Merckx pressures Remko, stage preview
It's stage 17 of the Jiro d'Italia. Let's cure our intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our long chances? That is the question. This podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. Hello, man. Welcome back to Stage 17 of the Giro de Talia. Today, we are finishing up a very sticky little climb at Sagar de Alaa. And the big nails are supposed to cut my attention heading into today's stage was we started briefly about Remko Evanpole the other day and how the weight of the world must be on this kid because he's a kid who's never known on defeat. Everything he's done, everything he's touched since he broke through a couple of years ago. He's essentially won nearly every one day race and stage race he's been in. And the crown is heavy on that sort of media attention. And Eddie Merx is the latest to call it a poi-le-en on Remko with a quote this morning. I was shocked when I first rode the 0 in 1967. already ridden Peri Nis twice. I failed it in the last week at a giro even though I'd already won at the block house climb and I'd won a bunch sprint. So I just want to say to Remko, he would still have to improve in many areas to win a grand tour. I don't think that's helping, Eddie. I really don't. The kid's under enough pressure. And today we actually seen him dropping out with a race and we're going to get to that and all the other drama because trust me when I tell you, this is a podcast weren't listening to because there was plenty of drama today on a day when Egan Bernal shows the first signs of cracking. Before I dive into all that let me just remind you about Patreon. Head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore waltz. Pause it now and go over there. Just make a small donation the podcast there's a lot of time expense inconvenience that goes into bringing a daily podcast so you can help take a little bit of the heavy lifting over there but just buying the price of a beer to support the podcast, the link to that is in the boil. So I suppose at the top of the show, let's congratulate Dan Martin because he has got the full collection now, Jiro D'Italia, Tor de France and Vuelta España, stage winner. And in commentary I think it was Rob Hatch who was in commentary today and I'm actually gonna take exception with something else Rob Hatch said a minute ago but I don't think this was very controversial. He had something along the lines of Irish fans will be rejoicing. I quite it was thinking as an Irish selecting fan, am I rejoicing? I don't know that Martin but I feel almost no national connection to Dan Martin. I don't know you know I know Dan I don't really know how to feel it's the grandparent rule and soccer nearly isn't it? that is never struck me as somebody who's being overly patriotic. I can't remember any instances that he's ever displayed any sort of Irish patriotism or pride in the Grand Jersey. So he's just a writer I struggle to get behind. You know when some Bennett wins after growing up in Waterford and race and all the local races that means something. Eddie Dunbar you know when he pulls hard on the front of the bunch for any of us that really means something. Connor Dunne a few years ago for Israel's startup nation, like Connor don't call the name half the places in Ireland, and I feel the same with Dan Martin. I don't feel like he has much of a connection. But I am nonetheless delighted to see him get that collection, and I was happy to see him winning today. But Rob Hatch just had, speaking of Rob Hatch, because I started off with Rob Hatch, because he gave me the sort of seed that wondered, was Ireland celebrating Dan Martin's victory with him. But Rob Hatch had a quote today saying, this is the most isolated we've seen Bernal and this was on the finishing climb and at this point on the finishing climb Bernal had two riders on front of him and he had Castro Vecchio still riding and he had Martiniz and then he had Moscon open the break so he had three riders and Bernal and there was at this point Vlasophus dropped, Chaconi was dropped, like Remko Evanpow was dropped, real gold riders had been dropped, Hugh Carter was dropped, GC guys were gone and Inio still had three domestiques with Bernal and Rob Hatch was pondering and wondering if this is the most isolated we ever seen Bernal. Inio also had a massive display of strength today even if Bernal cracked. So we'll get to kind of the action and how it unfolded. We've seen a 19 man break going away and I actually struggled to get away into the difficult headwind which Dan Martin flagged afterwards in his interview. Giovanni Moscon from Ineos got up the road along with Dan Martin and Bruce Schar and a few others.
Mascon's homecoming and Castelvecchio carnage
And what was interesting for me was Moscon getting in the break and tactically I thought it was a nice meal from Ineos. It's always a nice meal to get a man ahead of the action but it's also a nice a nice sentiment from Inios and we've kind of praised Brannal this week and Inios you know by implication for respect and tradition and Muscan is racing into his hometown on his home trying and roads so it was cool to see him in the break and I'm sure his local friends and family and stuff really appreciated him up the road all day and then he was there at the pointy end to help Brannal a little bit and so we have Castra Vecchio on the final line. Dan Maren has dropped Moss gone, he dropped Brushard and he's gone solo and Dan Maren as we know goes on to take the stage win. But what's happening behind is interesting because we have cast Raviekkyo for any else and he rides out of a sock and he drops Vlasov, Chaconae who was caught up in a big crash where he went down with Nibali and Remko. Remko has since just announced just before I start the podcast that he won't be starting tomorrow. probably a good decision and he's got two plus weeks of racing in so that's gonna stand them well in the future. We've castra vaquio just killing the race ripping bodies apart like Hugh Curtis dropped, Bardet has dropped, Chacona has dropped, Vlasov has dropped, he's just shredded the group and then what we have happened is I made a go on the attack and Gates goes after him. I made a tent on GC goes on the attack. Now I know you can look back and kind of and I've even taught out loud about Almeida saying like what would happen. Remko's gone home. Almeida is on the attack. What would happen if it switched around and Remko rides for Almeida. But honestly like the directors, Patrick LaFarever and the other directors asked a quick step. They went on the best information they had. Like we can't forget that Almeida lost a shit on a time on the force mount on stage. Tree minutes or so on the force mount instead. So it's not