So you go from the unfyrey to the 1100 watts. And then the guy in 13th way up pops. And then the guy in 14th has to accelerate back up to 12th. And this keeps happening and what it means is the further back you are, the harder it is. So that's why they're such a fight for positioning into these climbs and why the teams, they whack it. And once they have their riders in place, they really commit to it and it means no one else can move up. Because to move up the line, you've got to put out serious energy and it's very hard to move up unless you're one of the super strong guys. And even if you move up, the teams aren't going to let you in. So it's a good little insight into what's actually going on there. We've seen Teo Geigenhardt apparently he's been suffering from a bit of food poisoning but that's coming out of the system. He had the LTV attack. You know, the Eurospark commentators have gone mad about a great to see Teo back. But really like there was nothing there only a bit of TV time like he attacked the movie star lads didn't flinch The movie started to miss the economy riding for you know a good 20 minutes of that stage Teal barely kept them and the movie star lab brought them back in again So nothing to really get excited about there You know they love the other part is on commentary on your sport from the British lad Does that boy a teal has been a massive disappointment for me? Hopefully it has been the field poison that's clear We also had second on GC, David Delacruz, you know, again yesterday, you're sporting, so are cycling news and commentators were talking about maybe this is in Yoast Mountain, a GC, Trent, and you're like, lads, we'll take up yourselves on. Like, Delacruz has been popped on every single climb so far including yesterday's climb when he moved up to second place overall. So it was inevitable when we hit the second cat today that he was gonna just let waiting in his pocket. It was inevitably he was going to drop the parachute and go straight out the back door. He was not going straight out the back door and he was loitin' up this race is the American Sipcous. He is super strong, super super strong. I'm really impressed with him. Him, George Bennus are pivotal now that Kiyakovsky is gone or Stephen, sorry Stephen Krauswick is gone for Yumba Visma. They're really going to be pivotal in Roggliad's challenge. So yeah really legal to see him there. So one step goose stopped riding, Quintana came over the top and that's when the rail action started. So we've seen the forced rail, we probably had an idea in our head but we really seen who's who, who has legs, especially after the crashes, you know we'd run, roach, gone. It's Quintana, it's Roglich, it's Lopez, it's Vaverdi. They're the four strongest boy critters in this years for Elta Aspania. We have a sort of a second group forming her, Arru, wrote quite well, Pogakar, who we've talked about, who's locked up in a contract in thinking of 2024 with UAE, Rafael Moike, George Bennes, was it Daniel Navarro as well that was there? You know, there's a strong second group, but the front four guys are head and shoulders above everyone else at the moment. It looks like now Cantana's riding for Alhamdral Vavard, at least he was on that stage. It was stage the park or suit of Valverde it was the climb was similar to the climb where he took the world title last year like we pitches from 16% to 18% and parts 20% and then you add into that the broken road as well that's sort of the Vuelta's famous for it's it was epic it was made for Valverde but it was epic you never get that stuff in the Tour de France like the Tour de France is if anyone hasn't been to the Tour of course it's amazing I went last year we pulled out the tent, camp on the side of the road, pull out your little stove, a few beers on AlptoEz. It's an amazing spectacle. I went to the Roux Bay stage and the AlptoEz stage and then the start of Borg-Dewass on the next day. Rent a van or a car, bring a tent, camp on the side of the road. It's a carnival atmosphere everywhere. It's brilliant fun. If you haven't been yet, it's immense.
But the tour, as I say, it is a carnival. So for a carnival to go through, it has to have a certain infrastructure. The Vuelta isn't the same level of carnival. Same level of carnival, that's not a real thing. It's not the same level of festivities, so it doesn't need the big huge wide open road. So this finishing climb, they could barely get a motorbike up with today, it was epic. So in the finish, we had the Evergreen 39 year old, a hand-roveau verde, win the stage. We'd rugglish second, Lopez toward Cantana, followed by Moica. So that gives us a GC of Superman, Lopez is back in the Jersey for the tour time, Ruggish is at 6 seconds, Valverde at 16 and Katana is back at 27. What do you think of Valverde? He's a device of character, a little bit of side bar background knowledge. Before I embarked on my cycling chapter of my life, my background is law, actually my underads economics and then masters in law and then my professional qualifications in law but my master's is actually in sports law and specifically my master's is in doping in sports around the world anti-doping code. So I do find it interesting listening to the debate about Valverde and you know if you should be allowed to race still. I suppose there's one to give some context to this. There's one school of thought that says if you dope at any point in your career you have a physiological advantage for the rest of your career. And I'm actually not Not sure if I subscribe to that theory. I haven't seen enough evidence to back that up, but what I do think is very real is if you take Royal A and Royal B, if Royal A dopes and Royal B doesn't at a young age, maybe Royal A now gets opportunities to ride Grand Tours to Royal Classics where Royal B doesn't get the same opportunities. We do know the exposure to that level of racing, Grand Tours, they do physiologically change. So it is definitely beneficial for not just the acute period when you're taking something, but the long tail effect is very, very powerful. But then what you do, you need to balance that with, you know, it's interesting. William recording this podcast so late tonight, it's 12, 12, 20 here in Dublin. So most of you guys won't get to still Saturday morning. Incidentally, if anyone is getting this Saturday morning, we have our A1 Dublin chapter, right back at 9.30am, the food room in Clontarf, doing about 65k easy, weather's yellow alert, so there you go, I'm going to finish this podcast, I'm going to get the bed wild party Friday night here for me. So yeah, I was quite so late as I was actually real life getting in the way, my sister was submitting hearties today and hearties around the effect of education and rehabilitation of criminals in the Irish prison system. But it got me thinking around the dopant thing and it's, you know, what is the purpose of doping? You know, I do believe that we're not the worst of our actions, that if somebody does something once, they shouldn't be held to the sword for the rest of their life over that one thing. So, you know, we've got a balanced effect that, yeah, there's a long-tail lasting effect of doping with people can make mistakes, people can rehabilitate, make make amends for the mistakes. Like you look at David Miller, for instance, David Miller, he had a confessed to Oprah, but then he's been very pro-antidoping since then, even putting initiative so on, you know, very proactive and getting the needle ban. So did we brand someone like that at Doper for the rest of their life? I'm not sure. It's a kind of a philosophical debate, but I suppose, you know, if you're in the camp of, yeah, you need to ban them forever and your Lopez, it's quite a hard pill to swallow, get in second on a stage today to someone like Valverde. Personally I actually don't give it that much thought and nearly think of it like the WWF wrestlers. You know yeah the whole call was probably lit so I was matching Man Randy Savage and Hell in the cell undertake or a man coin but there I am showing my nerd side there. I'm sure there's a few WWF fans out there but you know I just choose not to, I just choose not to think about it that much because it doesn't affect me. I suppose it's proximity is the key like it doesn't affect me.