Is This The Strongest Tour de France Team EVER? | GCN Racing News Show

Dan’s back in the GCN Racing News hot seat to ask; is Tadej Pogačar’s UAE squad the strongest ever assembled for a Tour de France? Plus there’s the latest racing news and results round ups, including a dog versus the peloton at the Tour de Suisse, and the big sprinters battling at the Tour of Belgium.

00:00 Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show!
00:27 Emil Herzog ‘encourages’ the breakaway…
00:49 Corning banking… on the road?
01:05 Dog v Hirschi at the Tour De Suisse
01:28 Tour De Suisse: UAE Dominate
02:44 UAE’s ‘Galactico’ team for the Tour De France
05:16 Will Vingegaard defend his Tour title?
06:30 Check out our new French racing inspired shop collection!
07:13 Big sprinters battle at Tour of Belgium | Is Merlier fastest in the world?
09:11 Tour of Belgium | GC Recap
10:55 Women’s Tour De Suisse | Vollering Victorious
11:43 Tour of Slovenia | Giovanni Aleotti records two big wins
12:26 Tour of the Pyrenees | Usoa Ostolaza soars to first career wins
12:42 Team wins in 2024
13:09 Nino Schurter wins record 36th elite men’s MTB race
13:31 Pro rider injury updates
13:50 Other News: Grand Départ of Tour De France Femmes, Cavendish to be knighted, Benedetti to retire

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welcome back to the gcn racing news show coming up this week a look at the UAE team Emirates tour to France Squad which looks like one of the strongest teams ever assembled at the race but is it I’ll be doing a breakdown of their roster as well as wrapping up the tour to Swiss men’s and women’s balaz Belgium Tour tour of Slovenia jro nextg and the Tour de pirene this week in the world of racing we learned that Emil Herz so of Bora hrow pulls no punches when it comes to encouraging a breakaway companion to share the workload go to the front I Dr you that was poor Matthew bergo on the receiving end who I don’t think could go through at that point in the race we also learned that it’s not just track Riders who use banking to get around corners let’s have a look this is Samson here Samson yeah yeah that was Andy Samson of the libyana Gusto santic team saving his skin at the tour of Slovenia meanwhile at the tour of Swiss uh there’s almost another dog of the pro pelaton let’s have a look at this corner whoa Madam take your schnitzel back somewhere else goodness me Mark H she forced to take evasive action there on a day that didn’t work out for him or for UA team Emirates but my word did it work out for them over the remainder of the race alongside the Criterium D do the to of Swiss is the big preparation race for the tour to France and whil vinagar and pagat raced neither this year for entirely different reasons it did serve to show us that the San’s team is more than ready to support him at the tour Adam Yates and Joel Almeida went one two on stages six seven and eight and on the general classification so two stage wins each and never once did they look like they were going to be threatened by any of the other riders in the race so it’s an anonymous message to all of their Rivals at the upcoming tour of France which starts in just 12 days time the closest to them was last year’s torto Swiss winner Matia Skil mosa of Leal Trek he finished just over three minutes down on Yates on the GC agan Bernal of inos grenadiers was a further 10 seconds back having lost a position in the final time trial Pitcock was over 4 and a half minutes down enic Mass over 5 minutes down whilst the best visma Lisa bike rider was Wilco kelderman in ninth outside of those bigger names the most promising Rider of the week was that of Matthew rello of Israel Premier Tech the 22-year-old finished fifth overall and just 30 seconds off the final Podium now he isn’t provisionally down to ride the tour to France this year but it would be lovely to see him do it wouldn’t it now back to UAE though and let’s go through their tour to France roster for this year paga will lead of course Mountain lieutenants are Almeida Yates and auso all of whom could lead other teams in their own right COV and Solair provide further ammunition over over all terrain whilst wellin and pollet will be the protectors on the flat and hilly terrain between those seven helpers they’ve had 11 winds this year the majority of which have come at World Tour level now I guess there’s a bit of a question mark over Juan Uso and that he was involved in that high-speed crash at the doofan sustaining injuries bad enough to force him to abandon however if we look back at last year his early season was severely affected with injury but he still got back to winning ways pretty much as soon as he started competing again Adam y showed last year how good he was in a support role doing everything he could for patcha while still winning a stage and finishing on the podium himself Almeida looks as good as I’ve ever seen him his steady but very high Tempo in the mountains will help defend the lead if they’re in that situation or to set up attacks if they’re not pollet is a machine on the flat that guy has some serious horsepower but I think he’ll be thankful and probably quite relieved to have Tim wellins alongside him to share the workload there and then you’ve got cair and COV both of whom are very solid Dependable Riders capable of winning on the bid stage in their own right but there is a big difference between a set of strong individuals and a strong team some people