"The Col du Granon woke the beast."
Good morning,
These are today's quotes and interviews worth your time.
Stood out to me today: "I was too out of breath to laugh, but inside I was cracking up."
¡Vamos!
🎤 INTERESTING INTERVIEWS
"He has so much talent that he didn't need to look after himself as much as others. But after losing that Tour, things really changed."
George Bennett on Tadej Pogačar, NSN Cycling, and getting older
George Bennett spent sixteen years at the WorldTour, including stints at Visma | Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG, making him one of the more credentialed observers in the peloton. He sat down with Marca in Catalonia and covered a lot of ground: his new team, his proximity to Tadej Pogačar's transformation, and what it looks like to age gracefully in a sport that keeps getting faster.
On Pogačar, Bennett had a front-row seat to the pivotal moment. "I was with him when we lost the Tour de France on the Col du Granon. I think that was the key moment in his career. Back then he already had enormous talent, but he didn't work as hard as others. Now he's completely focused: he trains so much, he's changed his diet. He has the greatest talent in the world and a very strong mentality. He's unstoppable." The simplest summary: "The Col du Granon woke the beast."
Bennett also confirmed Pogačar's reputation for early-career indulgence was not a myth: "He has so much talent that he didn't need to look after himself as much as others. But after losing that Tour, things really changed. When you combine talent and work, the result is unstoppable."
On NSN Cycling, Bennett was optimistic but clear-eyed about what it represents. The team has cut all ties with its Israeli roots, which he described as a liberation: "Last year was very complicated. Having to compete while dealing with external factors is not pleasant at all. Now we race with more freedom."
He described the team's base in Girona, the 14 riders living together in Andorra, the regular shared dinners, and called it more united than anything he's been part of before. Biniam Girmay will be a central figure, especially at the Tour de France, and Bennett is eager to work alongside him.
His own ambitions are more modest: he's 35, approaching 36, still enjoying it, and clear about his exit terms: "When I stop enjoying it, I'll stop. The day I feel it's too hard or too dangerous to continue just for money, that will be the moment to quit."
"When I abandoned the Tour, I already knew I was going to propose it to Eusebio."
Enric Mas on returning from injury, the Giro d'Italia, and why he stopped listening
Enric Mas hadn't raced since July. A thrombophlebitis from a crash at the Mûr de Bretagne, then more recently a serious wrist injury that kept him from racing. He spoke to Marca at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, with no real idea yet of where he stands.
He was honest about the uncertainty. "We tested racing in Terres de l'Ebre because the wrist was still quite sore and the injury hadn't fully healed. I hope it doesn't bother me too much this week and I can help the team as much as possible." When asked about form, he didn't pretend: "Pre-season wasn't bad. But when I was heading to the UAE Tour to start building rhythm, I had the accident with my hand and that set me back several weeks, even a month. We arrive with uncertainty. Cian [Uijtdebroeks] is coming in very strong form, so I imagine it'll be a case of working for him. My own situation is a big unknown — I haven't really raced since July."
The bigger story is the Giro d'Italia. After years at the Tour de France, he decided to make the switch. "When I abandoned the Tour, I already knew I was going to propose it to Eusebio [Unzué], and he accepted from the first conversation. I think the team had already thought about it, so there was nothing more to it — just one conversation."
His ambition is clear. "Honestly, I'd like to be on the podium. I'm going to prepare properly: I'll finish here in Catalonia, then I'll have a solid build-up with a three-week training camp with the Giro block." On Jonas Vingegaard and João Almeida as favorites: "I don't think Vingegaard is going to pay much attention to Almeida. More likely it's Vingegaard doing his own race, and we'll be the ones watching him."
He also addressed the media criticism that has followed him throughout his career. He was brief about it: "What really matters to me is what my family and friends say, and the team, of course. I don't pay attention to everything that's said. Not many people can handle the noise from outside — if you did, it would be a disaster."
"There is a real chance that Evenepoel can follow him."
John Wakefield on load management, VO2 max, and what Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe learned from the UAE Tour
John Wakefield, Director of Coaching at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, gave Het Nieuwsblad a clear-eyed reading of Remco Evenepoel's mixed start to the season. The time trial in the UAE Tour was outstanding. The climbing stages were not. Wakefield's explanation was simple: the sequence of Mallorca, Valencia, then straight into the UAE Tour left Evenepoel with accumulated fatigue he couldn't shake. "It was indeed a matter of load. Maybe it was a bit too much and that built up fatigue that affected his performance."
