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GIRO STAGE 9 - BIG GUNS COME OUT TO PLAY

11:35·16 May 2021

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Remco attacking in a sheltered crosswind section too early cost him energy — top GC riders hide until the climb bites.
Wearing the leader's jersey can pull a performance out of you that your legs wouldn't normally deliver — Valter held on until 2k to go.
Moscon's selfless lead-out on the gravel was the decisive moment — your team's protected rider only wins if someone else destroys themselves first.
Bernal's attack in the big ring with 1k left was a throwback to his pre-Tour form — confidence from a stage win can reset a whole race campaign.
Evenepoel showing his hand on a crosswind that was never going to split the bunch is a reminder: conserve energy on the macro scale, day after day.

We finally have a GC battle on our hands.

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KEY QUOTES

“This is what this game is, it's conservation of energy on a macro scale from day to day to day.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

“The Maglia Rose and Moyer John and the Tour de France and the Red Leaders jersey in the world, they seem to have this mythical power to get lads to dig deeper and just dive into the suitcase of courage as we'd say and come out with a performance that they're not really capable of.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

“Bernal was a man lacking confidence with the way to the world on his shoulder. So this win, it's a great win for him personally and for the team. I think the team will go deeper now because they believe in him even more than they did.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT3 SECTIONS

Welcome and Mäder's crash

Roadman, welcome to stage 9 of the Jiro d'Italia. Let's cure that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Roadman Podcast. Well, man, welcome back to another Roadman Cycling Podcast. Thank you for joining me again from the beautiful Jourona. Today, we had stage nine. It was 158 kilometers from. I always love this because if there's an Italian speaker listening, I'd say they're just thinking this prick is butchering our language. Castell de Sanguel to Campo Felice, the ski station, 158km and I said there'd be a GC battle and there was a GC battle. I'm a sort of a Nostradamus of Saeclam, like it was obvious there was a GC battle coming. Catwan climb, finishing with gravel to a ski station, it was primed for a battle and it didn't disappoint, absolutely epic stage. Before I jump in and tell you all about the stage, just a quick reminder again to head on over to patreon.com and now it sounds like I'm beating this drum but this isn't meant to be like a dispassionate reading of an advert to just get out of the way that you tune out like Joe Rogan where you fast forward like 11 minutes into the episode because you just chill so much shit. The podcast really depends on your generosity to keep moving forward so if you'd like to support it by buying me the price of a beer once in a month you can do it over on patreon.com forward slash antony underscore watch so the break took forever to get away today and eventually we did get 20 riders clear and but I don't call it a hoyloy but a no-spot incident in the fourth half of the stage was the crazy crash that one of my favorite riders in the peloton and the best to send her in the peloton by her aim read is machu mothrich had a crash where It looked like he clipped inside of the corner but it's spectacular. He somersolved it, head over hail, head over hails on the front of the peloton and he went down real real heavy and broke us from fork and he's out of the race and the Maharich on top of me can land out of the race is definitely a blow for the team. Just glad he's okay and I'm also glad they didn't let him back on the bike. We all remember that footage from the name escapes me to EF Reuter a few years ago in in Tour de California where he got back on his bike, noticeably concussed and visibly distraught and they let him back on his bike and it's not good for anyone but we're getting more cultural and sport specific awareness about concussing and the dangers of it so we definitely wish moderate speedy recovery sucks to crash out of the euro but he's a great boy brother and there'd be more races. So today the peloton at around 30k to go started to turn up the heat so that's what I I want to talk about because obviously these are short-form podcasts and really nothing happened for the early part of the stage. But around 30k to go, there's two minutes in 30 to the break. So touch and go, you might say. And the real animators here were Jeffrey Brucherd from AG2R, who's a real late comer to the support. He's a new KOM jersey in this year's race and car from EF education. They were too lad to really animate it. And one thing I noticed while they were up their old hair and strips out themselves, the palaton was pretty much just rolling along under the power of Ineos. With about 15k to go, Remko came to the front with Quickstep, but he came to the front. He came to the front first and it looked like he tried to split the bunch in a crosswind section. Now, Remko is a brilliant boy-grider, but for me this is an experience shown. We never see the top roighters, the top GC guys, shown their face until a showtime and trust me when I say it, this wasn't showtime.

