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Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle, Escape Collective’s news digest.
Well, we had the Olympics to ease us out of the Tour de France Hommes, and now we have the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift to ease us out of the Olympics! Synergy! Congratulations, sports planners, you’ve done well.
We’ll remember these halcyon days as we quietly sob in October with only the Tour of Guangxi for company.
Sign stealing but make it Tour de France ⚾
The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is nearly upon us, and we personally much prefer the breathing room between the two TdFs that the Olympics has provided this year.
It would seem those living in the vicinity of the Dutch Grand Départ are also very excited for the race to arrive, as there has been a spate of Tour de France sign thefts in the region.
The ‘Yellow Cycle Tour’ features small yellow bicycle signs marking 23.4 km of the opening stage’s course that the public are encouraged to ride along but these signs are being removed from lampposts and taken home as souvenirs.
“Because we think it is important that the route can be cycled,” a spokeswoman for the municipality of Westland told NOS. “[But] we can only replace the signs a certain number of times, after that the money for this will run out. We have not filed a report and we do not plan to do so. But it does depend on how often they are stolen.”
Woop-woop, that’s the sound of Nils Politt (spilling juicy secrets on a German podcast)
“Politt spills the beans in the best podcast in ages,” runs the fantastic headline from Dutch publication In de Leiderstrui, reporting on the appearance of UAE Team Emirates’ Nils Politt on German podcast Schlag & Fertig. Here are the highlights.
The German, who served as domestique to Tadej Pogačar at the recent Tour de France Hommes and fresh off his Paris Olympics sightseeing, said that Jonas Vingegaard really needs a team around him and says the Dane gets nervous when isolated, always looking around him. “Then Tadej also comes over to you and says, ‘See, see? He’s nervous, isn’t he?'” Politt said.
A big revelation was the existence of a “blacklist” on the UAE Team Emirates bus featuring riders Pogačar and co. are not exactly fond of. This isn’t uncommon amongst cycling teams, we’ve heard of other instances of this, but it does speak to the cold-blooded killer beneath the meme-lord façade of the Slovenian.
“Tadej and Remco like each other, both on and off the bike,” Politt explained. “They are friends, which isn’t the case with Vingegaard. Tadej and Jonas respect each other but don’t necessarily like each other. In the peloton, you have friends and riders you’re not so fond of. On our team bus, there’s also a list of riders who are friends and a blacklist. You don’t want to be on that list.”
Finally, Politt reveals that while Pogačar had prepared for stage 19 to Isola 2000 extensively, that morning he said it might be a better idea to back off from aiming for stage victory.
“The team wanted to win there, but Tadej said in the morning on the bus: ‘We’ve already won four stages. If we win this one too, they’re going to get angry with us.’ I told him that if you can win a stage, you should just do it,” Politt said. “Tadej hesitated, so we sent Marc Soler ahead. But Evenepoel’s team closed it down. I genuinely think Tadej would have let him win if they had been ahead together, but there’s no mercy for Vingegaard.” Of course, Pogačar then went on to win the final three stages of the race.
Good juice, Nils, thanks! We wonder what UAE Team Emirates, and more to the point Jonas Vingegaard, make of all this!
Tinker Tygart uses USADA spies 🕵️♂️
The ongoing feud between USADA, WADA, CHINADA (stemming from the swimming doping scandal) and probably anything else with an -ADA suffix, is hotting up, as WADA released an explosive statement accusing USADA of allowing athletes they’ve caught doping to continue competing as long as they become “undercover agents” for the national anti-doping body.
WADA says USADA were doing this without notifying them, and were breaking not just WADA Code but their own USADA rules. WADA said it knew of three undercover agent cases between 2011 and 2014, Reuters reports, without those athletes facing sanction for their doping violations.
USADA CEO Travis Tygart said WADA were aware of this operation, and that one of the popped athlete’s involvement was necessary for a DEA and FBI investigation into a human- and drug-trafficking scheme.
“When USADA and other anti-doping organizations obtain information about misconduct and potential violations, it’s critical that we pursue the truth with all the resources at our disposal, and there are protections for both whistleblowers and those who provide substantial assistance,” Tygart said. “It’s an effective way to get at these bigger, systemic problems … if you’ve got agents [actors within these schemes] or others who are preying on athletes and trafficking … I think it’s totally appropriate.”
We have one question: When are we getting a movie adaption of a popped athlete turned informant?
Feed Zone 🥖
💪 Four months after his horror crash, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates) won the Vuelta a Burgos time trial. Matt de Neef has the story here. Elsewhere at the race, Sepp Kuss also won a stage, his first victory since last year’s Vuelta a España, as did Jayco-AlUla’s Caleb Ewan.
