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Heading into the start of the tour, which is on Saturday in Barcelona, we find an interesting dynamic at Team Red Bull. Red Bull management told us they have co-leaders. They told us this in the last few days that Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, enter the tour as co-leaders on their team. So, Evenepoel, bigger name, yes. Is Lipowitz a better candidate to get to the podium? What do you make, TJ, of this co-leadership situation on Team Red Bull? Well, to answer your question just now, yes, I think Florian Lipowitz is a better candidate to reach the podium. But look, Red Bull, they got a they got an issue on their hands. They did a massive investment to get Remco Evenepoel to have a legitimate
challenger for the tour. The guy's getting paid $6 million a year, but this organization just watched him go home from last year's tour very prematurely. And they watched their young German star, remember this is a German team, German star on a German team get third place, and now they're thinking like, we can't leave this guy home, but we just paid this guy all this money. They know all the data from these two riders. They know what they're capable of. If one was clearly worse, they would send them elsewhere. But I mean, I'm going with Florian, but this is going to be an issue going forward. the money says one guy, the recent performances might say another.
Yeah, it's this is a tricky situation with co-leaders at the Tour de France, and you know, even reflecting on my experience with TJ Van Garderen here, I get viscerally like tight and squirmy thinking about this. Going back to some of the Tour de Frances we did historically, we had multiple leaders. Cadel Evans, Richie Porte, my man TJ here. As a worker, the rider a rider who was charged to work for them in service of all three of them, oh, it was terrible. It divided the team, it dispersed the resources. It was tense in the team bus, too. So, I haven't been in the Red Bull board team bus. I don't know what the vibe is like. I we don't know what's underneath the surface and what's going on, but I see this
co-leader strategy and I think, oh, I get nervous. Yeah, they're going to say all the right things on camera, but I guarantee you in the bus, there's going to be some quiet moments if one person has a bad day and one person has a good day. Like one year the year Richie Porte, he flatted on stage one and I was in the front group and I was thinking like, "Hey, maybe this is my team now." But everyone in the bus was like, "What's going on here?" So Did Does anyone here think And you are a team director when you're not standing here between us talking about cycling on TV. Does anyone think it's a good idea?
Uh me, no. Yeah? No. Brent, it sounds like no. It No, I think but it's what they have to do. Like TJ was saying You know, you have a guy like uh Remco Evenepoel. If you're not going to totally give up on him and abandon him, you've got to put him in. You brought him to the team to ride the Tour de France. It's either it's all in or all out. They're still in for him, but you can't also ignore Florian Lipowitz, the German who showed extreme class last year at the Tour and has also had a storming season up to now. We're going to see it unfold right from the start. Stage one team time trial that we're going to get into quick. Remco Evenepoel's specialty in the time trials. We're going to see him already uh shaking out.
We wouldn't mind if they both look good and we have a little drama and a nice little story to follow weeks one, two, and three. Uh we'll see if Red Bull is close to the podium. Intriguing stuff going on for the city for the country of France in terms of expectations and possibilities to make it to the podium itself. You see it's been almost a decade since they had a podium finish with Romain Bardet doing it a couple of times. No winner since Bernard Hinault 40 years ago. The point here is it's been lean for Tour success for French riders. Enter Paul Sexus.
Created immense hope for France with his build-up with his first Tour highly impressive resume as you check out the particulars there of what he's done. Not just a rookie at 19 years 10 months. He's the youngest rookie in this peloton, the youngest in the Tour since 1937. Brent, welcome to the Tour Paul Sexus. Oh, welcome to the French hype show of Paul Sexus. Wow, you know, this resume, the rise that Paul Seixas has had would be super exciting, monumental if he wasn't French, but compound that with he is the French rider. They've been praying, hoping, sacrificing for a rider like Paul Seixas to come along that's going to put them back into Tour de France victory. And this is the dream
for the French public. This is what they want. Super exciting rider. I think most importantly in the graphic we just saw those results. When he's second to Tadej Pogačar, he goes with him. He's not intimidated. He doesn't back down. 19 years old, fully backs himself to go up against follow the goat. Hasn't made it happen yet this season, but absolutely for the future. Wow. Yeah, I wouldn't expect him to really challenge for the podium this year. He's only 19 years old, but then again, this is becoming more and more of a young man's sport. People come straight from the juniors into the pros, something
that never happened in Brent and I's era. And you know, he's just come and he's just kicked the door down. So, I'm not really putting a limit on what I think this guy can do. Eventually, he can be a tour winner. I would not actually be that surprised if he reached the podium, but I want the pressure to ease up on this young kid. You saw that picture of him. You know, I have a teenage son at home. He looks like one of his friends who just shows up at the house. Easily could be he could be one of them. He's going to be busy this month riding in July with all those expectations. You look at the last race he was in, the race formerly known as the Dauphiné, kind of a dry run leading up to the tour. And
look at what he went through. A pretty bad crash. He was banged up in a lot of people along with the expectations, guys, are concerned with any kind of leftover injuries that might be from that season. Yeah, I always say every year the Dauphiné is not the tour. I mean, you have I've seen people fall apart in the Dauphiné, have terrible Dauphinés, crash in the Dauphiné. We saw that with Lance Armstrong back in '03, I think, and he went on to win the tour after crashing in the Dauphiné very heavily. So, I don't put too much stock in the Dauphiné. I just put stock in the man and the rider himself. He has plenty of time to recover, to get healthy, start
at the tour. Everyone's clock starts at zero. He'll be just fine. Yeah, I think what's interesting is how the team handled that. You know, that hard hit he took, clearly suffering, clearly not in a good place. I was expecting him, many of us were expecting the team to package him up, you know, bandage him up, send him home for recovery. He shows up on his bike at the start the next day. You see him suffering, and you see him grinding, and you see him pushing on. He left the race that day, day after, but the fact that the team is like suiting him back up on the bike and putting him on, I'm already kind of wondering the that pressure from the French public, from his team. I didn't like that. And so, I hope that
everyone's caught their breath, his injuries have healed, and we can start this Tour de France with a sort of a clean slate and with a little less pressure for this young phenom, because yeah, the best thing that can happen for Paul Seixas, in my opinion, is that he enters this race with low expectation, really takes it day by day, and rides into it. And I think then a lot is possible. Whereas, if you approach the race day one thinking it's the podium or bust, I see him crumbling. Paul Seixas at age 19 and 10 months will be a big story, no matter what he does over the next 3 weeks. We want to include one more rookie that we're really excited to see, Isaac Del Toro.
Little more well-known last year, remember he was the runner-up in the Giro, but he's had a really impressive resume as well. Potentially could make a run at the podium. However, not just a rookie, he's also a teammate of Tadej Pogačar on UAE. So, how they play it with him and what they allow his talent to do over the next 3 weeks something we'll keep an eye on. We've been zooming out here on the big picture stories so far entering the tour on Saturday. How about we zoom in next and spend a little time with what's coming in Barcelona on stage one, a team time trial with a new twist.
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