Bernal takes pink from Valter

A crosswind was never going to happen, it was too sheltered there, it was coming up to a very important final and even if a split went, it wasn't going to stay, any of us had so much power behind, it just seemed such a waste of energy. This is what this game is, it's conservation of energy on a macro scale from day to day to day. he failed on that and that's a little bit of an experience I think. Something else I know was today, he might drop me a DM over on Instagram, it's roman.scycling over on Instagram and let me know why is that meringue and we're in slightly different colour jersey to the rest of his teammates. It's not a leaders jersey, it's not a points classification jersey, it's not a national jersey, so I don't really know what was going on there. Right back to the race, that was a bit of a saw it now. So we brew shared up front and he was joined by what's this last Vancouver Bowman from Yumbo Wiseman and this was really the bad setting themselves up for heartbreak because they were to be caught late by a flying burnout and I really felt for the Maglia Rosa I didn't anticipate he would hold the Maglia Rosa past today but the Maglia he suffered he started suffer a foyer to go and he suffered and I don't think he got dropped until 2k to go when we hit the gravel section. But it's amazing what that pink jersey does. The Maglia Rose and Moyer John and the Tour de France and the Red Leaders jersey in the world, they seem to have this mythical power to get lads to dig deeper and just dive into the suitcase of courage as we'd say and come out with a performance that they're not really capable of and that's what I've done today. And Vitalia, I'm glad he lost the jersey because I can't say his name so I can say Branal and Branal has the jersey so I'm delighted with that if for nothing else only grammar and my enunciation. Moscon was you know I've called him out many times for being a crazy racist but he is man of the match probably today to turn Moscon on when they hit that gravel section with mouthwatering he caught Renko Evanpo way back to Peloton don't know what he was doing there. Moscon ripped legs and broke hearts. He smashed it on the front and he delivered Brownal perfect. Brownal went, he, Chaconic could go with him, Brownal went up to the big ring and he went for that last K. Like the fiery attack in Brownal that we see him pre his Tour de France win. He was brilliant and in his interview in the end he just comes across like such a lovely beautiful, loicable person. It's his his first Grand Tour stage when he was nearly in tears and the interviews weren't listening back to him because you can see the tread of insecurity that runs through even some of the best boy-crowders in the world. He talked about how his teammates had assured him that he should go for it, that he was the guy, that he was capable of it and he just seemed so humble and insecure and you know that's, it was real. It was very endearing as a viewer to watch Bernard because I've criticized Quintana for being you know faceless, emotionless and we're in a mask all day long. Bernaznata. Bernal is a very, very likable boy-groider and the interview is brilliant. But Chaconae, surprisingly, was the closest one to Bernal today. So it was Bernal Chaconae, Vlasov, Remko and Dan Merten. But Chaconae followed and this is something we'd never talked about pre-race because Chaconae is now an interesting one because He's second on GC, sorry he's not he's toward on GC at 36 seconds. I'm going to give it a GC. GC is Bernal, Remko second at 15 seconds. Vlasov is toward a 21 seconds. Chaconae is forward at 36 seconds and our previous Magdereosa Valta is at 43 seconds. Hopefully he just drops out of the top five and then I can forget about Zen his name altogether.

Ineos backs Bernal for GC

But yeah, back to Chaconae. Chaconae is an interesting one now because I never thought about him as a GC writer and I assumed he was a GC writer going in. He has GC legs at the moment. It's his first time writing GC but the question he has to ask himself now and the team has to answer is, are they happy with Chaconae pushing for a podium because he's in four and he's only like 12 seconds back from a podium. Are they happy with him pushing for a podium or do they go all in and try and win the year of the Thalia with Chaconae? I don't know the right answer to that one because a podium in a grand tour It's a magnificent achievement. So it's just hard to answer that one and that's something they're gonna have to figure out They're gonna have to figure out themselves Any else I gave Moss gone man of the match and any else wrote a perfect race today. They conserved they sheltered when they did Right on the front in commentary. They were criticized by Adam Blod for not writing hard enough on the front I think they got a perfect they wrote hard on the front when it mattered They control the pace, they maintain position for Bernal. Well one week into the race now and we're back to a very very familiar from Bradley Wiggins to Chris Frill, to Grand Thomas, a very familiar field to a grantor with any hosts or skoys they were back then holding the race lead. And we're going to see that train. We're going to see the train that we are used to seeing where they roid on the front and they just decimate opposition and beat them down. I think that win today was important for Bernal because last year he was, you can probably hear the cathedral bells, Choyman in the background here in Jirona, but Bernal was a man lacking confidence with the way to the world on his shoulder. So this win, it's a great win for him personally and for the team. I think the team will go deeper now because they believe in him even more than they did. And he's going to believe in himself because he's the strongest boy-grider in this race at the moment. moment and it's a great day for Columbia it's a great day for any else and he's gonna take some beat for the next two weeks. Tomorrow we've a bit of a nut on stage it's an urban finish which I don't like to see. Traffic island sleeping policemen, clinkers, all that usual choice. It's a hundred and forty three kilometers stage 10 finishing in fog no and it is the shortest stage of the race. Yeah you can expect to see a sprint day. My prediction for tomorrow is dealing grown away and he's finding his feet, he's getting stronger stage on day. She hasn't done it yet in a sprint. We have Caleb Yoon, who was the fastest man in the race, has gone home. So I think the stage is set and the scene is set for my man Dylan Grinnawegen. Roadman, I'm gonna chat you again tomorrow from Jirona. Thanks for listening. 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 challenge called a 14 day kickstart 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 masters, 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 roadmancycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio that roadmancycling.com slash 14 day