have been questioning which best describes the UAE Tor of France Squad pointed to a lack of cohesion amongst teammates at some races however those are races in which patcha has been absent when he’s on the team everybody knows knows who the leader is I don’t remember a single race in which there’s been any kind of infighting at that team when Pacha has been on the start line such is his level everybody knows their place I mean it’s not to say that one or the others can’t step up to the Mark if pagat crashes or gets ill or is another 100% but until that point I don’t see any of the rides rebelling and looking after their own interests I mean it would be great from an entertainment point of view if they did who doesn’t love a bit of drama but I just can’t see it now that’s not to say of course that they’re going to have it all their own way as we all know anything can happen in the world of procycling particularly at the tour to France and there will be a bunch of riders and teams looking to take advantage of any weakness shown by UAE so what then about defending Champions visma Lisa well it looks like there might be some positive news from that cab we still haven’t had confirmation yet as to whether or not yonis vinor will be at the start in Florence but an Instagram post Mato Jorgenson and a stra upload from wal vanard painted quite a positive picture the photo showed the two of them alongside T bote Yan tratnik Kristoff Laport and most importantly yonas vineo himself the ride itself was a Whopper 180 K 7 hours and with over 5,000 m of elevation gain now I’ve made the presumption that all of them completed that ride and if they did that is a very good sign for vineer and also be quite surprised if they posted a picture like that if vinar wasn’t going to race in France this year or at least that’s what I’m hoping now one of the key Riders missing from that photo is sep cus he abandoned the Doan with illness so perhaps he’s still recovering from that so what do you reckon then can UAE be beaten this year given what we’ve seen from them and their rival team so far in 2024 and do you see any problems arising with Team hierarchy over the course of the Tour of France you can let me know in the comment section down below uh just before I move on you may have noticed I’m sporting a brand new t-shirt today which is part of our new collection to honor the biggest race of them all so if you head over to shop. Global cycling network.com you’ll find our complete French collection range with 25 different t-shirt designs to choose from plus hoodies a special edition GN Camelback water bottle and a French themed mug as ever your support makes the world of difference to us in enabling us to continue making freeo view content and incidentally our big tour to France preview show will be out for you next week with a detailed look at all of the stages and the major Riders taking part so stay tuned for that on to the other races from last week now and I’m going to start with the tour of Belgium and before I get on to the GC I’m going to start by talking about the big sprinters battle between yasper Philipa and Tim malier now I’ve been saying since about February that malier is staking claim to being the fastest Sprinter in the world right now and in my opinion he underlined that in Belgium last week of the three Bunch Sprints he won two of them quite comfortably whil Jasper Phillipson took the other one on a day when Malia found himself boxed in so it means that Malia is now on 12 victories so far in 2024 that’s just two behind patcha four ahead of pson and eight in front of yasper philipsson Phillipson will now head to the tour to France where he won four stages and the green jersey last year but unfortunately it’s highly unlikely that Malia will be there his team sudal quickstep is built entirely around Remco aapol this year leaving no space for him which is understandable but also a real shame he is clearly on the form of his life at the moment and it would have been a treat for us to see him use that at the biggest rate of them all on the plus side for Phillips sir even in the absence of match fero there were a couple of textbook lead outs from his team I’m going to focus on stage three where they had a headwind finish so Alberton deur could afford to come out late and that’s exactly what they did there if we pause it here on the overhead shot you can count at least 30 riders that are in front of Philips and his team Jonas Ricker makes it look easy as he goes past every single one of them down the left hand side and then he still has enough power left to get out of the saddle and continue his lead out he drops Roy hes off with just under 400 meters to go who in turn delivers Philipa to 200 from there it was plain sailing from the Belgium all the way to the finish line and that really highlights the importance of timing and also planning for certain conditions you also have to have the r to be able to do it of course and that team most certainly has now the GC there was decided by bonus seconds plus the opening individual time trial Uno XIs s varell blitzed around the 12ks at an average speed of 53.7 K per hour putting in two seconds in front of Mattias vachek of Leal Tre and those two were a Fairway in front of everybody else Varon sh took a full nine bonus seconds on the golden kilometer of stage three putting him 11 seconds in front on GC but vacc turned the tables the following day reducing it back