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Chapter 1: What is the parkour of the 2026 Amstel Gold Race like?
welcome back to the lantern rouge cycling podcast the recap of amstel gold race the 60th edition from maastricht to wolkenberg 260k is long for the men's we did the men and women's race together benji what is this parkour is it like flanders with more floundering and climbs but without the cobbles
Well, more floundering than climbs is a weird thing to say about a Dutch race, I think, personally. But I would say that when I look at this parkour, I have my brain shouting the words RVV without cobbles, which is not really like that. It's just that the length of the climbs is similar to RVV. The amount of climbs is quite significant on the parkour.
But like you pointed towards, there's no climbs there. But is it me or has it always been...
been quite difficult to predict exactly when the race will open up in this race because there's phases like the azer bosweg and so forth where there's often moves but with the early attacks from the recent top favorites like a pogacar like an mco are we sure that it's always going to be in that last 60 kilometers or is there enough chance that it happens i don't know in the in the zone from 100 to 70k already
nah i think that's the problem with the race in its current iteration is that there's a long easy section from 80k's to go until the gulperberg with like 50k's to go yeah and this is the only race that's about immune from the tale pagacha really long ranger i mean by his standards he went late last year but yeah to me it's the gulperberg kreuzberg isobosveg koiterberg it's always going to happen there
then there's also then before the second last cowberg another long flat section so it is it's not that hard like the parkour when you look at the size of the peloton it's it's not that hard when you're coming into say the third or third last cowberg it's still a huge peloton and i think bora were kind of i don't know if they're making the race hard or staying in position but both bora and visma to me they spent their whole teams
And the peloton didn't reduce before the key moment of the race, like with 50Ks to go. It was still a huge peloton on the Bembliburg when UNO X-Pace. So I think they kept that position, but unlike in Flanders or Roubaix, or Strada, I didn't really see the attrition effect. Like when you come into Monte Santa Maria in Strada, it's in pieces already. It's already a group of 20.
It's still a peloton of like 70, 80 there.
Yep, that's fair. But also when I think of the team of Remco Evenepoel at the start line here, there's Johnny Vermeer, Nico Dens, Ece Barria, Danny van Poppel, Jan Trotnik and Zim van Dijk. It's also not the team that shouts to me, we can blow up the race and reduce it to 40 riders. That I also don't see in that team. So maybe a...
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Chapter 2: How did the early attacks shape the race dynamics?
Exactly. It was kind of like the classics where you anticipate before time, Berg, and they're actually blocking and not going ahead. And like, they're just trying to maintain position, not make the race hard. But then we see before on the lower Berg, we see, you know, X FDJ come to the front. And so they're making it pretty hard.
This is with Greg, not with Gregoire, with Germany, with, I don't know who, you know, X was for, but they were doing it. And then we get to the Gulliver Berg. Bora go in front. Jorgensen gets in between Remco and Tratnik. Remco had been like very angry with people getting in the train and then- It was Echeberria who was going to launch, but then Jorgensen started half-wheeling him.
Nothing happened. And so Tratnik just kept pacing. And then now Visma got no helpers for Jorgensen. Remco's down to just Tratnik. So he has to go solo. It's still a big group. Like before the – what was the climb after the Goldberg? Kreisberg. The Kreisberg? It's still like – big group with, like we're talking three riders from FDJ, three riders from EF.
It's really not that reduced, but Remco has only one teammate. So he has to go. He doesn't. It's Romain Gregoire who attacks, somewhat surprisingly, because he's the, but he anticipates. He then gets countered. Remco comes across. Schkelmoser drags Jorgensen back. Bocalan's there as well for Ineos. We have a select five. It forms. Remco
I was expecting him to squeeze over the crest because Shkelmoza and Jorgensen had to close a decent gap. They didn't look that good.
Remco doesn't, just starts pulling, we get to a descent, fast left-hander, and this group has got a good gap, and like FDJ blocking behind, Trekker blocking behind, Remco's going to pull, this group is going to make the finish, and Remco goes through the corner first, it's like a fast left-hander with a manhole in it, and he slides out in the corner, crashes himself and Jorgensen, and now we have a group of only three.
Yeah, that was a damper on the race for sure, because we had a situation where there's a five-man group that is gradually catching basically two riders still up front, which is Frigo alone from that early breakaway, then Ardits in a second group, and then that five-man group. To see that reduced to basically three riders, because we see both Volkala and Jorgensen crash out there.
Volkala, I wasn't sure whether it was slipping out or pedals striking the asphalt. I'd have to re-watch the actual crash again.
He decided to pedal mid-apex on a wet descending corner as his rear wheel hit a manhole cover, so that ended... Predictably, yeah. But yeah, you can see Jorgensen trying to avoid it, trying to avoid it. But as is often the case, Vauquelin just slides out. He's totally fine. He actually comes back and leads out Godin for 13th later. It's Jorgensen who goes over the bars.
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Chapter 3: What strategies did teams employ during the men's race?
I mean, again, I feel like they were disrespecting Remco. I think it was offensive. Honestly, who beats Remco in this parkour when it's like no crashes and stuff? It's Pog. I know Schkelmoser beat him last year, but that was a completely different race scenario.
I am not as critical of Schkelmoser today as I am of Gregoire.
No, Schkelmoser was not pulling too much. He was doing it exactly perfect. He was nowhere he was pulling as much as Gregoire in that phase.
Okay. We'll get to the final, of course, because I do think Schkelmoser makes a bit of a mistake there.
Yeah, it was strange, wasn't it? Because he has Albert Filson behind who's fast. Albert Filson won the Trade Valley Sprint behind last year. He's new.
I don't really... Like, what's the point of teammates?
Is that a genuine question?
Yeah, like, you're with the race favorite.
Also, let me explain why you should also never pull with Remco. Not just because he's faster than you in the sprint, which he is. Maybe not for Gregoire, but... Small man.
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Chapter 4: What led to the significant crash involving Remco Evenepoel?
She was third in TDU. She was top 10 in Bradmont. She's only been a professional for like 18. She'd been a professional for less than a year.
She, at the start of 2024, she was doing athletics and duathlon and maybe a bit of triathlon before that.
And she had an injury, I think, in her preparation for the duathlon world championships, which led to her using mostly cycling in her recovery from that injury, which led to her signing up for some, maybe, could be wrong, maybe a Catalan cycling club or something where she started racing and she started winning races left and right. So very talented from the get-go.
And I think this is only the beginning, to be honest. For me, it was only a matter of time before we saw Blasi be competitive in these kind of races, but I didn't expect it to be a victory at the Amstel Gold Race in 2026. Especially because I heard from Twitter, so take this source with a grain of salt.
I heard that she was signed up last minute for this race because of a sickness from Vlodarczyk. I'm sorry, but Blasi should have always been on the list.
Yeah, that's surprising. She was top 10 in Brabant, as I said, after a bit of time off from racing.
Well, Geri won it. She's not here. Instead, she won Chambéry today.
Fair enough. But maybe Geri would have been a big help today, you would think. But anyway, Blassie, she gets to a cowberg with Ninka Vinka. She drops Ninka Vinka and she attacks her too. It wasn't just like she paced her off to her. She attacked her. And I was like, why did you do that? Because now SD works, who have teammates behind, they're going to chase you. That doesn't happen.
So Ninka Vinka, Luke checked. She went on the radio. She presumably said, I've been dropped. And it's the same with Gregoire. The rider that Scott dropped, they're never coming back. So the chance of winning the race is zero. I don't know how far it was from the finish, 20 Ks. They're also going to get caught because they're cooked. They're alone. They're not the strongest. And SDWorks don't pull.
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