Wheel-Sucker DISRESPECTS the Breakaway

Welcome to the Butterfly Effect. I'm Chris Horner. This is Stage 3 Tour of Romandie 2026. Today's day four because they had a prologue too. But when we take a look at today's stage, let's look at the 176 kilometer course. I'll call it 110 miles in length. Three category climbs. We look at the two softer ones to begin with and then with 141, excuse me, with 41 kilometers to go in today's stage, we've got a nine kilometer climb at about six percent. It's not really a super stick of a climb, that's for certain, but it is pretty long at nine kilometers. That means what? That means some fast guys just like we saw at yesterday's stage two might be interested into in today's stage three when we're talking about Dorian Godon and we're talking about Finn Fischer-Black who went podiums on yesterday's stage. Tadej Bogacar won stage two, so he might be interested in winning today's stage three too to make it a trifecta. When the cameras come on, we're going to see seven riders up front. When we look at the seven riders, the biggest thing that I want you to know when you're looking at this breakaway is Damiano Caruso is a wheel sucker. There's absolutely no doubt about it. The Bahrain Victorious rider is sitting on the six companions at front. When we start looking at the three FDJ riders up there, you got Lorenzo Germani up there, Josh up there, Josh Kinch, and Remy Rokas up there. That's three FDJ riders. The highest on the general classification is Georg Steinhauser from EF Education, and then Steph Cross is there from Pseudo Quickstep. We start looking at the last rider that I haven't mentioned. That's Sam Oman from Little Trek. So seven riders. One's a wheel sucker. Six are working fantastic. FDJ is on a mission. They're working, but so is everyone. Steinhauser's doing some big pulls up there too. There's no doubt about it. He's doing his work. Sam Oman, Little Trek, same thing, but every time, every time when you see the Bahrain Victorious rider Damiano Caruso who went second at the Giro d'Italia to Egon Bernal in 2021, he's a wheel sucker. There's no doubt about it. The only thing I can come up with when I'm sitting on the Chesterfield, why he's sitting on Bahrain Victorious, they're interested in protecting the podium general classification with Lenny Martinez. Either that or he's just hoping these six riders will pull him along all day long. And honestly, they seem to be pretty happy to do it. Now I take you into 67 kilometers to go, but first let's back up and look at how the circuit's designed. As we see the map, there's one big loop. Then there's a second big loop there. Then there's a third big loop and some of these overlap with each other. So they're going to pass the start finish line before the very finish of today's stage. Before that at 65 kilometers to go. But now we're coming into 67 kilometers to go, which means we're coming into the city and there's this roundabout. You see the wheel sucker Damiano Caruso. He's sitting at the back. He's a little relaxed. Got one hand off the bars as they're coming into this hard roundabout, right roundabout with a hook to it. We see the first rider up front. That's Josh as he's coming through from FDJ. He's got his two teammates on his wheel. When he comes through, it's going to be hard to tell, but what's really happening here, Remy Roca sitting in second position, clips the pedal. He goes up high. Back to film up just a hair. I want to show you as they're entering because you had the motorcycle official there running across the street a little bit close in front of the FDJ riders. This could cause a little bit of chaos, but it doesn't seem to really have the main effect. Again, Josh comes through the thing, cut through the roundabout. Excuse me. The pedal is clipped there from Remy Roca and then he's crashing. Now we're going to see behind him going down is the Sam Oman there from Little Trek and then we got EF Education Steinhauser that's coming into it. You look just at the pseudo quick-step rider. He's missing it, but we got to go up front to look at the third FDJ rider because as Remy Roca was crashing, it looks like his leg is stuck out in the street and we see Germani coming through. I think he's going to clip his foot there and that's going to cause Germani to crash and go into the curb. Now I got to believe Germani might have possibly made this, so I think it's the foot right there that caused Germani to crash as he's hitting the gutter. We look at the back. We look at the wheelsucker back there, Damiano Caruso. He's jumping up on the curb avoiding all the carnage there and the fans are jumping out of the way and you see the father with his little kid there and it's not a stroller, but one of those push things that the kids have. He's pulling it back trying to give some space there to the wheelsucker as Bahrain Victorious makes it through and along with Josh that was at the front for FDJ, he made it through. We see him looking back at the carnage that's happening there and when we go over to the inside, well that's pseudo quick-step right there as Steph Cross has made it through the inside, so three riders have come out all right, four have gone down, two FDJ, one EF and one Little Trek. They all get up pretty quick with the exception of Remy Rojas, but you see he's got his chain dropped as he's trying to get that back on. His mechanic comes running out quick. I mean his mechanic's faster than the peloton is going at this moment, so the