Disaster For Girmay Doping Boss Found In Rider Enclosure Wild Ones TdF Stage 17 Highlights

Welcome to the Wild Ones Pro Show coming to you after stage 17 of the Tour de France. That's Jimmy, I'm producer Emily and we're back with pro cycling journalist Katie. Hi again Katie. Hello again. Thanks to Garmin and Van Ryssel for supporting the show. Now Katie, do you want to take us through today's highlights? Sure thing. So as a reminder, today was a sprint stage and it was the most straightforward start to a stage we've seen since week one. Despite a few early flurries of attacking, a four-man road and took control of the stage. With 70 points available toward the green jersey competition, it was a big day for Jonathan Milan to try and strike a decisive blow to Taddeo Pogacar's chances of taking it all. At the intermediate sprint, it was a familiar story with Milan winning from the bunch to take the maximum points remaining after the break had been through, which amounted to 11. There was another crash after that with Julian Alaphilippe ending up stuck to his bike in a ditch with Paul Penoir and Carlos Rodriguez also coming down. Things broke up on the first climb of the day but came back together. And on the second climb, Wout van Aert launched a move to try and bridge to the leaders, but he ultimately didn't make it. And heading into the final 30 kilometers, the gap to the break was just one minute. This was when the rain began to fall. The breakaway put up a valiant fight. They were about to be swept up at around 11 kilometers to go when Jonas Abramson launched a huge attack. He got away from the breakaway companions and nursed a slender gap of around 13 seconds for a few kilometers. But the will of the sprinter's teams prevailed and he was caught with 4.2 kilometers remaining. With all the GC riders safely through the five kilometers to go mark, it was game on. The roads were slick and the bunch were really stretched out around a series of roundabouts. But despite making it around all of those safely, there was still a big crash that shaped the race finale, preventing the likes of Tim Mollier and Biniam Gamay from sprinting. This led to a final sprint from a group of only around seven riders, which made life easier for Jonathan Milan. He timed his effort to perfection, winning the stage ahead of Jordi Meus and Tobias Lund-Andersen. It was job done for Milan, his second stage win of the tour, tying the Sprint Royale battle with Tim Mollier 2-2. He also took 50 points to make it a whole of 61 points in total for the day. He will feel a lot more comfortable in his green jersey tonight. After being checked over by medics, Biniam Gamay later crossed the line holding up his right arm, so he didn't put any weight on it. That didn't look too good. And there were also several others brought down in the crash. We are awaiting news of any DNFs following that one. Yes, I have to say unfortunately, Biniam Gamay coming over the line sort of reminded me of Roglic coming over the line last year, where we then found out his collarbone had been broken. He was nursing it and coming over with a teammate. I really hope that's not the case. However, let's just go back and dissect that crash slightly. Jimmy, do you want to talk us through what happened? So the crash happened pretty much under the one kilometre to go mark. It's hard to even work out who the riders were, or some of the riders involved were, because it was a grainy shot from a bazillion miles away. So we've tried to pick out at least the teams. So there was a picnic rider on the wheel of a picnic rider doing his job nice and clean. They were going forward as you would expect. Their lines were straight. And then a Cofidis rider closes in from the right side. A Groupama rider closes in from the left side. Very much like the crash that caused Philipsen to have to retire. Both of these riders squidged in together, and with it being wet and everything that happened, the picnic rider slipped out, took out the rider to his left, which is the Groupama guy, and then the catalogue of more riders comes down afterwards. Yeah, domino effect, I think, wasn't it? I think there'll probably be a fair bit of road rash tonight. We saw a few riders sliding along quite a long way. Although you were saying, Katie, sometimes when it's wet, it actually helps things, maybe a little bit more lubricant. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it can help them kind of slide further, which reduces the impact. Sometimes it's probably not very nice on the skin, but it does hopefully tend to mean less breakages and things like that. However, I would say in terms of impact, a noticeable person was Binny Mgamai, who was quite a few riders behind. But as the riders behind kind of changed their lines and put their brakes on, Binny sort of veered to his right, flipped over his bike and came down really hard on his right shoulder. We haven't got an update. We have got Binny on the comms looking for an update. So we'll bring that to you when and if we have it. Yeah, it was kind of a shame, wasn't it? Because we'd love to have seen Binny competing in this sprint. But I guess when things get wet, you start thinking, is it worth being in the mix? And he was probably doing his best to keep himself nice and safe. And then the Tudor rider in front of him sat up, essentially drifted to the right. And as he was then trying to get out of the way of the Tudor rider, it looks like his front wheel slipped on the wet roads, as you would expect. And unfortunately, he's come down as well. I have to say, it almost felt like we were waiting for a crash to happen today because it was so wet. And we have seen it a lot on these sprint stages, haven't