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big stars at the inaugural Andor cycling masters. A name which doesn’t necessarily roll off the tongue. Sounds a bit tennis to me. Yeah, not that’s a problem, but I don’t want I don’t want I don’t want tennis in my cycling, you know. This is like Kaye putting orange juice in his cornflakes, which he does do. Um it’s just wrong. It’s wrong. Even if you’ve done it since you were a child, doesn’t matter. Um, so we had the the Andor cycling masters, Primo Rogich, Isak Del Toro, Top Pagache, Yonas, Vingo, all kind of racing each other. Not really. Yeah. Uh, you were apparent. Yeah, I was I I mean I I I kind of missed it. I didn’t realize it was starting at 9 bloody. But um it’s which is 8 a.m. for me. Um Well, when you’re getting paid 150 grand, I mean, you you wake up at whatever time they want, you know. Well, yeah. Yeah. Um so it was a Yeah. two two I I don’t even know why I’m really summarizing it like a race, but it was it was two parts. It was an uphill time trial and a mini mini criterium uh in ina Dane. Um it’s not Spanish, so you know I can’t answer. Fair enough. Yeah. Um but yeah, so so essentially all right, isn’t it? Yeah, let’s go. Yeah, let’s go. Yes. Confidence. Um but yeah, so I think the main the main draw was you know it’s an andor cycling tourism and Pandora tourism situation. They want to bring more I don’t know they want to make more interest more cyclist. I thought there already a bunch of cyclist there. Notice my hesitation. Um but yeah and but also they wanted to have these four or five of the biggest names. They couldn’t make the the dates work um apparently. Um uh and they wanted a teamfree um race up a mountain and then around a criterium course um only 1.5 km course so it’s like 15 times around so lots lots of opportunities for fans to see their favorite riders on a poodleing ride on a Sunday morning um yeah so the I mean the the more the most interesting part I think was the time trial the uphill time trial of what 8.53 it’s a horse catery climb that’s been used in the world I think the tour of France a couple of times called the lagalina Um it’s it’s not an easy climb. Um and it’s and they basically just did a straightforward hill climb. Uh and uh Rocklitch won um by 20 seconds over Pigatcha with Del Toro. I think he was 150 down on on the winning time. Vingo was 345 down. Um which I felt like was more a death nail for the event than for for Vingo. Um did he keep his massive coat on? Was that his what what held him back? his awesome Wenger coat. Yeah. And then and then the criterium thing uh which our um Andor correspondent described as the weirdest thing um was uh they all came all came together. I mean I think there were a couple of breakaways and whatever that you know bits and pieces happening on the course but they all came to the line together. VGO didn’t even try um as Del Toro beat Rogich in the sprint with Pigatcha just grinning his face off be behind them. Um, Rogich won overall, got a ludicrously large trophy and a jersey for his troubles. But yeah, I don’t know. It It’s looked very strange. The vibes were all very awkward, but did you appreciate how they really tried to sell this one by doing like a photo finish bike throw? Like that does take some skill to try and keep it that close. You have to give the the Andor cycling masters that. No. Well, I I don’t know. It’s It just I don’t know what to think really. It wasn’t it wasn’t quite like post tour criterium right like there was you know it’s somewhere between is that what we’re well I you know I don’t I don’t actually I don’t know okay that’s the kind of that maybe that’s the beauty of it is that we’re still not really sure maybe maybe it’s Saitama they weren’t sure the first year and it’s just like wait a minute and it takes a while you know until fumi’s beaten sagan there are some times when somebody some French pro team rider wins a satama or what’s the other criterium Singapore wins it and you’re That wasn’t meant to happen. I just a quick quick I I I looked this up. It’s it’s and Pandora la. It’s like a gl in Italian. You know how that makes that sound? Okay, that’s all I just want to throw that in there. Yeah. Um I’ll remember that. Um yeah. I don’t know. I mean I the we should point out that I think perhaps the most important thing about this event it seems from the organizers the amount they talk about it is that there’s going to be a documentary and it’s going to be on one of the major platforms by the end of the year which is brilliantly vague. Um if it was going to be on one of the major platforms they’d already know by the end of the year. Um YouTube does YouTube count? Maybe it counts. Probably. Yeah. It’s going to be self-published on YouTube, isn’t it? Yeah. Tuby. There’s a lot of these like channels that are on my TV that are that I’m told like, “Hey, you can watch this on here and I’m like, I’ve never heard of this channel. That sounds It’s going to be on one of those probably.” Yeah, probably. Um, yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I think so. There’s been a bit of discussion on Discord about this over the past 24 hours and uh, you know, discussion about whether Vingo how much Vingo cares and I think that it is absolutely I’m absolutely confident in saying Vingo couldn’t care less. um who was there for for a couple of dinners apparently according to Alex Carrera um uh Patcha’s agent. They all sat around the table and had dinner together which never happens at the tour to France. Like what are they trying to sell us here? What is like I I enjoyed it because you could there like there were loads of clips obviously coming out of this and in every single clip the only thing you could see in every single photo was you could see just how excited they were to be making such an astronomical amount of money for so little work and I I kind of I rate it because obviously they’re all very uh independently wealthy themselves but they work extremely hard for that. So, I’m kind of glad that they get one. You know, this is like a standup comedian getting invited to do like the double glazing awards Christmas show or whatever. You know, it’s a night off. It’s they’re good a good money day. Some corporate douche inviting rapper to his house. Yeah. Um uh yeah, I I it’s the future of it is is the thing because you you can’t do the same documentary every year. You can’t really have vingo turning up and just not doing anything if you’re supposed to be doing the cycling masters. Otherwise, you just do a gala dinner. Do they change the route a little bit? Make it Well, I think what they need to do is get the top 10 of the tour because then you get people like Tobias Halen Johannes or Kevin Vulk now who actually will want to try and beat these guys even with the kind of massive asterisk of nobody’s trained for this, nobody cares, but these guys will be like, “No, but this is a you know, this will be a bit of fun and we can actually, you know, give provide some jeopardy.” I mean to go back to what we were talking about earlier if you want people to care just make it a UCI race. I mean I know that’s that’s funny to say will not turn up. I don’t know. I mean Asana will turn up right. So for the time trial one surely do um do like a the you know Pagatra would start last and have to try and chase everyone. That’s what I would want to see. That should be all time trials to be honest. Um any other thoughts on the on the the Andor? It’s kind of the perfect way to wrap up the season, I think. You know, you have like the crunch time of the relegation and like this real sporting intrigue that you have managed to like half organically manufacture if you can manufacture anything organic, but then at the same time, it’s like no, here’s like this preposterous moneyed Andor event. Well, it’s at least it’s an Andor. A lot events like this often happen in states with less savory records of human rights. So, at least this is in Andor. Worst thing about Andor tax haven. What’s worse? I mean, that’s it’s not that bad, right? There’s way worse. Pretty isolated. If you’re Andor all year round, you can get pretty isolated, I think. Yeah. I mean, that that sounds fine, though. I’m I’m okay with that, you know? That’s that sounds great actually isolating oneself. Yeah. And with that, um I think we’re going to isolate ourselves for at least a few seconds and take us out of the A block and after a quick break, bring us back into the B block.