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who won Giro d'Italia Stage 9 2021?+

Egan Bernal won Stage 9 of the 2021 Giro d'Italia at the gravel finish on Campo Felice. The attack gave him his first Grand Tour stage victory and moved him into the maglia rosa, taking the lead from Attila Valter.

What happened to Mikel Landa at the 2021 Giro d'Italia?+

Mikel Landa crashed during Stage 9 of the 2021 Giro and broke his collarbone, ending his race. It was a significant blow given he had been considered one of the main GC contenders coming into the event.

How did Remco Evenepoel ride at Giro Stage 9 2021?+

Evenepoel made a premature move in the crosswinds during Stage 9, which Anthony Walsh analyses as a tell of tactical inexperience at Grand Tour level. He was unable to match Bernal's decisive attack on the gravel finale at Campo Felice.

Who took the maglia rosa after Stage 9 of the 2021 Giro?+

Egan Bernal took the maglia rosa after Stage 9, moving ahead of Attila Valter who had held the leader's jersey in the preceding stages. Aleksandr Vlasov finished third on the stage and also emerged as a GC name to watch.

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KEY QUOTES

“This is what this game is, it's conservation of energy on a macro scale from day to day to day.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

“The Maglia Rose and Moyer John and the Tour de France and the Red Leaders jersey in the world, they seem to have this mythical power to get lads to dig deeper and just dive into the suitcase of courage as we'd say and come out with a performance that they're not really capable of.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

“Bernal was a man lacking confidence with the way to the world on his shoulder. So this win, it's a great win for him personally and for the team. I think the team will go deeper now because they believe in him even more than they did.”
Anthony Walsh — Roadman Cycling podcast host

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who won Giro d'Italia Stage 9 2021?+

What happened to Mikel Landa at the 2021 Giro d'Italia?+

How did Remco Evenepoel ride at Giro Stage 9 2021?+

Who took the maglia rosa after Stage 9 of the 2021 Giro?+

GIRO STAGE 9 - BIG GUNS COME OUT TO PLAY

KEY QUOTES

Welcome and Mäder's crash

Bernal takes pink from Valter

Ineos backs Bernal for GC

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

GIRO STAGE 19 - ONE HAND ON THE TROPHY

RELATED CONTENT

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

WHY GIRONA IS THE BEST PLACE IN EUROPE TO TRAIN ON A BIKE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

LIKED THIS EPISODE?

GIRO STAGE 9 - BIG GUNS COME OUT TO PLAY

KEY QUOTES

Welcome and Mäder's crash

Bernal takes pink from Valter

Ineos backs Bernal for GC

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

GIRO STAGE 19 - ONE HAND ON THE TROPHY

RELATED CONTENT

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

WHY GIRONA IS THE BEST PLACE IN EUROPE TO TRAIN ON A BIKE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

LIKED THIS EPISODE?

GIRO STAGE 9 - BIG GUNS COME OUT TO PLAY

KEY QUOTES

1.Welcome and Mäder's crash

2.Bernal takes pink from Valter

3.Ineos backs Bernal for GC

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

GIRO STAGE 19 - ONE HAND ON THE TROPHY

RELATED CONTENT

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

WHY GIRONA IS THE BEST PLACE IN EUROPE TO TRAIN ON A BIKE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

LIKED THIS EPISODE?

GIRO STAGE 9 - BIG GUNS COME OUT TO PLAY

KEY QUOTES

1.Welcome and Mäder's crash

2.Bernal takes pink from Valter

3.Ineos backs Bernal for GC

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

NEVER MISS AN EPISODE

READ THE GUIDE

RELATED EPISODES

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

GIRO STAGE 19 - ONE HAND ON THE TROPHY

RELATED CONTENT

GIRO STAGE 17 - BERNAL COMES UNDONE

WHY GIRONA IS THE BEST PLACE IN EUROPE TO TRAIN ON A BIKE

GIRO STAGE 20 - INEOS HAVE RUINED CYCLING

LIKED THIS EPISODE?

Welcome and Mäder's crash

Bernal takes pink from Valter

Ineos backs Bernal for GC

Welcome and Mäder's crash

Bernal takes pink from Valter

Ineos backs Bernal for GC