you know, ASO, ASO. Let's make sure that we don't need to upset them." There's one thing that the teams forget, and it's true ASO has a lot of power,
most power in cycling. There's one thing that people forget. You know, teams sign contracts, so you sign a deal with ASO, that you're going to participate. They give you 50, 60,000 euros, which has a starting fee,
which is crazy. It hasn't changed in the last 25 years. And then, you know, if teams would, with boycotts, or would not send their best riders, what the teams don't seem to understand is that ASO,
also has sponsors and contracts with sponsors, in which I am sure there are also stipulations that the best riders and the best teams have to be there. And also if the best teams are not there, then the sponsors of ASO might get upset.
You know, so that's something that the teams need to have in mind. Yeah, but they can fill pain a lot longer than the teams can.
It's always the same thing, you know,
the teams can try this one year, right? They can't do it two or three years. And that's where ASO or UCI will always win. They have time and resources on their side. And this is the same.
I miss the same game everywhere, right? I already said, Spencer, in a few podcasts, I mean, like a few months ago, when we were talking about this one cycling idea and then the rumors interest of Saudi and
it's going to take somebody buying ASO to change this. ASO, ultimately, and it's still a family run business, but it's going to get sold at some point. Well, the FIFA sale just went so well, so I'm sure it's going to go really well, right?
I don't know about what happened with the FIFA. FIFA tried to invent, you know, tried to privatize FIFA. Yeah. Like now he might go to prison for it.
“So I think that probably spooked some people.”
Yeah, but FIFA is not ASO. FIFA is the international Federation. And it was a private company, which it's so fresh. So everything to get French. Everything got sold.
Everything can be sold, Spencer. It's ultimately going to happen. So a Western French life in politics. And you think Marine Le Pen when she's Prime Minister is going to let that thing get sold?
I don't think so. I don't think I don't think Marine Le Pen cares too much about the two difference.
I think it would be a huge scandal in France
if the two are French sold.
Because it's all they, it's it projects exactly the image that someone like Marine Le Pen would want to be projected throughout the world. It's what the image piece of the power for them. No Spencer.
“You're I think you, you know, ASO is Amerispoor organization.”
So it's a family, right? It's a private business. What if it's a company? What if another French company buys it? What if another French company buys it?
Probably could happen. But if anyone whiffs, you know, if anyone whiffs foreign involvement, all it takes is for the French to say, all right, pay us for the police resources.
And then you think the tour would be financially viable then.
Is it get a lot of experience? If it's if it's another French company who buys ASO. What's the problem? I mean, who is this French company? Who backs it?
It could be exactly. You're taking the words out of him. But it could be a French company owned by a holding company, which is not French. The lever that that the government has is ASO
gets a sweetheart deal on this. And it's not clear that it would apply to anyone that's not ASO. Like they get a lot of stuff for free. I don't even know if like the tour.
I did it with this guy who tried to buy the tour. And it's not even clear to me that it's like viable as a financial product without the current setup. Because they go, they get so much for free. And then he had a good point.
He said, if ASO had debt, you would have a lever to come in like you're talking about. With the teens could say, hey, your sponsors aren't going to remove. But ASO doesn't have a lot of debt. So it's hard to get them to do anything you don't want.
Like they don't want to do. Okay. I think we can be sold and bought.
“Why would ASO decide to sell after not selling for so long?”
Right now, the person who's making the calls and the decisions is. I forgot her name now, but it's the widow of Philippe Amori. She's probably in her 80s now. So I don't know what happens when she gets in her 90s or won't she pass us away?
So she was born in 1940. So she's 86. So she could be running for the Senate in the US right now. She's in the prime of her life. That's going to be four decades before she is ready to retire.
But yeah, I do think that is probably the flash point. Something could happen then. Yeah. I don't know. I kind of like the idea.
I feel like I've read this article 15 times. I'm curious to see what happens if they don't sell. So it's an article, these guys from Escape, what is it called? Escape collected for something? Yeah.
They don't have the details of all the ins and outs of this new structure. They know a little bit and then they're just, you know, guessing with the information they have available. I'm sure there's more to it than what the article says. Why are we reading this article?
Like did someone leak did someone inside the collective leak this? I don't know. No idea. That's yeah. That's the thing I'm a little frustrated about.
Well, it has always been told.
“If you want to keep something secret or confidential,”
the best way the only way to keep it like that is not. Don't tell anybody. You know, if there's two or three people who know about it, it's very likely it's not going to remain a secret. It is a good point. Once the third person is involved,
it's not a secret anymore. I mean, frankly, once the second person's there are people. There are people, there are people part of this initiative and this project who are extremely famous historically for leaking information on purpose. I think, you know, there's a lot of the hints in the article, actually.
If you read this article, you can kind of tell where the leak is coming from. But we'll be, let's take a quick break the multi-bot stage. Seventeen, which will be a quick preview of a simple stage. We'll be right back. All right, Johan, we are back previewing tomorrow's stage 17.
