Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Weekend Sport podcast with Jason Vine
from News Talk ZEDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
One of the planet's most iconic sporting events is underway.
Tonight's our time, the one hundred and twelfth running of
cycling's Tour de France. It starts in Lille and finishes
along the Champslice in Paris on Sunday, July twenty seven.
A great pleasure to welcome in kiw Sam Beuley, double
Olympic medallist, former elite cyclist, including the Tour de France
(00:35):
among multiple Grand tours he competed in cycling, podcaster and
now director of Sport for the Israel Premiere Tech Team,
one of the entrants in this year's Tour de France. Sam,
thanks for joining us, mate. Let's start with your role
as director of sport. What does that actually involve?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, thanks for having me on. Looking forward to the
Tour de France. That once is a rider, done a
once as a sports director, this is my second time now. Basically,
what we're what we're doing here is we're just we're
looking after the riders from in every way we can.
But obviously the main focus for us is the is
the strategy how we're going to try to win stages,
(01:16):
which is our goal here at the tour, looking into
all the finer details, the roster selection, you know what,
which riders do we have here, why do we have
them here, and all of those little things. So ultimately
we're here to try to direct the guys in the
right direction to to try to win a stage, from
from the pre race panning to d in the race,
in the race car, on the on the rider radio.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
How much does your experience on the tour and other
tours as well help in terms of preparing your riders
in the best possible way once you move into a
sporting direction role.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
I think I think past experience to bike rider is
is hugely impactful. Actually when you're when you're a sports director,
it's you kind of you can see things a little
bit from the human side. It's it's quite easy. It's
quite easy to sit in the back of behind behind
the bunch in the team car and try and play PlayStation,
but it's just not how it works unfortunately. So it's
(02:13):
I think having that experience and understanding how bike racing work,
especially especially in this modern world of cycling. It's just evolving,
so quickly. It's so fast, the strategies are different than
they used to be, so so it's important to have
that understanding of of of real world cycling, and I
think the riders respect that as well, and they understand
that I've been I've been in this position myself and
(02:34):
nine times out of ten I came out second pest.
So you kind of have you kind of had that
experience and understanding about how tough it is to win,
especially the tilt of France. It's even the tilt of
France compared to the other Grand Tours to Jiraitalia or
the Wild trustpun Is, it's a different beast. Especially it's
going to be this It's going to be the same
this year with this first week up in northern France.
Super stressful, small roads, lots of traffic, islands and roundabouts
(02:57):
and hopefully not too many, but I'm sure there'll be
a few crashes as well.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
You mentioned their strategy and how strategies have changed. Can
you just unpack them for us about Sam, how have
they changed? What's different now than it was five, ten,
fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
I think the biggest thing is just that the champions
now are the guys that are winning the most. They're
also young. When I first turned professional, when I when
I was twenty one years old, it wasn't even an
option to go to a Grand Tour. You know, you
had to you had to do your apprenticeship a little
bit and start with the smaller races, and as you
got older and a little bit stronger and a little
bit more experienced than you've got the chance to go
(03:34):
to the grand tours. Whereas nowadays the guys winning the
Grand Tours of that age or even younger at times.
So you know, this youthful exuberance these guys are coming,
they're coming out of the junior ranks or out of
the under twenty three ranks, and they're winning straight away.
So there's the hierarchy of cycling has kind of gone
in some in some degree. You know, every young rider
(03:56):
that turns professional thinks they're capable of winning, and they
want to win, and they want to race in a
way that they can win. So it's a lot more
aggressive style of racing. It's a lot faster. Races are
starting from from a long way out now, you know
how like traditionally that there'd be there'd be a structure
to it by Crasis. The start would happen after a
few kilometers, a little breakaway would go, a team would
control it and then and then we'd race in the
(04:18):
final part of the stage. But nowadays that's just racing
from from kilometer zero all the way to the finish line.
And obviously today Pagacha, who's could be the best cyclist
that's ever lived or head and heading that way at least,
you know, his dominance is also changing strategies because other
teams and competitors have to look at different ways to
try to beat them, because it's not so easy to
beat them when you just get to the last climb
(04:39):
and try and race him from bottom to the top.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Yeah, Derek g of course get an impressive fourth at
the Zero. Recently he's not on the Tour de France.
So does that mean that you don't target the yellow jersey?
That stage wins are what you're all about exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
We're we're here for stage wins. We've we've brought quite
a different team to what we to what we had
at the Giro, for example, to support Derek. So it's
all about it's all about stage wins and trying to
have a have a a divert this group that's capable
of winning on different terrains, and that's why we're here.
At the end of the day, the yellow jersey could
still be possible. The first stage is a bunch sprint.
(05:16):
We've got Pascal Lachman here who's our main sprinter in
our team, so he's here to try to try to
win the sprint stages and if he wins the first one,
he gets the ollow jersey. But there's definitely no ambitions
of having a high GC result once we get to Paris.
It's all just about trying to pick off the stages
that suit us and hopefully hopefully walk away in three
weeks time with at least one.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
You're planning, I'm sure as metronomic you know before the
race starts and here we are it's just about to begin.
How much do your plans change, Sam over the three weeks?
You know, if we get to three weeks from now,
will we get to the Champs less on the twenty
seventh and look back, will it have gone to plan?
Probably or not?
