Like was this going to come from race organizers and from the ASO? And I was just thinking to myself, you know, there is absolutely no hope in the world that this is getting neutralized. Like think about it for a second. Tour de France is the saving hope of the sport this year. This is the court and razor and you think they're going to neutralize it in the wet. Absolutely no hope that was getting neutralized. Whether the Reuters decided to neutralize it to a point that potentially caught it happened but I don't see it as being that big character in the Peloton anymore. The big Bernard Hino canceler or a character who can just come along, wave the hands and shut it down. I think there's There's too many interesting things, there's too many teams fighting for their lawyers, there's too many Reuters scrapping for their lives. There's a death match, we've a death match for the next three weeks, for teams, for Reuters, for sponsors, there was no way this was getting neutralized. But what really annoyed me about the Reuters and the mini neutralization was, Reuters is just getting back in. I think wet conditions is wet conditions and it's a bad precedent from the Reuters to start neutralising stuff. And I say that, like, what's that, I don't know who's called it was, but I hold strong opinions loosely. And I'm going to contradict myself like a crazy schizophrenic on this podcast a lot, especially the days I don't have guests on. It's balancing the safety I suppose. But I was surprised that Quickstep didn't write some sort of tempo to stop. Like Caleb Ewan was over four minutes back at one point and he got back in and if Caleb Ewan had won that stage, that's disappointing because he's dropped earlier in the stage and he's getting back in. I totally get that they have the balance saved and he only lives in Tour de France on the 4th stage so I'm actually going to completely sit on the fence. I don't know where I loyal on that one. I don't like to see it erased as neutralised because it's bad weather. Some riders got well on bad weather but then if it's completely lethal today, I don't like to see lads getting hoarded either So yeah, I don't know. Fairly sitting on the fence. Huge crash of 3km, but if you're not familiar with stage racing, if you get through the 3km to go mark, you're given the same time as the race winner if you're involved in a crash. So they just snuck through or crash through the 3km to go mark. So they will all have got the same time. But the big casualty there was the Housewives' favourite, Tivo Pino. And yeah, he looked very, very unhappy coming in, he was a nice bit of road rash. Yeah, the problem with having road rash like that, and I'm speaking as a lad who's been caught up trying to get to sleep many times, you stick to the sheets really bad and it's difficult to sleep, you have a very broken sleep. Now I never wore a woop or a sleep detector or anything like that back when I did have road rash. But it's a very, very broken sleep. Every time you turn, you wake yourself up, you stick to the sheets, it's pussy, it's miserable. Like, if we've talked about the importance of sleep so often on the podcast, it's absolutely miserable. So, yeah, it's not a good start here to reference with three weeks still to go. So, you know, I'm pinos, he dropped out last year with an injuries, and notoriously kind of blows hot and cold and passionate. passionate and what we expect from a Frenchroeder to a large extent. He lives up to that cliche. Really from an Irish point of view, I hate to create a soy, it's Bennett because he's a legend but it really is a missed opportunity, not just that his tour potentially have a lifetime for some Bennett. There's not often that comes around that you're the race favourite on a sprinter stage, on stage one, to take the Yellow Jersey and the Tour de France, everything was perfect. If you could have dropped Bennett with 300 meters to go on Markov's wheel and he kicks, not boxed in, unaided. He just didn't have legs. I honestly think it was just a pressure he put on himself. He hasn't been there before. Bennett talked about before the stage, he said the pressure is on and I can feel it. And he sprinted like a lad with that pressure on on his shoulders. When you take someone like Christoph who won today's stage incidentally, the big man, ex-European champion and he's obviously not, he's Norwegian I think, definitely from Scandinavia in region.
But yeah, definitely not bottom with the weather, man's man, hard man and he able to hard man for a hard day. Man's Patterson was second, both from Sunweb was third, I think Bennett might have been fourth and Saigon was sniffing around in fifth. We just don't talk about Tagon anymore for these bunch of sprints. I know for the Granger jersey contest it's probably going to be a runaway sagan because he's just so consistent in that top 10 on almost every stage, bar the hilltop finish. Yeah, it's almost impossible to look past him for the Granger jersey but yeah, he's just, I don't know, maybe it's the celebrity that's got to his head in the last few years. Maybe it's such talent coming through from your van arts, your van der pols, your Evan pulse, we just talked about him less and less, maybe his forearm is the same, but everyone else has come up around him, but he hasn't kicked on in the last couple of years. Now that's a big caveat with that that Sagan hasn't kicked on because he hasn't kicked on relative to the standards he sets himself. He's still obviously one of the biggest stars of our sport, but I just I'd like to see him, I don't know, I just feel like he has more in him. I feel like just the green jersey, he's winning it so comfortably, I feel like it's not even a stretched haggart for them at this stage. Yeah, I don't know. Tomorrow is another really exciting one stage. This is such a hard tour of France and you know, the Tour de France route was announced before COVID so this isn't a holy shit we mightn't get a full three weeks out of this. We better action pack every day. This was announced way back. I think it was like way back in October they announced this route. It's epically hard, epically hard. Like Tomorrow we have two cat one climbs and then we've called the A's which is a cat who which I've been over before myself And it's sticky. It's a sticky cat too, and it's not a million miles off the finish It's gonna be an absolutely cracking three weeks I'm delighted to bring you the podcast for the next three weeks I'm gonna try and keep them about this lent some of them are obviously gonna be shorter if we're down kind of transitionary stages, not much happening, bunch sprints, no drama, you know, might get them in 10 minutes or so. If there's loads of drama, you know, it might go a little bit longer. Look, it's the internet, folks. I'll talk for as long as I need to. If you're not enjoying, just stop listening. Yeah, thanks for joining me for the three weeks. Spread the word. Let people know, we're here, you know, every day for the next three weeks. I'm gonna get them up as soon as I can after the stage, I wanted to be a bit of a Tour de France post stage reaction show. You know, you listen to the next morning before the stage, but it's probably losing its relevance here a bit in two, three days time. So, try your best to stay with us for the three weeks. Yeah, look, I'll fill you in on what's going on in Tour de France. If there's anything relevant going on in my life over the next three weeks, I will also dip that in. But thank you for joining me for the first episode of this roadman Tour de France daily podcast. Folks, please do jump over on over to patreon and support this Tour de France podcast. I can't tell you the commitment it takes to bring a daily podcast like this. Please reciprocate on that. Help us fund this. It might seem like a trivial amount of money to you, like a fiver to buy a point of beer. Pubs are even closed the moment. Extra money to buy the beer. But for me, it's honestly it's two things. It really supports this podcast, but it's vindication that's gone in the right direction I'm more dealing with something. I think we're dealing with something really special here with this romance podcast I'm really happy that you guys are apart of that. I'm gonna chat to you tomorrow