This is part of our, I'm just calling it the NAF block. You can take NAF during these stages, 185 kilometers through. It's a kind of a goofy stage to be honest with you. It starts outside of Sevilla, Sevilla, Sevilla. I feel like we call it Sevilla in the US and then it's called Sevilla, Sevilla.
And it does a big loop through the countryside, the hot countryside, and then comes back and finishes in town. No categorized climbs, sprint point and bonus seconds,
20K from the finish kind of interesting that they did that.
I have to think this is a bunch of sprint.
How do you think this plays out? I'll tell you the odds right now. Stage 17, fan dual, Matthew Bender, minus one, minus one, 95. Brian Garp plus 650, Jordi Mayus plus 750, well, in our plus 1100. Minus, court plus 1600, Alberto Dinaise, we just learned was in the race today, plus 3300.
Who do you think wins this stage tomorrow?
“Yeah, I think it's a bunch of sprint sponsor for sure.”
I can't imagine anybody, even guys like, like, go car and go for this. And it's the last opportunity, you know, it's the last opportunity, even Bradville with Jordi Mayus, although, of course, they're focused on premos. But you know, they could take it put a few guys there. It's going to be a bunch of sprint again.
And I think we're seeing a win of Matthew Brennan again, stage with number five tomorrow for Matthew Brennan.
And Visma breaking their historic record of seven victories in a grant tour for the moment in six for them.
What's the, I mean, I guess it'd be Freddie Martin's team. What's the record for most wins by a team in the Volta? Well, it has to be Flambriano from Freddie Martin's 13 stage wins. I don't think anybody has to imagine this in any grant to a by the way, in any grant tour. And if you just think about recent years, you'd think, well, UA 1-6 and a few grant tours,
because Paganja 1-6 stages. I mean, what did UA win at last years, Volta? They won a lot of stages here. Let's check. No, not many, not many, three, four, maybe. They won 1-1-2-3-4-5-6-6.
So I use so wins. They win the team town trial. J vine wins the next day. I use so wins the day after that. J vine wins stage 10. I use so win stage 12. There's a non winner in that one as well. I made a wins the day after that. So it gives them six total, not bad, not bad at all.
Yeah. Also, also speaking of one of you, so just using him as an example. Think how much we heard about the one of you, so saga. All we heard about, right, for months. They want, like, costing so much money to switch teams. Matthew Brennan and Visma, they moved in silence on this.
Did anyone, was there any fight for his signature? And now, Visma is like, hey, guess what? We got the best versatile young writer in the sport. And it's just, yeah, there was no drama about it. They just made it happen pretty impressive.
I don't think anybody was fighting for him. No, he, uh, just signed him based on, you know, as a result, in the 123 and whatever, was it Junior's maybe? What probably Junior's? Yeah, and yeah, he was on the Divo team, right, Visma.
Yeah, and then they promoted him early to the world tour.
“I don't think they had the money, but I think the most important was that,”
Brennan really wanted to go to Visma. I know they had invited him to their headquarters in the Netherlands. I wasn't for some testing or whatever. And then they took a, you know, a guy that tour in the surface course, and he said, okay, wow.
Hi, this is where I want to be. He was sold. And lesson to be learned there, I mean, during that time, the narrative was business falling behind. They're not spending money in the transfer market.
I mean, rid of good guys, not signing good guys. Meanwhile, they're, they're not spending the money that these teams, like little trick are, and they're getting better talents when it's all said and done. I mean, that is, now they have a guy who's apparently unbeatable and
grand tour bunchprints can also climb mountains, can also win classics, could win monuments as soon as next year, not a bad pickup, like by that team. Pretty, pretty good. Pretty impressive.
I also think he's going to win tomorrow. Do you think there's any splits in the crosswinds? Any GC action or now? No, no GC. I don't mean either.
What do we see for the points? Do is the breakaway take the point sprint. And then we see another Van Art, like fifth or sixth,
Brendan first keeps it close.
That could be the case.
“I think it's the easiest thing is to let a break go.”
Four five riders and then just pick up whatever's left there from the points. And the finish points tomorrow are really valuable. 50, 30, 20, 18, 16, 14. So you can pick up if Van Art was fourth,
he's getting almost as many points as the intermediate sprint point. So yeah, I think he'll be sprinting as well just like today. Anything else you want? He's going to lead it out and keep going.
I know.
I mean, he might get second.
“I mean, today, I did think I was like, I don't know if anyone's going to come around”
or make sub-brenning.
He was flying on that lead up.
Yeah, he was really strong. He's super strong. Yeah.
He's going for everything Spencer.
That's right. More offerings.
“I hopefully it's hopefully people can get their naps in.”
And then we recharge for the Thursday time trial. I'm quite excited for that time trial. It's going to be really, really good. But see you soon. See you tomorrow, Johan.
“And we'll be talking about the stage and previewing the TT tomorrow.”
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