Pavel Sivakov

They've gone for a javelin, a paddle racket and a pair of hiking boots.

Laurence de Ploos from Net Company, Pavel Sivakov from UAE and Ben O'Connor from Jayco.

I'll leave the listeners to decide who is what there.

Ben O'Connor, of course, going back to that organisation after being with AG2R in the past.

Australian Ben O'Connor has rejoined Decathlon CMA CGM where he will race alongside rising star Paul Sextas, the French team announced today.

The 30-year-old is also joined in the outfit by fellow new signing Frenchman Pavel Sivakov.

O'Connor, who has now spent the last two years riding for Jayco Al-Ula, has signed a contract until 2028.

For more on these stories, news, updates and much more, head on over to RTLtoday.lu.

They get across the break just over the top.

Sivakov's on four seconds leading the peloton and then the break goes away and that's the break.

And so we have a strong breaker, Conor Vivarca, Lehmreiser, Mifsud, Campenaerts, Kulset, Bennett, Marti, Masnada, Bernard, Decomble, Leonard, Monique, and Tiberi is the Bahrain rider that makes it.

So pretty good break.

And you've got him ahead.

I was like, well, if Healy goes on the kicker and someone else goes with him, and then you've got Leonard to pull the 30Ks downhill, because very quickly we saw...

Groszartner, Sivakov, Christen, all gone on the Ghisallo.

For UAE, it's just McNulty and Del Toro.

But I mean, €4 million that his agent is commanding seems like a bit crazy.

But then again, Sivakov, 2 million, so.

Yeah.

Well, you know, agents work on a commission-based basis, just so everybody's aware.

Yeah.

I mean, you had, uh, had Sivakov with a pretty lengthy attack as well.

Um, obviously, the, the Belgian brought that back.

Um, but yeah, it's also true that a lot of the, the bigger names were missing here.

It's like if you're getting six riders that high up, you should have committed earlier to somebody.

Sivakov tried, to his credit, to attack off the front.

It was a little bit of a suicide mission.

But when you've got, you know, Bizio, Rondell, Gregoire, Vaucoulon, Bodin, Sivakov, these are all really good riders.

And we saw it in the start list, and we're talking about the absence of Seixas.

They had multiple options, and ultimately kind of played none of them, really.

Who's the leader? Pretty much...

The guys who are the domestiques here are Sivakov, Klimo Brasovonso, and Julian Bernard.

And then you've got five co-leaders, seemingly.

Because how do you choose between Vauquelin, Rondel, Gregoire, Biziot, Bodin? I think those are all good options.

That move was snuffed out but quickly followed by another Frenchman countering Jordan Giga on the Mont Royal.

After this flurry of attacks, another Frenchman, Pavel Sivakov, moved to the front to try to restore some order.

That lasted only a few kilometres until...

Gal Gliva, last seen, Lionel, on the last morning of the Vuelta in a sort of fashionable artisan coffee shop in Granada, having a flat white.

Then we're going to do a whole day of media.

And then Sextas himself saying before the race, anything other than victory is going to be a failure.

And we had other, you know, it's not Pavel Sivakov's fault, but Pavel Sivakov gave an interview with L'Equipe in which he said, oh, the only person like Sextas to train with is Pogacar.

You just can't live with him.

They were far back in the group, Wouten and Emco both, We saw Glivar being attacking for Slovenia, for example.

Sivakov maybe controlling that, being at the front.

I was surprised that I already saw del Toro at the front of a group pulling at this point.

Success close to the front.

Yeah.

It's like, initially they were setting pace in the early lap with Armiride, then they switched to making a move themselves with Giga, but when that failed, they ended up just missing all the moves afterwards, because they didn't even roll into the moves as much anymore.

Like you said, Sivakov tried to close down moves and succeeded initially, but with roughly 80 kilometers to go, don't know the exact kilometer mark here, but the next coming at Urklaan, we saw, I think, Alex Bourdain then eventually trying something again.

Pinkbike vividly remembered that.