down to the original 2 seconds in gaining a further two seconds on the final stage though Von put the GC out to reach AEK who just missed out on third place and the four bonus seconds that would have come with that on the final stage AEK though seriously impressive isn’t he that lad’s got a very bright future the only Road stage that wasn’t a bun Sprint came on day four the hilliest of the race Alex Aron Buu of M Star took his first win there in almost two years out sprinting Pierre goor out of the line going back to Belgian Stars a brand new one emerged at the Jiro nextg last week yanov V of Lotto Destiny with the second youngest Rider on the start line turning 18 last November but he showed some far more experienced Riders how it’s done by taking two stage wins and the general classification it makes him the youngest ever winner of that race and to put his age into some sort of context he’s younger now than mat fero was when he won the junior World Championships now that’s because of the differing ends of the year in which they were born anyway as you can imagine Belgian cycling media is now in a frenzy about the prospect of this young man as they probably should be that was quite the performance one exciting future he’s got ahead of him at the women’s Tor to Swiss two of the four stages have been completed as we record this and it was a familiar story in both Demi wering may have had a slightly slower start to the season this year but there’s no doubt she’s up to full speed now on the same shorten stage that the men had on Saturday she finished 22 seconds up on guia Rini whilst in yesterday’s individual time trial the margin was 18 seconds over Lisa Longo borghini it means that from her last 10 days of racing she’s had nine wins including two general classifications and it would take a very brave person to bet against her taking a third this coming Tuesday you can watch the rest of that race on Discovery plus where you’ll also be able to watch the French Italian Spanish and British national championships later on this week some of which will also be available on Max over in the US meanwhile at the tour of Slovenia giovan alotti had the biggest two wins of his career so far before the race started his only Pro wins had come at the cibu cycling tour but he changed that on stage three attacking in the closing stage of the race and crossing a line 11 seconds in front of the rest that propelled him into the overall lead which he defended admirably on the queen stage the following day which is won by po Bill Bal second on that stage was Paul double of py Keta and what a climbing talent that lad is it’ll be great to see him get a chance to perform at the biggest races Dyan K ofen and Phil bouse won the opening two Sprint stages whilst Ben Healey’s Relentless attacking finally rewarded him with Victory on the fifth and final stage at the tour of the Pyrenees so ostala of the labor Kutcher team to the first two wins of her career stage two of the race plus the overall classification Victoria guazzini and Josie Talbert won stages one and three respectively I’m going to check in now with team wins so far this year UA merits four stage wins at the tour of Swiss put them up to 43 in total so far this year that’s 16 ahead of leel Trek and 19 ahead of decathlon ag2 are the golf with women’s teams though is even greater it looked like SD worked may have lost some of their dominance in the spring Classics but they’ve run away with things since they sit on 35 wins thus far with Leal Tre second on 11 in other news there was a record 36th World Cup win for Nino Sherer in the X in vald SOL at the weekend whil Pauling Fon proo won the women’s there were also rumors last week that the French woman will be leaving inos graders at the end of this season and signing a threeyear deal with vimma Lisa bike which would be a real coup for them there are a few injuries to report from the toest Swiss amongst them a broken hand for narra kintana of mistar and a broken hip and collar bone for Emanuel Bookman of Bora hansar we wish them both the best in their recovery and likewise best wishes to Ashley Morman pasio who unfortunately is out of the Jiro Don due to a back injury sustained at the Welter Catalonia the grand Depart of the 2025 Tour of France fam will take place in britan Northwestern France it’s going to be a nday event next year and back to its Trad time slot basically overlapping and just post the men’s race it’s from the 26th of July through to the 3rd of August Mark Cavendish was awarded a Knighthood on the King’s Birthday honors list last week for services to cycling and charity work that means he will soon be Sir Mark Cavendish whilst Chris bourbon received an MBE for services to active travel chz Benedetti is set to hang up his wheels after a 15year pro career his final race will be the tour of Poland this year after which he’ll turn his attention to being a DS at his current team Bora hand girl and finally there’s a new race on the men’s and women’s worldour calendar for next year there weren’t many changes on the list released by The UCI last week but a new one-day race in Copenhagen is welcome news not only for danus fans but for all fans of cycling we all remember the crowds in the Danish Grande par a couple of years ago don’t we which were absolutely insane right thanks as ever for watching everyone I’ll be back next week to wrap up the national championships taking place so I will see you then