In this episode Patrick and Benji recap the 8th stage of the 2026 Giro d’Italia.
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🇦🇺 Patrick Broe – Host: https://www.youtube.com/@LanterneRougeCycling & https://www.instagram.com/the_lanterne_rouge_/ & https://www.twitter.com/lanternerougeyt
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22 Comments
Martin Tjøtta (UXM) will win stage 9. You read it here first.
These stages where its just UAE and the smaller UCI teams cosplaying as the UAE development team has got to be some of the most boring stages. No amount of stage design is going to make random smaller teams pulling UAE to a stage win when they have literally no chance of winning interesting.
Benji was going to say “Jumbo Visma” in 2026 and then corrected himself to say Lotto NL Jumbo 😂
Benji managing to casually slip "6-7" into a perfectly normal sentence every single podcast is hillarious. Do you keep that pace up through the whole Giro? I mean, you started way back in the classics season. Quite a schedule.
Where is spreadsheet guy?
Watching HBO Max from uk with vpn. Today it connected as usual but there was no English commentary. Anyone else?
The roads in and around Cervia are diabolical. Hope the peloton have their Roubaix setups
I think Ciccone really wanted to go for the stage but they wouldn't allow him to go in the break (I think at some point even Eulalio himself marked his attack) and then just went "well here, DAMN" and dropped out of GC 😅 Would've been a good stage for him.
Tomorrow is one where the old Visma would insanely let Wout take off on a one-man breakaway the whole day.
Patrick Vs Benji GT picks
Total scores after stage 8:
Benji: 42 🦖
Patrick: 70
Patrick flies even further ahead with a pick of Leknussend today.
Stage Breakdown:
Benji Stage 8 picks
Route release: Schmitt 0 pts
Week before: Christen 0 pts
Day before: Christen 0 pts
Stage 8 score: 0
Patrick Stage 8 picks
Route release: Nys 0 pts
Week before: Ciccone 0 pts
Day before: Leknussend 8 pts
Stage 8 score: 8
For stage 9, on route release both competitors locked in Vingegaard. However in the week before preview Patrick went for Scaroni after being torn between a breakaway or peloton win. Benji meanwhile doubled down on Jonas. If Jonas wins this it'll be a big boost to Benji's points…
** Advance Notice to competitors for stage 10**
Both failed to select a pick in December for stage 10, and then both picked Ganna last week. As such, regardless of the result, there will be no difference in the points gap. Therefore the spreadsheet maker has decided to 'liven things up' with the offer of some bonus points to play for.
There has been some debate in previous pods about how far behind the winner Jonas will be. At one point Benji stated that if Jonas loses 2 mins on stage 10 he should immediately quit cycling to "build floors."
I therefore propose that a bonus 10 points be awarded to the competitor who can guess the time gap between the winner of stage 10 and Jonas. Closest wins. (This does not need to be in a pod, a comment on tomorrow's stage 9 notes will be an accepted entry.)
Alternatively the competitors can choose to ignore these comments completely, and doom us all to a lifetime of pondering who would've won, if they had, in fact, participated.
Okay I know benji isn’t really feeling this giro but as someone who always watches with an overanxious concern for the leader and a naive belief in the possibility for the chaser, I felt the tension between narvaez and leknessund for quite a while. And i enjoy breakaway tug buddy strategy. i’ve actually quite enjoyed this giro, maybe assisted by rob hatch’s ability to heighten the drama for any stage 🙂
Benji not really into this giro, I doubt it’ll be able to turn him around if this stage didn’t do it.
Alternative Podcast Title:
10 different ways to beat up Felix Gall
Hot take: the UAE Blacklist was the main reason for the result today
Take a shot every time Benji says: "What I mean by that is…"
patric and benjy the visma boys ofcourse they whining about boring stages haha this podcast has gone to shit its impressive how biased haha. Meanwhile rest of cycling world just watched the most cyclismo stage weve witnessed this decade in the stage Arrieta won lol.
Silva impressive again, finishing 4th ahead of the second group.
The best stage so far!! Sagan won here!
Leknussend I thought was gonna catch him.. neither of u picked Narvaez??
I thought hindley, would have been a bit betta.. who was last rider over the line..
I enjoyed the stage. The depth of talent on UAE is ridiculous though.
Recency bias much? How could this possibly be a favorite stage over the Noah’s flood Arrieta v Eulalio stage?!