mechanic runs over there, switches bike, he gets going and you see the cars just blazing right by him that are not none of his team cars. They're leaving him out there. He's getting stuck out there in nowhere land. You see him looking back as he's looking back right at our camera. That means the officials can see the camera too, so he can't get behind the car at this moment, but later we'll see him start getting on to the back of the group again because remember two of the riders in that group of six up there are his teammates, so sure they just backed off the throttle. The gap was at about two minutes and 20 seconds at that point in time and now they're crossing the finish line with about 65-64 kilometers to go and he's back on. Seven riders in the front with about two minute and 10 second gap on the peloton. Now throughout the time the video's been on, it's been UAE Team Emirates holding the gap at two to two minutes and 20 seconds and Ivo Oliveira and Vegard Stekelhagen are the two riders doing the bulk of the work for UAE Team Emirates. We go back up front now and I take you into about 45 kilometers to go. That means we're about four or five kilometers away from the main climb of today's action to start on stage three of Tour Romady. This is when we see a little bit of conversation between FDJ right there, Josh and Remy Rojas. They're telling Josh you better start sitting on right now. I would have thought they would have started doing this a little bit sooner to try to save some power and just sell out two riders on the front but they do got the tactics starting to get a little smarter at this moment as the two FDJ riders start selling out on the front of this seven rider break. Now we look back at the peloton still UAE Team Emirates that came through the finish line and drilling it on the front with the same two riders. We go up front just as we're not quite into the climb and we see Remy Rojas is the first to drop from this group of seven. Once he drops, Germani starts getting on the front. Lorenzo Germani the Italian rider for FDJ riding for a French team. He's got the New Zealander in this group right here. Josh said he's trying to drill coming into this climb. So Germani's putting on a show right now. We go back and look at the peloton. The gap's at about two minutes at this point in time. UAE Team Emirates are still on the front. Go back up to the front. Germani starts getting dropped. As he's getting dropped, pseudo quick step Steph Cross is on the front for a little bit and before you know it the first real attack here on stage three of Tour Romady when the cameras have come on proper. This is the wheel sucker Damiano Caruso that's throwing in his attack. Don't like this move at all. He's been wheel sucking throughout the day and you can tell from my expression of calling him a wheel sucker multiple times that he's a knucklehead too. At Damiano Caruso's going up the road, we look just behind as the brake starts blowing up all over the place but Steph Cross and Steinhauser from EF Education are working together to try to hold the gap up there to the wheel sucker. We go back. The rest of the guys are all blowing up back there. Sam Oman from Liddell Track was blowing up. Josh blew up a little bit early too but the FDJ rider still digging with everything he's got but the gap's getting bigger and bigger. Go back and look at the peloton. At this point in time, Red Bull Bora Hans goes on the front. I'm like we got two knuckleheads in today's stage three. Is that what's happening right here? And then we see that is Danny Martinez on the front and he starts drilling it. While he's drilling, if we back the film up just a hair while UAE Team Emirates were still on the front, we saw a bunch of the fast guys start coming out the back because we saw Casper Pedersen. He was coming out the back along with Axel Zingel there from Vismalisa Bikes. So those are the two faster guys that were in the peloton to begin with. Now Red Bull Bora Hans is drilling it on the front with Danny Martinez and I can only assume that they're hoping to get rid of stage one winner or prologue winner. There was no stage one. It was the second day but the prologue winner Dorian Godin who tried to win yesterday's stage. So as they're drilling it at the front, I'm sitting back on the Chesterfield and I don't know if I like this move right now. I'm a little bit sus on this move because Red Bull Bora Hans goes. Danny Martinez has not shown a whole lot of form here at Tour of Romandy or the Belgium Classics at Liège. Best on Liège Flesh and Amstel Gold before here. So Danny Martinez is throwing down on the front. We look at Tadej Pogacar. He's in a fine position. Lipovic is up there too. Finn Fischer's around the front of the group too and as Danny Martinez starts drilling at the back of the peloton starts hurting a little bit. We go up and we look at Caruso. He's getting the gap up to about 15 seconds not quite 20 if I remember correctly on the two riders chasing him. Now we go back down and look at the peloton and Primoz Roglic has found his way up to the front of the peloton sitting second wheel right behind Danny Martinez right now from Red Bull Bora Hans group. They're swarming all over the front. You got to look a little bit hard probably in Okay Primoz Roglic is on the front. I'm like oh this guy used to be a first page rider. You know the Slovenian's in a good position but he only has one teammate left. So now we start going up and we see Caruso's got that