How Pogačar KEEPS Humiliating Team Belgium

Articles Referenced:
https://cyclinguptodate.com/cycling/there-was-nothing-wrong-with-his-second-bike-belgian-camp-confused-by-remco-evenepoels-mid-race-frustrations-en-route-to-silver-in-kigali

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/a-three-way-battle-doesnt-depend-on-them-but-on-me-jonas-vingegaard-ready-for-rare-european-championship-title-fight-against-pogacar-evenepoel/

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/if-he-tries-that-it-could-end-badly-belgian-national-coach-not-expecting-another-monster-breakaway-by-pogacar-in-european-championships-battle-with-remco-evenepoel/

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/if-anyone-can-tell-me-how-to-beat-tadej-today-id-love-to-hear-it-belgian-tactics-fall-short-in-european-championships-as-remco-evenepoel-takes-silver-behind-pogacar/

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Welcome to Beyond the Coverage. I’m Chris her and today’s race, I’d like to go back one day. I’d like to go back into the European Championships and cover the race and specifically some of the quotes and the interviews that were said before the European Championships all the way back and up to the finish of the men’s road world championships and what was said afterwards. Now if I take you back into the road world championships. So we go just past a week ago call it eight days and we see Florian Vermesh the Belgium rider riding for Rimco Evnapole at the men’s road world championships. He said afterwards that Rimco Evnipole was the equal of Tad Pagotcha. Now I got this sent over to me the quote anyway sent over from my homecale DWE and I said equal. I said equal is a little bit of a strong word. I don’t know if we can use equal for that word to compare Rimco Evnapool to Tad Pagotch from the men’s road world championships. Now you could look at that road world championships and you can say well Rimco Evnapool had two bike changes. He lost 40 seconds. He’s a minute and 40 seconds down on Tad Pagotch that was up the road that had some help from Isaac Del Toro. They’re UA Team Emirate riders, right? One’s Mexican rider, Mexico rider, excuse me. One, of course, is Slovenian rider, but they both ride for UAE team emirates. So, Mexico and Slovenia got a little bit of love combo going there because they ride for the same team. So, Isaac Del Toro, as I told you guys on the butterfly effect, went a little bit deeper than he should have and maybe wasn’t exactly riding for Mexico. Maybe was riding more for Tidy Pagot and UAE Team Emirates there at the Men’s World Championships. But anyway, we go back into the quote. Equal was a quote Florian vermesh used when he’s describing Rimco Evniples’s right. I said no. I think equal is a little bit too strong. Getting closer to looking good putting on a show. There’s lots of descriptions you can use to describe Rimco Evan that pulls right at the Road World Championships. Incredibly entertaining. I love that description. Number two best writer in the world for the men’s road world championship. Sure, he was better than Primos Rogush, who I have as my normal number two in my top six first page riders. But there’s no doubt Remco Evnipool was better than Primos Rogush at the men’s road world championships. But when you do the math and you start thinking about it, Rimco Evnapole got the drop at 104 km ago when Tad Butcher was lighting up that climb when they were out there in the suburbs and TD was lighting everyone up, dropping Yo was suffering on his wheel later dropped him after the descent. Isaac Del Toro had the bridge to him on the descent, but Rimco got to back off the throttle because he had a little saddle problem, right? The saddle was dropping, he was telling everyone. So, he’s backing off the throttle. So, Pogy’s going hard for 500 meters. Rim Cocoiple’s dropping off the back at the top of that summit with just under 104 km to go. Pogi’s driving down the descent chasing after Wanayuso who gets dropped on the next bump and then Pogy’s in the wind throughout the rest of the next 2530 kilometers when Remco Evanipul was at the back with what he was at the back with Louis Vervak. Okay, he was back there with Quinton Hermans. He had two teammates riding the front. So, of course, his legs felt a little bit better after his two bike changes that Quinton Hermans pulls him back onto that front group and he can start pulling and gain a little bit more time back on Todd Pagotch. Gain back to 30 seconds or 40 day loss in the bike change, but he couldn’t really bring it under a minute, right? And after that, he still had help back there. He still had skillmost back there. He still had Ben Healey back there. He still had help coming through. Okay, he’s doing 80% of the work. You heard me say that on the on the butterfly effect live after that race. 80% Ramco having the pool day. Everyone else is maybe 10 or five and seven and a half% back there. Remco was putting on a show. No doubt about it. But Pogy was putting on the real show up there because going solo is what really