Thanks for the transcript. That’s hilarious! Were the fucks broadcast live on American TV? (I always assume that all American channels broadcast with a delay to avoid this kind of, well, fuck-ups)
I doubt TdF Femmes is even on US broadcast, though I don’t know. I watch on GCN+. Given that this was a Matt Stephens interview it was probably only on Eurosport/GCN. I think that means Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig still has the edge, because she dropped an F-bomb in the official post-race interview with Seb Piquet after her stage win last year.
I watch it on Eurosport Germany (over their satellite TV channel), and AFAIK they share the broadcast with GCN, so it’s unfiltered. In Germany, nobody cares about forbidden words on TV anyway, English, German or any other language. The (German) commentators too were amused by the interview.
Big week of pro-cycling coming up - with the UCI combination of world champs in road / track / dirt.
It has been a really, really poor July weather-wise in the UK (even by our standards) - I cannot recall it being colder and wetter this time of year. Looks like the elite men and women road will be OK-ish tomorrow, but the DH up in Fort William today could be savage.
As always the men’s road race will be long, hard, and attritional - 271km and the final loops around Glasgow have some short, but very sharp climbs. Meant to be quite a technical circuit with a lot of cornering.
I’m doing a 25 mile TT this afternoon in the pouring rain, so looking forward to that 
Weird having the World’s before the Vuelta. But isn’t the Women’s RR next Sunday?
Belgium the clear favourite in the men’s, with Remco, Wout, and Jasper, but that seems like a too many cooks kind of situation. Van der Poel looked not in great form at the Tour. So my prediction is that the Belgians mess up their tactics and someone like Mads Pedersen wins. Mads was on amazing form at the Tour, and should be fine if the weather is shitty based on his last go-round in a UK-based Worlds RR.
Sorry you’re right - women go next weekend.
Pedersen a big presence tomorrow no question - looked great in the Tour and excels at hard cold racing. Reckon Kristoff will also show for similar reason - he’s a bit long in the tooth to win but top ten wouldn’t surprise me at all. His WC record is superbly consistent.
I quite like vdP for this, despite him failing to animate the Tour like you say. Parcours is right up his street with an off/on circuit, doesn’t have the circus of Belgium team politics weighing him down. I also reckon he was in extremely strong form last year in Aus before things went completely pear-shaped, and will feel he can put things right here.
But it’s a race of killers, at the end of the day, plenty of riders will be lining up feeling like they can win.
Belgium is in kind of a tough spot with the politics, though they voluntarily made it worse by bringing Philipsen. I understand you have to support Remco as defending champion, and van Aert as the perfect rider for this parcours, but why are they also bringing Jasper Philipsen? I’m pretty sure van Aert is as big or bigger a sprint threat at the end of this course than Philipsen is. Really not sure what he adds to the team.
Van der Poel’s in a better team situation, I agree. I think his Tour form was rumoured to be the result of being sick, so he might be in shape for this. He’s not the only Dutch threat at this race - van Baarle could win on a long attack like his Roubaix win, for example, but Dutch tactics will be all about getting MvdP to the last lap at the front of the race.
Pogacar is a legit threat, too. He won Flanders this spring, which is a pretty similar sort of race. Would be fun to see World Championship stripes contesting grand tours next year.
I’m rooting for MvdP today. But there are at least 20 guys who could win this.
But the Belgians really brought the best team by far.
I fully support anyone’s right to protest anytime, anywhere.
I question the wisdom of hijacking a sports event to do so.
Good Lord, what a brutal race. And still 85 km to go.
Stay on your bike Matthieu!
MvdP has 38 seconds lead. 38 years after the last Dutchman who was 38 years old won the rainbow jersey.
The Dutch will go crazy as if team Oranje had won the World Cup.
Just a couple more days, then we can compare;)
Holy shit 1:50
He’s giving biking lessons to Pogacar and WvA.
What a fantastic race - vdP in majestic form, truly the strong man of the day on a brutal course. Epic grit to get back up off the ground and increase his lead - riding 15k wearing a slipper didn’t seem to bother him much.
Second place again for Wout will no doubt generate some introspection, but it looked a fair result. Course like that (like a tarmac cross course) doesn’t lend itself to team tactics and it just came down to who was the strongest.
Thought Pog looked dead last two laps, so he did very well to get past Pedersen onto the podium.
1st Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, WC RR, 2nd Flanders and E3. Not a bad season, even if his only achievement at the Tour was leading out Philipsen a couple times.
Pedersen not beating Pogacar for 3rd was an indication of how brutally hard the race was.
And an indication of what a great will Pog has. He looked spent on the last two rounds, but somehow managed to squeeze out his last energies to beat Pedersen in the sprint for third place.
Prediction: MvdP will wear WC kit with white shorts instead of black with disturbing regularity for the next year.