we? You know, it's really tough because there's so few opportunities for the sprinters. And we've talked about this earlier in the show. And these teams, all the teams desperately want something out of the race. But teams who've come here with big sprint hopes and sprinters themselves want to sprint. Obviously, that's what they want to do. And there is necessarily a huge amount of speed and pressure and coming together and all that kind of stuff as you come into these finales. And when you've got even less opportunities, you know, we heard the race directors talking about not wanting to include too many sprint stages. We saw the complaints about the boring sprint stages at the weekend and all that. And so it just, and when you get breakaway wins too, it squeezes these chances for the sprinters down to so few that you've got even more pressure. And it's, I don't know whether, you know, yes, I can sort of see both sides. These riders deserve their chance to go for the win too. Same way the climbers are going to go for it on a mountain. But we haven't seen any crashes for a few days, really. And it's been nice to not see crashes. And then, as you say, we've come into this today, the rain probably, you know, that was really unfortunate timing. Without the rain, we might not have seen such a scenario unfold, but we also might have. And that's the problem is it's a much higher probability when you get these tense high speed finishes, just sort of the part of the game. It is unfortunately. I remember we talked a while ago about one of the riders, Michael Woods, he has a blog and he was saying that, you know, the ASO glorify crashes. But the thing is, it seems to be on these stages, nothing happens. And then there's crashes and there's a sprint finish. And that's what ends up in the highlights because that's what's happened. So in some ways, you know, while it's a shame that there's less opportunities for the sprinters, perhaps one of the benefits of the ASO reducing these sprint stages is that maybe it does make it safer. Yeah, potentially. And it's again, going back to the green jersey competition, you know, that Milan really wanted those points today. So he, him and his team really worked hard to bring about a sprint scenario. Obviously, if you get breakaway wins, you have everything spread out more. So it's less of a pressure point, but they're fighting for scraps, you know, everyone else just wants to try and get in the mix and have the chance to sprint. But yeah, what could you do? Like you could take sprints out of it completely and have a sprint series where the sprint teams all do 10 races and they compete for, you know, different prizes and things like that. You do get sprint specialist races, but do we take them out of grand tours entirely? Like what would that mean for the races? I don't know. You've almost described track cycling and that's kind of, it's I think ultimately what we're sort of talking about and not in necessarily our opinion, but just based on what is in front of us is perhaps the day of the grand tour sprinter is coming to an end. And I'm pretty sure we talked about it last year when we saw people like, you know, Gamay coming through as more of a versatile sprinter capable of doing more than just pure, pure sprinting. So yeah, maybe what we're actually seeing is the day of the sprinter diminishing. Yeah. I think like you do see riders like Arnaud Delee and Binnie and there's a clutch of riders who can, they can handle some hills. They can do a bit of uphill punching and finishing uphill. And it is about being versatile. And actually, interestingly enough, I do feel like we haven't seen any issues with the time cut so far. We've got two big mountain stages to come. Yeah, I know. I was just thinking that, but it makes me wonder if perhaps sprinters in general are just evolving. They're just getting better. They're getting fitter and faster and they're able to kind of keep up, which means that they have opportunities in other areas. You know, like the likes of Delee will be in the mix in Paris and he was in the mix today. So, you know, you can do more, therefore you get more opportunities. And you'd think a rider like that would have more value to a team as well because they can actually, you know, contribute as a domestique and have additional functions in a role versus say Cav last year, who was like being nursed through the tour. Exactly who you have to give those resources to those three or four riders to drag you over the mountains. So, yeah, it's a fair point. Do you want to talk us through the abandons slash injury stuff? Yeah, it's sort of good news on the whole, I would say. One rider did leave the race today, but it was Danny Van Poppel of Red Bull Bora-Hansgrohe and he has left the race to go and be with his wife who's had a baby, which is lovely news. He missed the birth because he's at the Tour de France. Maybe, I don't know the circumstances, maybe she was expecting a little bit later and it was a surprise or I'm not going to speculate, but he's gone off to be with her. Fabulous news. Congratulations to the Van Poppels. Tobias Johannesson, we need to bring you an update on him. We know that he finished the race in a lot of discomfort and was treated immediately by the medical team at the top of Van Thu. He stays in the race despite the health scare. Apparently, it was severe stomach cramps in the end rather than some kind of breathing difficulties, which sometimes when you've got a bad stitch and you're up a really high mountain, then it's not going to help with the breathing, is it? No, exactly, but he looked fine in all the pictures last night. The team were really positive and he took to the start. I did