takes pure pure power when you look at that course at 270 kilometers at the men’s world championships and he’s solo sitting talking about 65 kilometers to go. But he was clearly pulling more than Isaac Del Toro. He clearly didn’t have much help from Auso up there when until he got dropped early. And Ramco had teammates back there. So of course they’re not equal. Okay, so that was a ridiculous quote quote from the Belgian rider Flor and Vermesh after the road world championships. Closer looking good strong. I’m all good with then we come into the Euro Championships. Before this, we know that we’re gonna start missing some riders because you have Primos Rogos that’s going over Jirro Demeilia. Tom Pickock’s going over Jirro Deilia. They got to find f find racers over there as Isaac Del Toro won that race. So, there’s some guys missing at the Euro Championships, but we got a new player coming into the ballpark. We got Yonas Vanigo. We’re talking about two-time tour to France winner, second the last two seasons at the Tour to France to Tidy Pagar that started the Euro Championships. And the big hype was Rimco, Tad Pagotch, Yonas Fino, the three-way battle. Well, Yonas says the three-way battle’s up to him. I saw that quote. I was like, up to you? I don’t know if it’s up to you, but yeah, you have to be a player. There’s no doubt about that. And he says it’s up to him and whether or not if he’s got the form when you read the quote a little bit close or you just realize that he doesn’t exactly know where his form is, but he says it could be there. We go into the men’s European Championships. I want to cover that briefly now. And we know that Belgium rode the same tactics that they did at the Road World Championships. They rode aggressively at the start. Three riders go up the road. Vashek is in this move. He’s a strong rider. Dan, little trek rider that’s right in front of the Netherlands up there. He’s in this move. Three riders going to move. Belgium’s not happy. They’re still attacking back there left, right, center, their waste and bullets and their legs the whole time. Then we see 15 rider group go. They come into the circuit. They got six laps. Six laps to do on the circuit. three have the bigger climb. The last three laps have the smaller climb. The big climb 7K at over 7%. The smaller climb is going to be just under two. I’ll call it 1.6 1.7, but this one’s a monster at 9.3 9.5%. Something in that ballpark. So, three laps have the short steep climb. The big first three circuits have the long climb on there. So, what does that mean? That means if you’re coming into this race and you hit this long climb if Tadi Pagotcha is the best in the world and not equal to Rimco but actually better and you believe that that’s what I believe then you don’t want Todd Pagotch to be able to gain a ton of time on you on this big climb. But the big climb 70 kilometers from the finish line. So I take you back into one of the other interviews. Let’s go into Serge Pal. Serge Pal is the new director sportif for the Belgium team. Remember the old director sport van hornthought now remember the Belgian road world championships in Luven that was his master plan there they blew everything up has no idea what was going on they all blamed it on rimcoiple they threw Rimco Evniple under the bus at the 21 men’s world Belgium road world championships and all the Belgium fans were left disappointed because this is the strongest team Belgium’s ever had the road world championships and they lost in dramatic style and then threw it all on the shoulders of Remnapole and I told you guys on the butterfly effect on beyond the coverage multiple times. It was not Rimco’s fault. He was doing what their director sportif had told him to do. Now, if I’m the national selection team there for Belgium and I hired Finn, I’d try to fire him any possible way I possibly could after watching that Belgium Road World Championships. But the Belgium kid Ramco having the pull wins himself road world championships in Australia afterwards. But they don’t realize he won because France was pulling with him because we know that a stunner right up there. Lucenko was pulling deep there with Ramqu soloed Australia won the won the Rainbow Band jersey for the road world championships. So that probably puts Finn back into a little bit of greener light. But the Belgium national teams, of course, Belgium National Federation, excuse me, of course, still remembers Louven, right? How can we forget that was amazing race. So eventually he gets replaced. We got Serge Palace coming in. Serge Pal does the interview and he says, “Well, this is not 270 kilometer race like the real world championships. This is a 200 kmter race. So Pog is not going to be able to go from far out. Tade Pagotcha will not be able to go from far out is what Serge pals the new director sport for Belgium at his second race men’s road world championships eight days ago they rode full gas on the front all the time for Slovenia when they didn’t have to it was a knucklehead move there’s no doubt about it so now