a straight up team order that Remko was gonna be team leader. It was the road decided. I made it didn't have legs in the force week and that's why we found them in that position being called back on the gravel sections in support of Remko. So you know he's going on the attack and he's finishing the giro super well great for him but you know it's it's on Meredith's he was called back for Remko. Just to put that to bed because I know I'm gonna get Instagram, DMs, it's over on roman.soycling because a few people ask me. I know I'm gonna get DMs about that one. So, I'll make the goals. Yates goes with him and Bernal and Martiness, Martiness riding out of his skin for any else can follow. And then Yates ups it again and what happens for the first time Bernal cracks. The very, very first time we have seen Bernal crack. and Martin is stays with him. He even we get a great image of Martin is kind of cajole and I'm a motivate them and Yates goes clear Yates goes clear with our maida and they pull out a gap. Now for me the most puzzling and annoying thing of this whole stage was Caruso who's been dropped but earlier slightly earlier he can't follow the Yates attack. Caruso just decides to write his own pace. Caruso comes back to noticeably struggling and his director would have caught this on TV and noticeably struggling. Bernal, because at this point Bernal has called Martin as back on the radio, Martin has started to ride and Bernal has got dropped again from Martin as his wheel, he's visibly distraught. Caruso catches him and then he starts riding tempo like Like tempo like he's a domestic for any else. Caruso is second on GC at this point and he starts riding a steady enough tempo that Bernal and Martines can follow. I can't get my head around this at all. There's literally zero upside. Well, there's one upside. It's pure, you know, also round mentality. It's him saying, I want to minimize my chances of Yates knocking me off the podium. But Bernal had the same motivation. He needed to ride it. Or he's going to lose the 0. bigger motivation and he has a teammate so Caruso does not need to ride. Martin is needs to ride, Branon needs to follow, Caruso needs to wait, wait, wait and then hit him. Caruso not only doesn't do that but he has a teammate that comes out on nowhere and I wear the fuck petty albasco came from. I think he was air dropped in but he shows up out on nowhere and he starts riding tempo as well. It's himbo that Bernal can follow so it's just, you know what, it's just screamed of someone summed it up in tweets, there's two types of mentality nearly. It's Rigoberto or Ranor or Alberto Contador and Contador goes on the attack because he's a champion.
Caruso's missed chance, GC shakeup
You Ran has never gone on the attack, he's always followed and that's what we've seen from Caruso. We've seen it, Guy who's been second fiddle for so long on teams and still at it going into this year's race, Chief Lieutenant for Michelanda who's gone home early. We've seen him lad who was just so many times being the broidsmaid and not even the broidsmaids, he's been the fucking flower girl and now he's been promoted to broidsmaid and he said you know what, I'm happy being broidsmaid, I'm never going to be the broid. He had a chance, Bernal was vulnerable, I mean never see Bernal vulnerable. It's two weeks and he hasn't showed one tiny crack and we got that crack and that might be the only crack we see and he didn't stick the knife in. He is going to be lying on his deathbed 50 years from now and he's going to wonder, fuck, I wonder if I attacked those burnout come apart completely. So, I don't know. So anyway, it was just bizarre, it was bizarre. So it's the stage finished with Dan taking the stage way and holding on for a great win for Dan and Israel's startup nations, their second grand tour stage when I think Alex Delser took a stage last year actually Dan took a stage as well because everything was reshuffled last year. Dan won Almeida jumped Yates in the finish and he was tortain seconds behind Yates was at torty seconds they were the top three little further back Kuluso was at 120 and Bernal was at 123 so look how this is how this plays out on GC now so although Bernal got dropped the irony of this is he actually gained them a lot of key rivals because they got dropped earlier. So it wasn't the worst day for them but there will be concerns that he's shown fatigue because there's two ways to come into Grand Tours. You can come in and go super well on the first week and then you start you know you're overcooked, you're too trained, your stress is too high for the last week or you can come in undercooked. Like it looks like Amada has done that quite well. You don't perform in the fourth week but you peek for the last week. So look we've got some interesting days racing ahead but Bernal's leading the race at the moment. Caruso's at 222. He gained three seconds today. Simon Yates is at 323. He's the big move up onto the podium spot. He gained 57 seconds against Bernal today. Vlasov won the big losers. He's at 6-0 tree from Bernal. He lost a minute and 45 today. And then the one guy who we talked about two days ago, he could potentially win this year of the title or at least put a show on the bad weather then the stage got shortened for just laughable ferns of circumstances that we still haven't been able to decide for it with extreme weather protocols. Hugh Kertie is at 6.0 now and he shipped to 229 today. Real disappointed for Hugh Kertie. Tomorrow stage 18 we are a long ass stage, tomorrow it's a flat stage, luckily for the climbers. 241 kilometers We're starting out in Rovotero and we are finishing in Stradela, 221km. They would better pray it's joy and actually something we've noticed on Armieres Flacht as well in this post-race interview. Every single time it rains Armieres is a bad time which is bizarre for the Brit but that's the way it is so I'm sure he'll be hoping there's no more rainy days this year's Ischirrit Atalia. Look it's still a big lead 221 from Caruso and Caruso doesn't look like he can drop right now or has any interest. Could even be rowing for any of us. Maybe he has any of us cheers on underneath that Bahrain victorious jersey. Who knows but Simon Yates is the danger man at the moment. A tree 23. Can I see Yates getting a tree 23 back? I don't think so considering he also can't time draw for a toffee. So I just don't say it but look it's gonna make a fasten out last week. The hero always does make a fasten last week. It was great for you on today Roadman. I'm going to chat to you again tomorrow. Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the Roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's a master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.