Pogačar: Too Good To Lose? World Champion Accused Of Bluffing At Dauphiné! | GCN Racing News Show

Pogačar had a rare blip in his time trial at the Dauphiné, sparking suspicions among fans… Is he SO GOOD that when he doesn’t win, people think he’s bluffing?! Dan Lloyd dives in!

Plus, Dan’s got the latest on UCI bans leaving riders and equipment manufacturers both confused and frustrated, Demi Vollering gets beaten in a stage race, and UAE are on the back foot at the Tour de Suisse. 🚴‍♂️

⏱️ Timestamps: ⏱️
00:00 Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show!
00:26 This Week In the World of Racing
01:52 Tadej Pogačar is the big favourite for the Tour de France!
06:30 Other stage winners
07:24 Paul Seixas (only 18) is scarily good
08:15 Pogačar’s Insane Stats 🤯
09:23 Women’s Tour de Suisse
10:35 Men’s Tour de Suisse
11:27 Other Races
12:16 Michael Matthews Heart Issue 😥

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What did you think of this week’s racing? Was Pogačar just “bluffing”? 👀 Let us now what you think in the comments!

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📸 Photos – © Velo Collection (TDW) / Getty Images & © Sirotti Images

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welcome back to the GCN racing news show Coming up this week Pagatcha sends out yet another strong message at the criteria of Doofane After a minor blip in the middle the UCI bans more things leaving riders and equipment manufacturers both perplexed and angry Demi Volering gets beaten in a stage race And UAE find themselves on the back foot at the Tour to Swiss This week in the world of racing we learned that the UCI is back banning stuff Amongst the changes they announced to their technical regulations last week are no wheels deeper than 65 mm and no TT helmets in road races a new limit on fork and seat stay width which probably means a new factor bike is going to be banned just months after it was first used And then most controversially a new minimum handlebar width of 40 cm measured outside to outside As many have already pointed out it’s quite discriminatory against smaller riders and therefore many or most riders in the Women’s World Tour Uh most of those rules are set to kick in on January the 1st next year We’ll be going into new regulations in more depth and detail on this week’s Gen Show and Gint Tech Show So if you want to find out more info check those videos out this week We also learned that Roman Bardday has competed in his last professional road race off the back of the Juralia He hit his home roads at the critium doofen last week and whilst a win didn’t come his way it wasn’t for lack of trying Uh he finishes his career with eight top 10s at grand tours including two podium places at the Tour to France back in 2016 and 2017 What a great ambassador he’s been for the sport though Thanks Roman for everything you’ve done It did feel quite fitting though that on the day that he retired young Frenchmen were winning left right and center I’ve no doubt he was quite an inspiration to all of them when they were young And finally we learned that Tad Pagata is the big favorite for the tour to France which might sound like the most ludicrously obvious statement ever given how infallible he’s looked for the last 18 months but there was just a little blip in the middle of the DOA that suggested he might not be at that level That was on the stage 4 individual time trial in which he was only fourth might not sound that bad but it’s his worst result in an individual time trial and stage race since the 2022 UAE tour Now that specific result at the Dane gave a lot of neutral fans reason to be hopeful Not just because Pagata was a little or actually quite a lot of his best but because Apollo flew He demolished pretty much everyone whilst Vinegore put in a really solid ride to finish second 21 seconds back And his teammate Matteo Jorgensson also beat Paga by 11 seconds Now given what we witnessed later on in the climbs you wonder what happened to Beatar that day Was it just a blip after coming down from an altitude training camp was it an equipment or position issue Was it pacing as he’d later claimed Or was he faking it as some people speculated We don’t really know the answer but if there were any doubts about his form we certainly got an answer to that Stage six didn’t look too hard on paper one of those stages where if not a lot happened you wouldn’t be overly surprised But Pagata wanted to make that statement and that’s exactly what he did His team made the day hard from start to finish Then Yonathan Navi and Tim Wellness at a blistering pace at the foot of the final climb to Conlu Off that Pagatar accelerated and within a few seated pedal strokes he dropped the last man standing who was of course Yonas Vinegor Then over the next 15 minutes or so he