have a skim through his data from yesterday and he was performing because I was like, I wonder if there's a point where on the final climb he just all of a sudden, an issue arised and you can see it in the data, but he definitely finished strong. And finally, Louis Barré of Intermarché crashed just before the intermediate sprint today. He came down on his own and hurt himself. He received some treatment but continued on. We saw him out the back of the race later, but he did complete the stage, albeit in second last position. So, we'll see how he fares tomorrow. Potentially a very bad day at the office for Intermarché 1T. Yes, very, yeah. Well, onto some more positive news. I have picked out my favourite moment of today's race, but it didn't actually happen in the race. It happened before the race because Edward Tunes of Little Trek has a small child and that small child was aboard a balance bike this morning in the riders' paddock with his dad and was also signing autographs for fans. This kid must be, I don't know, four maybe at the very most and fans were putting their notebooks over the barrier and yeah, he must have seen his dad do it plenty of times and he was just doing it. The kid had confidence. He was doing it like he'd been doing it all his life. Get that kid an agent. Yeah, definitely. He's going to be a star. I personally think children should be children. Okay, on to our fluff up of the day. This one's been causing quite a stir overnight because Lance Armstrong's former team boss, Johan Bruniel, was spotted in the riders' paddock a couple of days ago and he's not meant to be there because he's currently serving a lifetime ban for breaking anti-doping rules related to his time with U.S. Postal Service and Discovery Channel pro cycling teams. What that means is he's strictly prohibited from going into restricted areas of the tour that require accreditation and this includes the riders' enclosure but it turns out he was there as a guest on Belden TV program Vive Lavello and the host of that show says he did actually have accreditation. It was applied for and granted in the usual way by the ASO and therein lies the fluff up. So the UCI has now released a statement reiterating that Bruniel is definitely not allowed in the team area. They say they've contacted the ASO for urgent clarification on why he got a pass and to make sure he doesn't get one again. Bruniel's since accused the UCI of hypocrisy. It must be quite tricky though going through the list of who's allowed and not allowed because you go like, right, being convicted of but this one's allowed, this one's being caught for doping but that one's allowed, this one's being caught for doping, oh no this one's not allowed. Like how do you know? Controversial. They need to stick photos up like they do in nightclubs of the bar list maybe. There's not enough room on the wall is there? Half of them are in the team cars. I feel like maybe there's an ASO intern just sweating right now thinking, oh gosh don't look at me. Anyway, second fluff up of yesterday, it was Jonas Vingegaard got wiped out by a photographer who ran in front of him after he crossed the finish line of the summit of Ontu yesterday. It wasn't on the cameras but he sort of mentioned it in a follow-up interview. Thankfully he is fine and also Jimmy had a fluff up. I did, yes. In a moment of stage, what stage was it yesterday? 16. Stage 16 madness and 450 million hours in 16 days. Yes, you all know it, you comic book geeks, I said that Venom was DC and of course he isn't and I just pickled my own brain for a moment. So do you want to retract your comment about DC? No, DC is better than Marvel. Okay. I watched the new Flash the other day and it was absolutely classic and it like nearly flopped and I don't know why because it's so good. It's got all of the OG Batman in it. I have nothing to say on the subject. Honestly, you need to watch it. You will actually like it. Yeah, sure. Do you want to talk us through some data bits? Oh yes. Jimmy's data corner. I've got some data here to see if the brand's over my left shoulder. Thank you very much Garmin. So I'm definitely going to mispronounce this so I await for Katie to correct me. Valentin Prey Pantra. Close enough. Close enough. Yeah. Okay, cool. So he won yesterday's stage as we all know. The final 15 kilometres of Mont Ventoux, he did it in 48 minutes and 16 seconds with a normalised power of 334 watts and an average heart rate of 180 which is absolutely massive and his normalised power for the final one kilometre was 405 watts. So these are just absolutely massive numbers. Especially for a guy who's allegedly 52 kilos. Well exactly. When you factor in his weight, well his power to weigh, it's just incredible. I'm quite glad to hear he's got a decent heart rate there though because the one you did the other day was like 160 or something. I was like what? I think it always comes into this average thing because I think his average, well all of their sort of averages for the day are like zone three at best. Whereas because you're focusing on the actual, the final 15. Yeah. Nice. Which is why it'd be really interesting seeing people like Pogs and Jonas's data because they got, you know, they spend such a small amount of time doing anything until they are doing something and then the contrast must be massive. It's almost like a four-hour warm-up isn't it for a half-hour effort. The Wild Ones Pro Show is supported by Garmin. And we are in some really good company because Garmin also supports some of the very best riders in the Tour de France and the Tour de France FAM. Yeah, they work with teams like Vismalisa Bikes, Houdal Quick-Step, SD Works Pro Time, FDJ Suez and many more. And