The team's response has been to adjust training. Not the volume, but the intensity, with the goal of arriving at races fresher without giving up the gains from recent months. The work on VO2 max continues. "You need those shorter efforts to improve your VO2 max," Wakefield explained, "but a higher VO2 max will also help you sustain longer efforts."
Before Evenepoel's crash at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, Wakefield had been direct about expectations for the race: "There is a real chance that Evenepoel can follow him," he said, referring to Jonas Vingegaard. Florian Lipowitz represents a second option at the team, with no fixed hierarchy between the two. "If one of them is in a strong position in the general classification, we will adapt."
On the Tour de France: ambitious but grounded. "On paper, yes," Wakefield said when asked if winning with one of the riders is realistic. "But you depend on support, competition, and also luck along the way."
🏆 THE SERGE BAGUET AWARD
"It was actually a brilliant image. We see him sitting on the road, his hands supposedly glued to the road. But suddenly he realized we weren't going to stop, and there he was waving his hand around. And then he just sprinted off into the bushes. I saw the fear in his eyes, as if he were thinking, 'Those guys on their bikes are a crazy bunch of wild bulls! They won't stop, they'll kill me.' I was too out of breath to laugh, but inside I was cracking up."
— Yves Lampaert, De Reconstructie, makes fun of the climate activist who supposedly glued his hand to the road at the Ronde van Brugge, apparently expecting the race to stop — only to panic and run when it didn't.
Wonder what The Serge Baguet Award is all about? Check it out here.
💬 QUICK QUOTES
"Before the start, one of our mechanics had jokingly told me he'd treat me to something at the Lego store if I won. I'm curious to see if he'll keep his promise. What do I want? A scale model of Ayrton Senna's race car." — Carys Lloyd, Het Nieuwsblad, after taking her first WorldTour win at the Ronde van Brugge Women at age 19.
"Being at 100 percent by Friday? That seems impossible to me." — Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe DS Patxi Villa, Het Nieuwsblad, on the impact of Remco Evenepoel's crash at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
"It was better to use both our teams to put Almeida and the rest behind. Remco had 6 teammates up front, I had 5. That way we would have gotten to the finish faster. I thought that was smarter. I saw no reason to take over." — Jonas Vingegaard, Sporza, explaining why he did not cooperate with Remco Evenepoel on Wednesday's stage at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
"What we first thought was a broken scapula after the crash in Valencia turned out to be quite a bit more, with multiple broken ribs, broken collarbone, punctured lung, and a part of a vertebra broken. It's been 7 hard and painful weeks but on Monday I was finally back on the road and able to start building up the training again." — Tobias Foss, Instagram.
"So… I had a rough crash at GP Jean-Pierre Monseré. It resulted in 11 fractures and a collapsed lung. Time to go home, recovery will take some time. My collarbone is back in place and the drain is out. The six ribs and four projections of vertebrae in my spine will need time to heal and become less painful." — Timo Roosen gives a medical update after his crash at GP Monseré last Sunday, Instagram.
"He only has four or five races left where he can score. If you skip one of them, you're simply reducing your chances of a win." — Tom Boonen, Wielerclub Wattage, on why he doesn't understand Wout van Aert is skipping the E3 Saxo Classic.
"Apparently he finds it more interesting to go to Wevelgem and do who knows what, because I think that race is absolutely not an important one for him. If he wins it, the public is far less impressed than if he wins the E3. And the E3 is, after the Monuments, one of the most important races of the spring." — Former pro, analyst, and good friend of Wout van Aert, Jan Bakelants, Wielerclub Wattage, disagreeing with Wout van Aert's decision to ride In Flanders Fields instead of the E3 Saxo Classic.
"I just have tears in my eyes. I need a moment to cool down." — Marcel Kittel, Sporza, caught on camera in the team car immediately after Dylan Groenewegen's win at the Ronde van Brugge.
"I was lying on Pogačar's bike. I heard he'd said something at the press conference about an Alpecin rider who asked how he was and whether he could have his bike back. I said he could, but the two Visma guys were still on top of me." — Tim Marsman, In De Leiderstrui, offering a first-person account of the moment after Tadej Pogačar's crash at Milano-Sanremo.
"In the peloton, if you can choose between pushing a Team Flanders-Baloise rider aside or a Visma rider, you'll always go for the rider from the first team." — Anonymous rider, HLN.
That's it for today. See you tomorrow 👋
Jay