put over a minute into his rival and that was more than enough to propel him up six places in the general classification and back into the yellow jersey Now you could question whether or not Vinegor himself had just got an off day there He finished just 11 seconds in front of Leapit but then the German was flying all week whilst Aanapool was a further 28 seconds back And it was quite a strange race from that point of view It felt like there were a lot of mind games going on who was actually on their limit were they bluffing at any point How much do they have left in the tank And I guess that’s kind of what you get in a warm-up race isn’t it Nobody wanted to show all their cards before the big one which is of course the tour to France That certainly felt like the case the following day which was the Queen stage of the race When live coverage started that day Pagata had been isolated by Vizmissa Bike although Civikov did get back on before the final climb Pagatar went early there again though likely not wanting to play any kind of tactical games when he was outnumbered And when he went the script looked quite similar to the day previous He opened up a gap The gap started to rise but on this occasion it didn’t balloon like it had done the day before But at the same time Pagata looked like he was out for a Sunday club run whilst Vinegar visibly looked much close to his limits And I got the sense that Pagata was just measuring his effort that he had a lot left in the tank if he needed to use it I just don’t think he wanted or perhaps needed to go too deep in that race Just get the job done Save the matches for the tour to France But I’d be interested to know your thoughts on that Were you thinking the same thing Let me know in the comment section just down below Now there was a chance yesterday that Pagatar could take his 99th and 100th career victories with the stage and the general classification but again he didn’t seem to want to push things Not himself nor his team I’ll talk more about the stage winner shortly But on the final climb yesterday Vinegar attacked and Pagata appeared to follow with quite some ease They did ride together but neither went 100% There was a sort of status quo in which they both knew there wasn’t a lot to gain by going any harder And it was obvious that Pagata wanted to save his 100th victory for the tour to France So after eight days of racing in France Pagata won with 59 seconds in hand over Vinegar A brilliant week from Florian Lipovitz of Red Bull Bora Hansa saw him take the third step of the podium and the best young rider classification albeit 2 minutes 38 behind Pog Aanapool had to settle for fourth Perhaps his crash on stage five took more out of him than first thought Tobias Johannison had a career best ride with fifth overall Then it was Jorgensson who was some way below his level from this race last year Then Mass Seas more on him later too Rodriguez of Inos who was quite disappointing and Martan running out the top 10 Okay quick word on the other stage winners Now what a sprint from Jake Stewart of Israel Premier Tech win stage five I had already won the bunch sprint on the opening day of the race but unfortunately for him they weren’t contesting the win on that occasion into Macau He kicked the line early and nobody could get past And I was really pleased with Jake because that was his first ever World Tour level win Jonathan Milan won the only other true sprint stage on day two whilst Ian Romeo put in yet another really strong ride to win on day three taking the yellow jersey with it And finally what a ride by Lenny Martinez yesterday And what a season he’s having Up to that point it had been a bit of a disappointing week for him but he made up for that yesterday He rode quite cleverly in the brake attacked mass when he was starting to fade and taking a drink and they rode the rest of the climb at about the same speed as Pagata and Vinegar And even if they weren’t riding at 100% that was still mightily impressive So about Paul SS he had some bad luck yesterday crashing on the final climb having to ride a bike with a bar skewed to the left So he lost a couple of places on the general classification However eighth overall at the Dofane at the age of 18 that is scarily good I mean I think we become a lot more accustomed to seeing very young riders doing remarkable things at the very highest level but it really does feel like he could be the next generational talent And wouldn’t that be amazing for France Now what was equally impressive as his overall result was his 11th place finish on Saturday because that stage had close to 5,000 meters of climbing and his 10th place finish in the individual time trial Really seems like he can do it all Incidentally success will be eligible for the white jersey at the tour to France until the end