gap still around 20 seconds trying to extend it out. We go back and look at the back of the peloton but off the back of the peloton excuse me my old teammate Bob Jungels and Dorian Godon the prologue winner and yesterday's stage second on yesterday's two as as Bob Jungels is drilling it back there he's trying to hold the gap as close as he can because they know what they know this is a soft climb they know over the top with 31 32 kilometers to go it's a soft descent and they know it goes into the finish but that's a long distance at 32 kilometers to go so if there's any hesitation at the front or if Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe who had some numbers at this point in time if they if they fall apart before the top of the climb well they can find their way back on. Okay we go back up front we look at Caruso there and then we go back to the peloton Primoz Roglic's MIA it's Luke Tuckwell on the front Lipovitz is near the front Pogge same position but look at the back of the peloton there and you see the Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe rider that's dangling off the back of the peloton there that's the fourth one of their riders that's not Primoz Roglic either they gotta go around the bend and then you see Primoz Roglic he's way off the back now remember Dorian Godon and my old teammate Bob Jungles is back there somewhere but we go up a little bit further and find Primoz Roglic he's going over to the feed zone grabbing some bottles this rider used to be first page riders one of the highest paid riders in the peloton you're 2.2 kilometers from the top of the climb and you got to take a couple bottles at this moment this makes no sense to me now all that suspicion that I had about this this team Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe strategy working on today's stage three of getting rid of Dorian Godon I'm starting to believe it's just not going to happen because you look at Luke Tuckwell at the front and you know that he'll work on the front but he's racing for general classification or is on the general classification before the stage started I don't know if he's racing for it but as he's drilling it and you look at Finn Fischer you know he's their sprinter Lipovitz doesn't know how to lead out anybody from his teammates in the final sprint so I don't know if I like this move I don't even know if these three guys with the help of Adrian back there that's swinging on the back of the group that's found his way a little bit closer to the front and then gets near the front and on the front later that's only four riders and only two can do the work one's GC and one's their sprinter so I don't know if I like this okay we go up to one kilometer to go we see Sam Oman is caught right here one kilometer to go on this final climb and as Sam Oman's getting getting caught keep that in mind that's Liddell Trek Liddell Trek still have Bach Mollema in this group and they still have their fast kid Albert Philipson so with Sam Oman caught we go up and look at the top of the KOM Damiano Caruso still holding about 30 seconds but the problem is after the top of the KOM it's not a crazy technical descent all the way down to the finish of today's stage three it's a softer descent so as he's up there solo you got to believe the two guys behind have some ability with Steph Cross and with EF Education Steinhauser back there getting back on we go back and look at the peloton the main thing to look at now is Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe's on the front of the group but look at Team Ineos originally if I back to film up they had two riders in this front group of about 30 plus riders those two riders Carlos Rodriguez the other ones was Lawrence Duproux now I can only find Carlos Rodriguez which means what it means Lawrence Duproux must have dropped off the back which means what Bob Jungels that was helping Dorian Godon means they must be somewhere back there but the cameras haven't found them yet so we start going down the descent and we see what's going to happen well you know Liddell Trek's going to get on the front because Sam Oman's no longer in that front group he got caught with 1k to go but they still have Albert Philipson as their sprinter and they still have Bach Mollema so we see two riders from Liddell Trek on the front two riders from Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe that's Adrian and Luke Tuckwill up there four riders rotating through then we're coming into about 22 kilometers to go back up to the back behind the peloton now we see Team Ineos are coming into the picture Dorian Godon is coming back he's got he's got Duproux there and he's got AJ AJ August up there the Ineos rider the American young kid they're coming back on three guys they're flying they're doing 88 kilometers an hour they're about 10 seconds off the back we go back up front now and we see Damiano Caruso Bahrain victorious looking over he's looking over like oh I see those two guys coming I might get caught again these guys might be a little bit upset at me for sucking wheel throughout this whole race well Damiano Caruso still does not sit up he keeps chasing as he keeps pulling up front trying to hold off the two chasers back there we go back and look at Dorian Godon as he's reached the back of the peloton now and he's starting to get some reach into his back pocket and get some calories in because he knows he's got about 18 kilometers to start refueling before he's got to get into