Transcript
A (0:00)
Yeah, I'm, I'm. I'm tuned up. I'm excited. Like Tom. I. We've been very critical of Tom Pickock on this podcast. Probably me, me more than you over the years. I thought today, I don't want to overstate it, this might have been the ride, at least of his road career. This was to me, like, obviously winning an altua is amazing. It's different. GC is different from stage. Stage wins out of breakaways. This was an announcement that, like this guy is a GC rider, not just physically, but mentally. Everybody, welcome back to the Move Plus, I'm Spencer Martin. I'm here with Johan Berniel. We are breaking down stage 11 of the Valta Espana and then we'll predict stage 12. There's no stage results to the list today because there was no official stage finish. Authorities, police, the race organizers decided it was. There was too many protesters at the finish line in Bilbao. So they made an on the road, on the fly decision to take the times 3km from the finish line, which is kind of the outskirts of Bill Bow. Jonas Fender. Tom Pitcock got away on the funnel climb. The. The PK is what we're calling it.
B (1:05)
I. We.
A (1:06)
We don't really know the best pronunciation, but we're doing our best there. They got clear, crested the top, got the time bonuses. There was six on offer for the first rider over. That went to Tom Pidcock. Jonas vinegard was a second ride over, so he got, I believe four. And then the third rider over was W 10 seconds behind. He got two. So Pitcock and Vinegar take a small bit of time. Chihuahua Mehta moves into second overall because Torsten Train was distanced again. But now It's Jonas Finnegarden first, Joelameda second, 50 seconds back. Tom Pitcock third, 56 seconds back. And when Pidcock attacked on the pique, he did something that not many people have ever done outside of Tati Picachar, and that is drop Jonas Vindergaard. Vinegar eventually got back on and we'll never know who would have won that stage. I probably would have guessed. I probably would guess that Tom Pickock would have won the sprint between them, Johan and I, he was pretty devastated in this post race interview, I'm sure. Q36.5 is very disappointed. I'll just say, personally I thought this, looking at the scenes, as sad as it is to cancel the end of the stage, I kind of thought they made the right decision. I think this preserves the GC competition instead of neutralizing the whole day because Visma worked very hard all day to control the stage, to set up Vinegar to win. And I assume they thought take time. They. It was a, just a brutal pace throughout the entire stage of the Bass country. They're just Nico Land. Mads Pedersen's breaking away. He's getting pulled in. Mark Solaire's breaking away. He's getting reeled in. Miko Landa breaks away, he gets reeled. And no one could stay away because Visma was setting it up. Joelameda did attack on the second to last climb. Attacked twice, looked pretty strong. The final climb was not really Almeida. It was so explosive. He's not a great change of pace rider, so I have to imagine he's probably somewhat. He's sad to lose time. But this was a, this was a bad day on paper for UAE and they lose. What is that? 14 seconds to Vindegaard, 16 seconds to Pitcock. They'll take it. But Johan, outside of the protests, or I guess maybe even including that, what was your takeaway of the day?