👨⚖️ South Australian prosecutors have confirmed the charges levelled at former professional racer Rohan Dennis following his alleged role in the death of his wife, Mel Hoskins, in late 2023. More on this story here.
🐝 Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s move to Visma-Lease a Bike has been confirmed, as she targets the 2025 Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
🇳🇴 Magnus Cort won the Arctic Race of Norway, confirming his leader’s jersey with an uphill sprint to the stage 4 victory.
🇸🇮 Primož Roglič will not race the Clásica San Sebastián this weekend, Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe have confirmed, and the Slovenian’s Vuelta a España (August 17) participation is still up in the air too. Roglič suffered a fractured vertebrae in a crash on stage 12 of the Tour de France.
😔 British women’s team Lifeplus-Wahoo will cease operation at the end of the season. “We had secured sufficient sponsors for 2025, but we were unable to sell our naming rights for a large enough amount. That budget does not match the terms of a UCI ProTeam license application,” the team said in a statement. “The ever-increasing cost of racing, the loss of sponsorship income without participating in the Tour de France Femmes, the recent bike thefts, and an ongoing partnership dispute. All of this has led to our last race. It’s been a rollercoaster since our humble beginnings in 2016, but it’s been a pleasure.”
🍪 TdFF team Saint Michel-Mavic-Auber 93 is also in financial difficulty with one of its major sponsors set to depart, Le Télégramme reports.
🔀 In transfer news, Koen Bouwman moves from Visma-Lease a Bike to Jayco-AlUla, and Juliette Labous swaps DSM Firmenich-PostNL for FDJ-Suez.
🤕 Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek) crashed out of the Vuelta a Burgos this week, and is thankfully doing okay. “Sad for the team that despite perfect positioning we couldn’t avoid this,” the Brit tweeted alongside a video of the crash. “I landed directly on my head and with some dizziness decided it was not wise for myself or others to continue.”
🎙️ Cycling commentary legend Phil Liggett (80) has announced the Paris Games will be his last Olympics and that he expects to have retired within the next four years.
Cycling on TV 📺
Saturday August 10th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Evening Session (Men’s Madison @ 17.59 BST)
(11:45-15:40 ET/16:45-20:40 BST/01:45-05:40 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
Clásica San Sebastián
(10:00-12:30 ET/15:00-17:30 BST/00:00-02:30 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
Sunday August 11th
Paris Olympics 2024 – Track Cycling, Morning Session (Women’s Omnium – Scratch @ 11:00; Tempo @ 1157; Elimination @ 12:53; Points @ 13:56 / Women’s Individual Sprint Final @ 12:45 / Men’s Keirin Finals @ 13:23 Gold @ 13:32)
(05:45-09:45 ET/10:45-14:45 BST/19:45-23:45 AEST) BBC/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, NBC/Peacock🇺🇸, CBC/TSN/Sportsnet🇨🇦, Channel 9🇦🇺
La Polynormande
(10:30-12:50 ET/15:30-17:50 BST/00:30-02:50 AEST) Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, FloBikes🇨🇦, Staylive🇦🇺
Monday August 12th
Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift – Stage 1
(07:00-11:00 ET/12:00-16:00 BST/21:00-01:00 AEST) ITV/Eurosport/Discovery+🇬🇧, Peacock🇺🇸, FloBikes🇨🇦, SBS🇦🇺
💩 Tom Dumoulin of the week 💩
Yep, bringing the already low tone down even lower briefly, as an Astana Qazaqstan rider at the Vuelta a Burgos calmly, yet urgently, peels off from the peloton for an emergency toilet break in a field.
And finally …
We’ll leave you with the incredible scenes from Biniam Girmay’s return home to Eritrea and the celebration that awaited him. Absolutely bonkers. Love it.
🧺 Send us yer laundry pics
“I’ve enjoyed the Tour so much that me and couple of mates decided to embark on a French-themed ride through the suburbs of Melbourne,” writes Pete Palmieri, attaching today’s featured laundromat.
“We took in sights such as the Street Crepes food truck in Coburg North, rode down French St in Footscray, marveled at the queue at Lune Croissants and wondered if Tony French Solicitors actually spoke French.
“Anyways – during our travels we stumbled upon this laundromat in Carlton. It was a grubby little place – not sure if your clothes would come out cleaner than when they went in. Also, have a look at the sign above the green (blue, teal???) dryers – it’s a little bit confusing.”
As always, we are accepting your laundry photos (especially ones with the doors open so we can Photoshop riders inside the drum) to star in Spin Cycle. Either send them via the Discord or shoot me an email: [email protected]
Until next time …
That’s all folks! Thanks to Pete Palmieri for contributions to today’s edition and a big thank you to all of you who have signed up already as Escape Collective founding members. If you haven’t there is no time like the present. To smooth the process just click this link here and hit the Join Today button in the top right of the page.
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Spin Cycle
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