of the 2031 season Unbelievable Just before I move on from the criteria do a few quick pagar stats You know I love them It’s now four years and two months since he last started a stage race of one week or less and didn’t win it That was the 2021 tour of the Bass Country in which really he was mainly helping his teammate Brandon McNelte His only blemishes in stage racing since then have been the two tours to France in which he was beaten by Vinegore This year he’s racked up 11 wins from 22 days of racing taking his tally up to 99 wins since he turned pro in 2019 But the thing I continue to find mind-boggling is that he has never pulled out of a UCI ranked stage race Not as a pro not as an under 23 and not as a junior So since 2015 he’s done a total of 339 days of stage racing at UCI level And not once has he crashed hard enough or got ill enough to withdraw from the race And in a sport where luck can play its part I find that staggering Right a reminder now that you can catch a full season of bike racing live on Discovery Plus and Max which this week includes the tour to Swiss men’s But I’m going to move on to the women’s tour to Swiss now where the top two places on GC were effectively decided on the very opening stage The big client that day came quite early and already made a selection of the best riders Marlon Royster of Moby Star attacked over the top Demi Volering joined her and the two rode together for the next 50ks or more to the finish line Royster got the better of voling in the sprint there to take the first yellow jersey Amber McCrack took yet another win for FDJ Sue on day two attacking with 25ks to go and soloing to her first win in over a year Lisa Balsamo of Le almost made the mistake of celebrating too early into Kusnak the following day Misha Bradell pushed her incredibly close and the result was only declared after they’ studied the photo finish The general classification would be decided on the final day yesterday which turned out to be a demonstration from Marlon Royster She attacked volley on a short rise with just under 10ks to go flying past Nubia and then timeting her way to victory both on the stage and the GC She is absolutely flying this year isn’t she I almost wish she wasn’t doing the jural so she concentrate fully on the tour to France because it really does feel like she’s got a chance to win it given current form Meanwhile at the men’s tour to Swiss the opening stage was utter chaos Uh partly down to the weather but mainly down to a complete lack of control by any one team So a large group of riders containing some quite big names went clear over the first major climb of the day never to be seen again UAE team Emirates had Gartner in it but not their main captain Joel Ma who was the big pre-race favorite He would end up losing over three minutes on the day whilst the main winners from a GC perspective were Ben Oconor and the stage winner Roman Gregoire He’d gone clear of his compatriate Kevin Valau with 13ks to go riding away to his first world tour winner this season Lemon and Alfleet finished third and fourth respectively on the day The race continues through to Sunday and despite the lack of really big names at the race this year if that first stage is anything to go by we’re in for some cracking racing over the next week Moving on we had a heap of one-day races in Northern Europe last week Paul Manet had a weekend to remember He won the Duracell Disor Harland on Saturday Had a Raasmus Tilla and Tibbor Delgo and then won the Stad and Ronda Buger yesterday in what was a photo finish with Yasper Philipser Alpsoon had got a win midweek though at the Antwerp Port Epic which actually was a bit of an epic Teimo Keelik outsprinted Rasmus Wallin there Akila had been out the front solo for the last 30ks or so but then sat on wallin when he was caught and then had enough left to take the win at the end which was his third win as a pro rider Meanwhile at the women’s tour feminina international de Pyrene Uso Ostaza took a second successive GC win at the race She put 16 seconds into Naida Gontover up the cold on stage two and that was how things looked on the final general classification as well Just one more piece of news now before I finish this week’s racing news show And Michael Matthews of Jacula has been sidelined from racing indefinitely after a heart issue was discovered at a recent team training camp A te statement reads “During a recent altitude training camp Green Edge Cycling medical team discovered signs of a pulmonary embolism have subsequently decided to pause all physical activity for the rider until further notice as a precautionary measure Here’s hoping it’s not as serious as it sounds.” Right that is all for this week Connor will be with you on the racing news show next Monday as I recover from riding to London from Manchester