Serge Pal is giving this interview the type of gotcha won’t be able to go far out because Rim KV he believes going to be able to match him and it’s a short race okay let’s find out so Belgium’s overaggressive like I told you 15 rider group goes up the road. They cross the finish line with six laps to go. Louis Vervaki Belgium’s in that front front roof, right? They go up the first climb, the seven kilometer climb. We see guys getting dropped off the back. They lose four. Eventually, these guys will bridge up. What’s left with Louis Vervak driving it on the front. Tons of time up the climb. He’s on the front a lot, right? Belgium team up there on the front riding a lot. Extra motivation riding the front. gets up there, closes the gap to the three riders up there that had Vosek in there and Dan Ool, two riders from the Netherlands. I forget the second rider, Matteas, I believe it was. He’s up there, the third rider. So, they come together, we’ll call it 12, 13 riders at this front group. Now, they got about a two-minute gap on Slovenia back there, Chase, and they’re coming around for the second lap. So, it’s five laps to go and Belgium starts putting their second plan into work. They start throwing attacks up this climb. On the steep climb, you don’t attack Tia Bagotcha on the steep climb. It’s a no no. It doesn’t hurt his legs. They’re trying to isolate the Slovenian team and get them off the front. But they’ve done so much work to their legs in the first half of the race trying to be aggressive putting riders in the break that how much legs could they possibly have left? And when they started this race, Belgium doesn’t. It’s not like they have a ton of climbers. Slovenia really only have one climber, Domian Novak, not and of course Tai Bagotcha, but one climber not named Tai Pagotcha. Do Novak and Mate Mahor. No, he’s not a climber. He’s not been on fantastic form throughout this 25 season, but he’s a quality rider. There’s no doubt about that. Not a quality climber, but a quality rider for sure. Quality through and through. So, they go up the climb. Domen Novak controls the first attacks that are coming again from Quickstep back there. Sorry, Quickstep from Belgium, excuse me. So, as they’re covering the moves from Belgium with Domen Novak, he’s looking over. He’s checking out the French rider there. Civic off as he comes through the front. He starts setting some tempo. Then we start getting in the next climbs with about 104 kilometers to go after Belgium’s been throwing in some attacks. We see Rimco Evniple throw an attack. Oh man, this is a bad move. This is a very bad move. Sure, you’re on the in on the offensive. You’re not on the defense. But a lot of people think sitting on the wheel is actually defense and really it’s proactive is what I like to think about. If you’re sitting on the wheel, you’re saving energy. So Tai Pagot who’s sitting on Rimco Evniple at this moment as they’re coming down the descent and Rimco Evniple’s drilling at the front. He’s lighting it all up. He’s bringing the original break back as Louis Vervaki up there and Slovenia hasn’t done anything but Rimco’s driving it on the front while Todd Pagotch is proactive. Not offense, not defense, but proactive back there sitting on the wheel of Rimco. Rimco’s up there. Finally comes back together. They haven’t quite caught the break yet. We’ll come into about 92 kilometers to go thereabouts. Mate Mooric been riding the front for a little bit. He blows up with the attacks from Italy. I like this attack right here from Italy because Mate Mooric is the last rider here for Teddy Pagotch. They’re on the climb, which I don’t like attacking Teddy Pagot on the climb. But if you’re Alberto Batiel and you’re attacking on the climb at this moment, I like this because well, Teddy Pagotch shouldn’t be worried about you. So if we see his attack and you get a gap right away, then I like this move. If you’re going to pull Tai Pagot, I don’t. We see Tad’s following the move. Remove pulls in the move. So he backs off the throttle. Then we see what we see the Swiss rider Yan Christian throw an attack. This was a knucklehead move right here because Pogy’s directly on it. If Pogy wasn’t on your wheel, I like this move, but you have to be directly knowledgeable of where Todd Pagotch is. And Jon Christian’s got to know that Todd is on his wheel along with Rim Quazul. So this is a knucklehead move as he’s splitting the group up to a smaller and smaller group and then we see what happens. Ramco goes to the front. Yan Christian gets dropped dropped. Should have been pulling on the front to begin with. Ramco’s drilling it. Ta Pagot sitting on his wheel, right? We see Paul sexis there. The French team, he’s doing a good job, but he’s going to be struggling a bit, but they’re going to stay on the wheel. They’re going to go over the top with one of with Paul Sexis. Rimco having the pull tag there with Rimco pulling like crazy. He’s going to pull the break back. The break that started at the beginning of this race that Belgium was getting so interested in being