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Probably?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Not?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, You've got to be in these long and these
long three week races have to be you have to
be ready to adapt on a dime, you know, because
the anything that is in the same position you come
here with the leader. We come here with with Pascal
Akamen as our main guy for the bunch prints and
there's six opportunities for him. But if you if you
lose them on the first day from a bit crash,
(06:24):
then you have to you have to switch, You have
to make you have to come up with different ideas
in different ways to try to win stages. And uh,
it's it's likely that that our team and other teams
are gonna are going to have bad moments where you know,
sickness comes in or there's crashes and injuries and you
lose riders. Hopefully not, but it's always possible and you
have to be you have to be pretty quick to
adapt and react to those situations. You've got to get
(06:46):
the guys motivated again, get them aspired again, get them
back on track when things don't go well. So you
do have to be you do have to be pretty
adaptable in these in these three week races, and and
that that's the same for a team riding for to
try to win until to France or a team that's
just trying to win stages.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
You've got a couple of key weis in the in
the team with you, but you haven't selected them for
the tour. George Bennett and Corbyn Strong. How tough are
those conversations for you? Uh?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Yeah, George was especially tough. It was never it was
never in Corbyn's plan this year. The plan for him
was to go the Jyra, which he did and came
close to winning the stage there. So the Tour ti
de France wasn't on his on his program this year,
and that changes year by year based on the courses,
based on our on our team's ambitions. But George certainly
was was was gunning for the Tour de France, and
(07:33):
it wasn't. It wasn't an easy decision made by the
by the performance group. And yeah, it's tough because he's
one of my best mates as well, so you have
to you have to have those conversations with him from
a from a human side, been trying to be a
friend and support him so and then try to be
professional and make the right decisions and explain why those
decisions have been made. So it was it was definitely
tough to leave George at home. Would have would have
(07:55):
been great if we didn't have to, but he's he's
still he's still on track for some big races coming
up this year and.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Across at red Ball. That leaves Lawrence Pithy is the
only key we competing in the Tour of the Do
you keep half an eye on him being being a
fellow New Zealander.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, definitely try to keep an eye on all the keys,
but Lawrence especially. He's a super young, talented guy. He's
had a big breakthrough season last year and he's been
writing really well this year and his new team in
Bora Red Bull and the first the first six or
seven days of this tour to France really suits at
the start of writing. He's obviously here in a support
(08:33):
role for pretty much Rogl's. He's coming here to try
to win the Tour de France, so that would be
his primary objective to support him. But he's also the
kind of writer who, like I say, he suits the
start of racing in the first week of the Tour
de France, and he's getting better and better every year,
so I wouldn't be surprised when New Zealand shouldn't be
surprised if you see him see him up there fighting
for his own stage.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Ones outstanding at times. Yeah, and and the iconic stages
through the Pyrenees. How much do you look forward to those?
Or is that the wrong phrase? Do you do you know,
have a sense of dread around those stages as well?
Or do the riders.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
The riders probably do. I don't say much anymore. I
used to, but they're they're a little bit easier for
me now. But now that I do look, I do
look forward to those stages. I think at the end
of the day that the Tour de France is, the
Tour de France is the biggest bi cration in the world,
one of the biggest sporting events in the world. And
and like you say, those stages and the Pyrenees and
the Alps are what make this what make this race iconic. Yeah,
(09:31):
this first this first week is going to be stressful.
I think a lot of teams, including ours, are looking
forward to so having a crack at trying to win,
to win some of these stages, but ultimately probably looking
forward to getting out of out of northern France and
down to the Pyrenees where where the racing is a
bit more historical. Everybody understands how those mountains work. And
a bit more familiar and a little bit a little
(09:51):
bit safer in some ways as well. So looking forward
to getting down there and getting into those stages and
just that that's where you really feel like you're the
tiur to France. The big crowds, the you know, the
barbecues on the side of the road, all of that stuff,
the passionate spectators. So, uh, those those stages are certainly
ones I think everybody looks forward to at the Tour
de France just.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
To finish, sham, Can you put into context for us
just how big the Tour de France is. You know,
there there are a lot of cycling events, right, but
is this one clearly above all the rest? And by
how much?
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah? It is? Yeah, I think like from a from
a bike rider's point of view, the way that racing
has changed, the every every single bike race now is hard,
and the Till de France is not necessarily physically harder
than the Giro or the Walter Espania. That all three
of those those three week races sort of sit on
(10:43):
par now with with their physical level, but the tlder
France just brings that big hype, you know, brings the
pressure for the ride as it's it's the biggest, the
biggest race in the world. Everybody's watching it. We had
a briefing yesterday with one hundred and ninety one hundred
and ninety countries. It's televised in so you know all
all of that stuff. It's just it's just cycling on
(11:05):
such a biggest scale and with that comes pressure. With
it comes viewers, with it comes eyes on the race,
on the riders. So it is an enormous sporting event
and it's hard to hide from that, especially when you
get to the you get to the stage. Starts every
day and there's just thousands and thousands of people, So
that's why everybody wants to be here, and that's what's
so exciting about the Tour de France.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Absolutely well, there are a lot of people on the side
of the world, as I'm sure you'll know, stocking up
on coffee for the next three weeks or so to
watch it through the night. Sam, all the best to
you and the Israel Premier Tech team for the running
of the Tour de France this year. Appreciate you very
much taking the time to jet to us.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Cool. Thank you very much, No, thank you mate.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
That is Sam Beauley with the Tour de France starting
tonight in lell and just some spectacular scenery as always,
to be enjoyed well during the night over here, of course,
but certainly those cycling enthusiasts among you will, as I
said to Sam, there be stocking up on the coffee
and making sure that they don't miss a moment, or
not too many moments. Anyway, of the one hundred and
(12:04):
twelfth running of Cyclings of France. The only key we
in the field is in the red ball side, that
is Lawrence Pithy, so we will keep eyes on him
in particular as the Tour de France gets underway tonight
in Leale.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
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