Spin Cycle is Escape Collective’s news digest, published every Monday and Friday. You can read it on this website (obviously) or click here to have it delivered straight to your inbox.
Hello!
Welcome back to Spin Cycle,
Today's newsletter is a little Tadej Pogačar-heavy, but that's just a reflection of cycling these days. He's the Remco Evenepoel to our Het Nieuwsblad. He blinks and we're there to report on it.
But don't worry, there's still space for Wout van Aert and Tim Merlier, both staying true to recent form. As is TotalEnergies boss Jean-René Bernaudeau, who we'll begin with.
Bernau-don't let the intrusive thoughts win 😖
TotalEnergies' head honcho Jean-René Bernaudeau is back for his yearly clamber on to his MPCC high horse, which to be clear we are totally in favour of. If you're signing up for the right morals but telling nobody about how great and saintly you are, then what's the point?
But he may have taken it a little bit too far this time, telling radio station RMC he believes the correct response to Pogačar's dominance is for the Slovenian to publish his power numbers and provide samples that can be tested in 10 years' time (presumably when testing is even better than it is now). I mean, is this a bad idea? Please tell us what the potential drawbacks are as we are struggling to see any that would outweigh the statement that would be made by opening up numbers and providing samples in such a way.
The radio station then went on to ask Bernaudeau about our story last month that TotalEnergies (the company) could potentially leave the French team to sponsor Ineos Grenadiers instead. "No comment because I don't want to feed it," was Bernaudeau's response. Again, the sniff test is that it's not a great sign for that squad.
Tadej Poga-can you sit down please 🎾
Immediately after Flanders, Pogačar was getting a bit antsy about a flight he had to catch, and we now know the engagement he had to hurry back for was a tennis tournament in Monte Carlo where he ended up getting booed by the crowd (more on that in a bit).
But while the Slovenian was ingratiating himself with his tax-phobic neighbours, we have been doing some digging into something new we've spotted this season: Pogačar's baggy zip-up jacket.
The question that everyone (okay, at least a couple of people) has been asking is why is it so baggy? Well, we have an answer.
Did we do a good job with this story?