in that they had Louis Vervaki up there. He has been pulling on the front. Now Remco pulls this group back and they’re all together with 90 km to go and Pogy hasn’t had to touch the front at all throughout this race. Okay, so this happens. Then Belgium gets on the front. Now they got Pogy isolated. Isolated is fantastic, but isolation without attacking means absolutely nothing. And Talia Bagotcha has not touched the wind and Rimco Amniple’s been in the front for what I think is safe to call 100% safe for at least 8K but possibly 10K where Pogy hasn’t touched the front throughout this race with the exception of one small rotation on the front at around we’ll call just under 90 km to go and we see one check rider come to the front. We see that check rider is having a talk that’s Martin. Martin’s having a talk with Ramco Avenue. Martin and Rimco happen to be teammates for pseudo quickstep. So the check rider doesn’t want to ride for a check. So he wants to ride for his Belgium teammate for pseudo quickstep. So Rimco gives them the nod to hop on the front. Now they come across the finish line and we see four riders that are all part of Rimco Avenue. Martin is up there. We see that Louis Vervak is up there. Remember Louis Vak’s been in the break the whole time. The next rider we see up there is going to be Steph Cross. Steph Cross is pulling on the front. Then we see Rem Covnapool followed by Tia Pagera. So four riders there counting Remnipole and whoa there’s a fifth. We look at the back that’s T Bonut. T Bonoot had some funny quotes afterwards too but I’ll get into that possibly later if I remember correct. We go up front Belgium start right when they hit the climb again. They go up the climb. This is the last time up the seven kilometer climb. Belgium driving it on the front. We see Martin check the check rider there. He gets dropped coming off the back. Louis Vak still on the front. Steph cross is there. T Bonu Vizmissa bike normally but not a teammate of pseudo Quickstep Brim Quipool but he’s Belgian rider so he’s riding he’s up there at the front too and Antony Pagacha lights everyone up as he starts his attack we see Auso Aayuso is following from Spain he’s directly on the wheel rim pull sit in third position Belgian rider doesn’t like third wise move out moves up in second gets on Ta Pagot’s wheel and the Slovenian accelerates againo’s getting dropped now we see Paul Sex is back there just behind him Ramco still holding on the wheel of TD Pagotch and then Pogy throws in another acceleration. Rimco Evan the pool moves over to the right and we see him look back over shoulder. Belgium kids getting dropped right now. You’ve been pulling for 8 10 kilometers on the front. You put your teammates on the front. They drill up make it as hard as you possibly can every moment of the race. You make it harder does what? The best rider in the world stays higher level. His legs stay fresher and fresher and fresher unless he’s made a calorie miscount. Unless I bring you in the 22 to France stage 11 cold to granon where Todd Pagot has one coke one Snickers may maybe one keystone ketone way from being able to win the 22 to the to France instead he bked. So if he doesn’t make that kind of mistake and you’ve been pulling around the whole time, the number one ranked rider in the world and number two ranked rider in the world and the pace has been going as hard as f as hard as Belgium can make it, that’s always going to benefit Tadia Pagotch. And now you’re coming into a 7 kilometer climb and Rimco Aip’s looking over his shoulder because he knows he’s blowing up. Todd Pagotch is going solo. Paul Sax’s bridge is back up there too. Rimco Aipole and eventually after we go a few hundred meters, a couple later we see Auso comes back on. Scarrone comes back on. We got four riders chasing one. We drop down a descent. Ty Picotra is holding the lead. Goes into the next small climb, but super stick. We’re talking about 9% just over K and a half. Pogy doesn’t lose much time there. Lost maybe about five, seven seconds through the valley. Then gains it back going over this climb. They come around the finish line again with three laps to go. This is the shorter laps now. We’re talking about 17 kilometers. Ty Pagotcha is drilling. Rimco Evnapool can’t do anything. Even when he had a little bit of help back there, it’s not bringing back time. So Ty Pagotcha solos the Euro Ch Euro Road Race Championships to grab himself another special jersey, but he’s already wearing the rainbow jersey. So he’s just going to have to hang that one on his wall like I got. Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to put it on because you’re wearing a Rainbow Band jersey. Maybe for week next year, depending on the calendar rotation, I don’t know. But right now, Talia Pagotch wins. Remco Kavniple passes through the line. He’s 30 seconds back. Afterwards in his interview, he says, “Well, he lost to a better man, a more powerful man for sure. There’s no doubt about that. That’s why he’s number one ranked rider in the world. Are you equal to Todd Pagotch? Like Florian Vermesh said, “You are absolutely not equal. So you have to race smarter, but you race the exact same tactics.” We go into your teammates words. When I look at Vermesh’s comments where he said, “Tell me what we could do differently to be able to beat Todd Pagasha.” I could tell you for sure what you don’t want to do. You don’t want to race like you did at the Road World Championships last week. Surge pals putting the Belgian team on the front driving it for Slovenia. You don’t want to come into European championships doing the same thing riding the front for TD Pagotch throughout the hardest sections of the race. When you get them isolated, you have to attack them. It’s honestly not even such a bad plan. If you go up the climb and you dropped all of Slovenia and then you started attacking them left, right, and center, that’s okay. But if you’re going to drive it into the final big time up the climb, which is over 75 km ago, we’ll call it like 77. If you’re going to drive it into that and Bervak’s done, Tish Bonude hasn’t been that impressive at the Euro Championships. And then we look at the front. Steph Cross, well, he’s probably not pure climber either. So, you already dropped Billy Lassurf back there and all of your other teammates. Nothing’s going to happen. So, Rimco Evniple is basically just one-on-one against TDOT. You don’t want one-on-one. So, if you want somebody to explain it to you differently, Vervaki, Louis, Vervaki, I’m explaining it to you differently. almost every race you could do against TD Pagotcha. I’ve explained it to you differently, but if the most simple thing you want to do is first off being on offense with TD Pagotch, pulling Tad Pagotch around, that’s a no no. Being on the front at the Road World Championships as the whole Belgium team’s pulling Slovenia around, that’s a no no. You cannot waste your energy. You have to keep your teammates as fresh as you possibly can. You have to hope and pray that Tai Pagotcha attacks from 100 kilometers out like we just saw last week. You have to hope and pray they attack from 75 km out as we just saw yesterday. And then you have to have fresh teammates legs wrapped around Remco Evniple so that they can pull him for not 5 kilometers or 10 km but for 25 30 40 50 60 kilometers and then you have to launch Rimco Avenue very very close to the back wheel of Tad Pagotch. We’re talking about 20 30 seconds and hopefully because TD’s been up there for 70 and Rimco Evnip’s never touched the front before Tad Pagotch has. So has not ridden the front at 104 kilometers ago. Has not ridden the front at 92 kilometers ago like we just witnessed yesterday and wore his legs out and then try to go pull for pull with Tatty Bagoti. He’s going to drop you every time unless of course he’s forgotten to eat and or he’s made a calc miscalculation with calories or he had to take too many nature breaks and had to work too much in the front to get to the back of the pelon. But it’s never going to happen right now. So, you got to have TD Pagotch in the win and you have to have him chasing. You cannot pull back the original breaks. Now, I want to go into Rimco Evanapul’s comments where he said, “Of course, they rode offense all the way up until the time got attacked and then they were on defense.” Yes, you rode offense, he attacked you, then you’re on defense, you got no teammates left. It’s explained to you as simple as it possibly can right there. You have to have teammates left around you or guys that can work with you. do not pull him around. We go into what started all this again with Jonas Vinnie goes interview afterwards. And I have to bring this up because guys, he got dropped like a rock when he’s looking at the camera. He was melted down. He was blown up and the group was still 45 guys. And his interview afterwards, he says, well, he just doesn’t understand. I mean, he had two weeks off the bike after the Balta, but he doesn’t understand why his legs are bad here. So, the Balta finished three weeks ago. He had two of those weeks off. He only had one week to get ready for the Euro Championships. You’re not going to ride the last two days before the European Championships hard. So, you had three or four good days training since the Balta finished and you don’t know why you got dropped here. Well, if we take you back to his first interview where he’s talking about trying to find out why why he can or how he can race these one day races better, trying to find out the equation of what makes it work. I could tell you right now, two weeks off your bike does not make it work good. If you’re coming to the European road championships and battle against Daddy Bagot or Rimco and that’s why you got dropped by 45 riders and you were shaking your head in disbelief. I two weeks off. Okay, that’s not the formula for sure. So, if anyone else got any questions, make sure you watch, hit the like and subscribe button because you know I’m going to cover it up here on Beyond the Coverage real soon. Like and subscribe. I’ll see you guys for the next edition real soon.