today's sprint of stage three now what does that tell you that tells you if Dorian Godon just got back on that tells you that he's got three teammates in here AJ Duproux and Carlos Rodriguez and you know Ineos are going to start putting it on the front because they didn't ride all day yesterday for no reason now it just takes a moment longer before we start seeing that there's three teams on the front Liddell tracks up there we see Ineos is up there Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe have one guy Luke Tuckwell as Adrian's backed off the front five guys and now right shortly after that we see that Caruso's all wrapped up so there's three guys in front Caruso still sucking wheel it's unbelievable I don't know what he's doing this is ridiculous tactic the gap is only at about 50 seconds one minute at this point in time and Damiano Caruso starts sitting on this makes no sense to me whatsoever I know EF Education Steinhauser's a threat on general classification maybe I mean two minutes and 20 seconds down on GC but they're always worried about some kind of top 10 placings with Bahrain-Victoria so that's the only thing I can think of Caruso still sitting on the back we go back there and look at the chase they're throwing everything into it five guys three different teams on the front drilling it like crazy Taddei Pogacar and Groschartner it's got one teammate with them in a fantastic position I take you into all the way into seven kilometers ago step cross looks back over his shoulder and he's looking at Damiano Caruso the wheel sucker and at this point in time he just shakes his head he can't believe it because the gap has come down to below 20 seconds at 18 seconds so Steph Cross is still pulling on the front Steinhauser still pulling on the front we go into five kilometers to go and now we finally see Caruso start taking a pull at the front of the group here as the gap's down to just about 15 seconds Caruso's on the front he's taking a baby pull about 150 meters he's been sitting on all day now he's 150 meter pull and he rotates off the group behind is throwing everything into it with still the same five guys or was the same five guys because now we're going to see Dupluis is the first to blow after he blows it's Bach Mollema's time from Liddell Trek to start blowing after Bach Mollema blows it's Luke it's Luke up there from Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe he starts he blows once Luke blows the last guy Sam Oman Liddell Trek that was in the break originally he's on the front but then he blows as Sam Oman blows that means it's AJ August up there August is throwing everything into it's got the gap down to about six seconds he's going to pull with everything the three riders up front are still rotating through the road has been rolling a little bit but now we're coming into 2.5 kilometers to go it's the roundabout where we saw the crash earlier where I said that Remy Rojas clipped his pedal well as we see they're coming into the roundabout the three riders in front AJ August there he flies through the roundabout and he's wrapped them all up now things are gonna get a little bit tricky we see Groschartner as AJ August started to roll past the three breakaway guys I backed the film up just a hair Dorian Godon was sitting in about 10th position coming into this roundabout and passed a ton of them through the roundabout so you know it's not slippery as he comes out of the roundabout he's right there with with Finn Fischer Black and Tadej Pogacar Finn Fischer Black moves up just a little bit in front of him as Tadej Pogacar is opening up the gap to his teammate he's getting tricky trickster right here for UAE team members he is allowing Groschartner to start going up the road we look at Damiano Caruso still there too and Groschartner doesn't quite catch on to the tricks that Tadej Pogacar is trying to pull why is he trying to open up the gap if he opens up the gap to Finn Fischer he knows excuse me if he opens up the gap to his teammate Groschartner he knows that Finn Fischer and Dorian Godon who are behind him at this moment have to come around him and close the gap sprinters always want to be on sprinter wheels they don't want to be leading out sprinters so that's what Pogge is trying to do it didn't work because Groschartner didn't know exactly what to do and hesitated too many times and Pogge does the trick a second time he's like it almost worked the first time let me try it the second time so we see as he starts getting the gap Dorian Godon has to close up the gap as we're coming through the next turn he closes up the gap and as he does he's out sitting there near the front and we got to take a look at Carlos Rodriguez Carlos Rodriguez is a little bit out of place he's sitting in about ninth tenth position at this moment Carlos Rodriguez should have been the one to come up and close this gap now we know because we see Carlos Rodriguez come to the front that he's caught on that hey I got to stop racing for general classification and I got to start helping my teammate Dorian Godon try to win here so Carlos Rodriguez is coming to the front Groschartner's up there now but we're coming into the first of the big attacks coming from Pablo Castrillo at 1.5 kilometers to go as Pablo Castrillo hits out as they're coming into the final right bend at 1.2 kilometers to go Groschartner starts to blow Carlos Rodriguez accelerates around Groschartner to close the gap and this time Dorian Godon's going to start