{"id":151694,"date":"2025-06-02T08:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T08:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/151694\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T08:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T08:56:10","slug":"now-suddenly-he-acts-tough-in-an-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/151694\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cNow suddenly he acts tough in an interview\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Simon Yates<\/a>\u2019 comments after stage 19 of the Giro d\u2019Italia did not sit well with Dutch cycling analysts. The Brit took a swipe at his Visma Lease a Bike team, claiming their pre-race plan had not been followed, a statement the team itself denied. Tensions between rider and team were clearly running high after the stage.<\/b>Yates was clearly still running on emotion after the stage 19 finish when a microphone was thrust in front of him. \u201cWe had a completely different plan from what we actually did. We need to review this with the team. I won\u2019t say more,\u201d vented the usually calm climber. Sports director Marc Reef<\/a> responded, \u201cThis was how we planned it. We wanted to make the race hard whenever possible, and the guys did a fantastic job.\u201d\u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what happened up front, but this was roughly the plan. Simon benefits from a hard and steady tempo, and that is what we delivered,\u201d said Wilco Kelderman<\/a>, who set a strong pace for much of the stage among the GC contenders. Ultimately, pink jersey Isaac Del Toro and second-placed Richard Carapaz broke away, gaining 24 seconds on Yates, who now trails Del Toro by 1:21 going into the final stages. Fourth-placed Derek Gee sits 1:06 behind Yates.<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo.<\/p>\n

\"simon<\/p>\n

Simon Yates<\/p>\n

Knetemann puzzled by Yates, Abbenhuijs calls comments \u201cincredibly weak\u201dAs expected, cycling analysts in several daily podcasts reacted sharply to Yates\u2019 post-stage remarks. Roxane Knetemann<\/a> called it \u201ctypical\u201d on In Het Wiel<\/a>. \u201cMy first thought is, what exactly was this original plan that supposedly wasn\u2019t executed? And come on, you\u2019re right there in the group. If the plan wasn\u2019t for Visma to set the tempo, then you say so. You communicate that it needs to stop. This shows very little respect for your teammates.\u201d<\/p>\n

AD journalist Marijn Abbenhuijs agreed. \u201cThe fact that Yates lost time to Del Toro and Carapaz is surely also down to Yates\u2019 own level of performance. You can point fingers all you want, but that doesn\u2019t strike me as very sporting.\u201d Knetemann added, \u201cAll week Yates has been giving pre-stage interviews with a grim face, like he couldn\u2019t be bothered. And on a day when things go wrong, you have to own that. Now suddenly he acts all tough in an interview.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Abbenhuijs, Yates\u2019 current GC position may not match his true form. \u201cWe haven\u2019t really seen him. He\u2019s quietly ended up high in the standings, which meant a team that thought they\u2019d be free to race had to throw everything behind Yates. The whole team rode for him and gave up their own chances. Now that he hasn\u2019t delivered, it\u2019s suddenly the team\u2019s fault. I find that incredibly weak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo.<\/p>\n

\"simonThijs Zonneveld gives Visma Lease a Bike the benefit of the doubtWhat exactly Yates thought the team\u2019s tactics should have been? He didn\u2019t say, so it\u2019s anyone\u2019s guess. Abbenhuijs suspects the Brit may have wanted the entire team around him, with no riders up the road in the break. But according to Thijs Zonneveld<\/a> on In De Waaier<\/a>, the real issue is that Yates simply didn\u2019t have the legs. \u201cAfter all the work, it was really up to him. But he hasn\u2019t had it this whole Giro. And all race long he\u2019s been giving the press these grumpy interviews, now suddenly saying this wasn\u2019t the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a team meeting I would\u2019ve loved to sit in on,\u201d Zonneveld laughed, trying to look at both sides of the story. \u201cI think Visma did what they could. They couldn\u2019t have made the race much harder. Maybe Yates didn\u2019t want anyone in the break and wanted the whole team lined up around him. But you need to be extremely strong as a team to do that. That\u2019s how Visma rides for Vingegaard in the Tour, with Kelderman often going all-out for several minutes. But this is not that Tour team.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Zonneveld\u2019s view, Visma Lease a Bike may have even performed above expectations. \u201cLemmen and Kruijswijk whittled the peloton down to 20 riders, and then Kelderman down to 13 or 14. After that, it\u2019s up to the GC leaders to fight it out. Yates needs to be honest and admit he is not one of the three best climbers in this Giro. So I give Visma the benefit of the doubt here. But of course, it\u2019s not great when the team leader and the team aren\u2019t on the same page. If I were Kelderman and saw that interview, I\u2019d be pretty annoyed too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Simon Yates\u2019 comments after stage 19 of the Giro d\u2019Italia did not sit well with Dutch cycling analysts.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-151694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114612940581416727","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}