because Garmin provides these teams with trainers, head units and wearables, they've got access to mountains of incredible data. And they're going to share some of that data with us throughout the coming stages. So we'll get a really interesting insight into the physical demands of the most prestigious bike races in the world. So please stay tuned for that. And once again, thanks to Garmin for supporting the show. How would you like to win a Van Rysel RCRF 105 Di2 worth £5,000? I would love to. I've ridden that bike. It is proper good. Well, sorry Jimmy, you can't. But one of our UK listeners will, thanks to our sponsor Van Rysel. That's class. The RCRF is literally a Tour de France race bike. Yeah, the official bikes of Decathlon AG2R Le Mondial. The 105 version has the same grade of carbon that the pros ride. So to enter the draw to win this bike, click the link in our description. You must be a UK resident age 18 or over and T's and C's apply. One winner will be chosen by Van Rysel and contacted by them a week after the draw closes at midnight on August 4th. I sound like one of those radio adverts, don't I? No, it wasn't fast enough. So good luck and thanks to Van Rysel for supporting the Wild Ones Pro Show. So shall we round off the day with a preview of tomorrow's stage? Yes, stage 18 is the big one. The queen stage of the 2025 Tour de France is a monster. Heading into the Alps, the peloton faces a mammoth 5,450 metres of altitude gain over 171.5 kilometres and only 46 kilometres of that is downhill and there's a negligible amount of flat. Heading uphill from Flag Drop in Vif, the intermediate sprint will be a tough one for Milan to contend, even though it arrives after just 23.7 kilometres, as the breakaway will likely still be fighting to get away. From there, three brutal climbs await. First up, the Col de Glendon, 21.7 kilometres at an average of 5.1%. It's a long climb where the GC teams will probably conserve energy while the breakaway build their lead. The second climb is the Col de Madeleine. This is a slightly shorter climb at 19.2 kilometres, but with an average of almost 8%, the pressure could really start to show on this central peak. Finally, the big one, the Col de la Loze, which features double KOM points at the summit as the souvenir Henri de Grange prize. For people who don't know, that's the highest point on the Tour each year or the toughest climb. It's a fearsome prospect at 26.4 kilometres long and with an average gradient of 6.5%, we will see cracks appear on this climb, but for whom? Also look out for the riders in the Gruppetto. It's going to be a day which may see the time cut claim its first victims agonisingly close to Paris. I wish we had a Gruppetto camp, because I think that's maybe where the hype train is. I really do too. Yeah, you see sometimes little videos that come out on the Instagram channel for the official Tour de France thing and they're popping wheelies and they're high-fiving up the crowds, you know. I would like to see that. I really would as well. I think that it's where all the fun happens, although I feel like on tomorrow's stage it's not going to be any fun. We're going to see some struggle busts going on. Yeah, my thoughts are Taddei Pogacar may have something to prove. Col de la Loze was famously, as we've said before, the place where he said I'm gone, I'm dead. Maybe he's out for some redemption, although I did also think that on Mont Ventoux and he seemed pretty chilled, so who knows. He does like making a point. Yeah. What I am very certain of is we, well maybe, no I'm not even certain of that anymore. I've just lost the plot. What I'm confident of is start to finish we're going to have some, it's going to be worth watching, isn't it? Take the day off work everyone. Definitely. I kind of like how even though he's still four minutes ahead, there are actually question marks. I still feel like it's possible that he could crack. I just, I don't know. Anything is possible. Yeah. I think, I don't know. We'll see. It's going to be a good one. Speaking of the Col de la Loze, we have a preview from YouTuber Amy Cycling Adventures, who you might remember is cycling every stage of the tour plus the transfers. She's already smashed this stage. She's long gone. She sent us this from Right. So at the top of Col de la Loze, 2,304 meters in the air. That was probably the hardest climb I've ever done. The biggest climb I've ever done. The highest I've ever been on my bike. It's called the Queen stage for a reason because that is a hard climb to finish on. You've got three big mountains today and yeah, one word to describe that, burner. It doesn't, it's actually really, really beautiful and you think, oh, this is actually really great. Not too bad. But the last 3K, the last K, I think it goes up to 16% and at that point you're tired. Well, I am anyway. So yeah, it's just such a relief to be up here and it's so beautiful. So yeah, beautiful, but hard. And I actually spoke to Amy this morning. She's actually just finished stage 20 and she was just about to start the very long transfer back to Paris. I hope she has some champagne at the ready for that final stage. I wonder if she's going to do Montmartre three times. I guess she is. I just want to stop by that point. But anyway, she said the end is in sight and she's hopefully going to finish by Friday. She has now raised over £47,500 for mental health charity Shout in the Mix, which is absolutely incredible. Well done, Amy. And we will leave a link in the bio, in the description, whatever, to donate and to watch her videos as well. Thank you very much, Amy. That's all for today. John is back here tomorrow for stage 18 and tati ho, goodbye, bye. See you. Bye.