playing his first trick on Tadej Pogacar he goes I just saw that move that Pogge did on me I don't want to lead out Pogge now because we're coming into a K to go so I'm going to open up the gap so he starts to open up the gap and Groschartner has to throw everything in to close it back up we're coming under one kilometer to go we see the banner there is Pablo Castrillo and and Carlos Rodriguez along with Groschartner's at the front then then we got Dorian Godon and Tadej Pogacar now we come into about 900 meters to go take a look at Carlos Rodriguez he looks over to the right side there see Dorian Godon he wants to know what does he want me to do Dorian Godon gets on the radio and immediately see Carlos Rodriguez go to the front of the group once he goes to the front of the group Pablo Castrillo's there we see Groschartner start to blow on the right side as he's passing dropping by there of Tadej Pogacar up front in front of Tadej Pogacar is Dorian Godon so with Carlos Rodriguez throwing everything into it Dorian Godon's going to start playing his second trick here he's like that work almost worked coming out of that corner let's try it again we're using the same tactic Pogge used so he starts to sit up at about 400 350 meters to go he's setting up and letting Pablo Castrillo Carlos Rodriguez go up the road that's his teammate there on the front so he knows that Tadej Pogacar Dorian Godon knows that Tadej Pogacar has to close that gap he moves out he doesn't want to hit out too early like he did it yesterday but he wants to keep an eye on Tadej Pogacar as he's moving out to the right we're coming into about three 350 meters to go and behind Tadej Pogacar is Albert Philipson behind Albert Philipson there is Lipovitz excuse me not Lipovitz Lipovitz is on the left side so he is behind there but on the right side that's Finn Fischer Finn Fischer starts throwing his acceleration because Lipovitz doesn't know what to do and he's on the wrong side as Finn Fischer's throwing in his acceleration all of a sudden we come into about 250 meters to go so this is the moment Dorian Godon knows I got to go because Finn Fischer is going to come with some speed in the back and I got Tadej Pogacar that's still waiting on me so he starts his acceleration moves over to the left that pinches Tadej Pogacar behind Pablo Castrillo there so Pogge can't start his sprint back to film up you can see Pogge was out of the saddle he was ready to start a sprint but now he's locked in and can't has no place to go because he's getting pinched off Dorian Godon starts his acceleration but Finn Fischer Black is flying fast around the outside he's got the lead with about 150 meters to go Dorian Godon's kicking and starting to get back up to speed right now with the power in his legs we take a look at Tadej Pogacar he's starting to bump elbows back there with Albert Philipsen from Little Trek as that's happening we go up front and we see Dorian Godon side by side with 75 meters to go that means he's gained some position some centimeters back there on of course Finn Fischer Black they're still side by side at 50 meters to go behind them four wide behind them as we see parapente Sergio Aguita's there Albert's there Tadej Pogacar's all going wide across the back there going to 25 meters to go oh man we see that Dorian Godon's got the lead now he starts accelerating Finn Fischer starting to blow Dorian Godon's going to sit up just before the line and he's going to celebrate a second victory here at Tour of Romandy when we look behind him Finn Fischer gets second it's a bike toss back there between everybody as the next rider to round out the podium is going to be parapente followed by Tadej Pogacar and Sergio Aguita back there to round out the top five now this was a beautiful tactical race Pogge was using some magical tactics back there at two and just under two kilometers to go and then Dorian Godon flipped the script after Carlos Rodriguez did an amazing job to come back and play the teammate role even though he's on the general classification run Finn Fischer Black you did a good job of jumping at about 300 meters to go but your teammate Lipovic should have been leading you out that was on the left side of the road so you guys are knuckleheads again now when we start looking at everything guys fantastic race in here well done Dorian Godon to get your second stage victory Tadej Pogacar kept everything under control lost no time on the general classification still holding 17 seconds on Lipovic in second place now Primoz Roglic what do I think about this he dropped off guys at 2.2 kilometers to go to the summit of the climb and we look back there remember Dorian Godon was back there scratching and clawing his way back and made it to the back of the group how is it that Primoz Roglic got dropped from Dorian Godon and Team Ineos riders back there at the same point in time when it looks like he was on cruise control grabbing two bottles from the feed zone this guy used to be first page rider and he's one of the highest paid riders why is it that we haven't seen an interview from from anyone out there interviewing Primoz Roglic what is going on if you Primoz Roglic won't tell us in the interview start asking management over there at Red Bull Bora Hansgrohe to figure out what has happened in the Primoz Roglic and why does he look like he's on vacation here dropping off after doing some short pulls all right guys like and subscribe I'll see you guys for the next video real soon