Count Dooku, Point Break and The Anatomy of a GOAT

Johnny Long (0:00)

Christopher Lee, Count Dooku.

Kaylee Fretz (0:02)

Count Dooku.

Johnny Long (0:03)

He's got big Count Dooku vibes.

Kaylee Fretz (0:11)

Welcome back to Spin Cycle, everybody. I'm Kaylee Fretz. Today on the show, proper controversy at the Cyclocross, we have a Criterium in Singapore to talk about, and Mr. Spekenbrink strikes back. Let's get to it. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back, Kit Nicholson. How are you?

Kit Nicholson (0:29)

I'm all right, thank you.

Kaylee Fretz (0:30)

Busy weekend? Busy weekend?

Kit Nicholson (0:32)

Yeah, it was actually.

Kaylee Fretz (0:33)

Yeah. You got to watch a Tati Picacho documentary. That sounded fun.

Kit Nicholson (0:37)

Oh yeah. That was interesting.

Kaylee Fretz (0:39)

Yeah. You thought it was better than some of our friends.

Kit Nicholson (0:45)

Well, I'm sure we'll get into this. You can read my review, but yeah, my expectations were very low. That always is a good starting point.

But yeah, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't hate it. I got some enjoyment out of it.

Kaylee Fretz (1:02)

More on that in Golden Hour today. Make sure you sign up to get that. And Johnny Long, welcome to the show.

Johnny Long (1:07)

What's up everyone?

Kaylee Fretz (1:09)

You have a good weekend?

Johnny Long (1:11)

I won a gammon in a meat raffler at the pub.

Kit Nicholson (1:15)

Of course you did.

Johnny Long (1:17)

Yeah.

Kaylee Fretz (1:17)

That sounds fun.

Johnny Long (1:18)

It was great. Based on that fact alone, but there were other other factors that made it a great weekend.

Kaylee Fretz (1:25)

And 4-4, Millennium United.

Johnny Long (1:27)

Well, we were 2-0 up, and then immediately after that, I won the gammon. So it was basically the best 5-10 minutes of my life.

Kaylee Fretz (1:37)

Let's pivot over to the Euros, which happened over the weekend. Cyclocross Euros, of course. We have a relegation controversy out of the back of this race. Anybody who's sort of poked around on Instagram or whatever else has probably seen a replay of this already. Kit, what happened here?

Why did Maurice Schreiber get relegated?

Kit Nicholson (2:05)

Well, this is a good question. Well, I mean, we were blessed with almost an hour of fantastic racing.

Maurice Schreiber did what Maurice Schreiber has got a bit of a reputation of doing, which is start off super fast. She usually then fades, but she's obviously been working very hard at it. She's got a relatively new coach in Sanacant, former multiple world champion and absolute superstar of the sport.

Yeah, and she lasted, and she was, I would say, and we're not alone in this, she rode a near perfect race where Brand and third place salient, Gilkoman Alvarado didn't. They both had mishaps, including on the mighty stairs, which have had a lot of airtime over the past. Too many stairs.

Yeah, I think that in the men's race, they climbed 890 steps over the course of nine laps. Anyway, back to the women's race. Yeah, so it culminated in a two up sprint between world champion Lucinda Brand and Marie Schreiber, who was confident enough to lead out from the front. It was a slightly uphill sprint, finishing straight, a long one on a stretch of tarmac. And so she led it out. There was a slight move to the left that you could see from head on that looked like they were fairly close together, when in actual fact, they weren't. And Brand was trying desperately to get on terms with Schreiber, never did. Schreiber roars over the finish line first. And it was a fantastic result. She'd beaten the world champion. It was definitely the biggest win of her career and a comeback after a season in the wilderness last year. Unfortunately, she had an injury early in the cyclocross season. So it was a massive, massive day for Marie Schreiber for 25 minutes.

Johnny Long (4:05)

When? Yeah, what happened after 25 minutes?

Kit Nicholson (4:08)

Yes, there were warning signs after about five minutes because they're usually pretty quick to get those winners' interviews sorted out. But then nothing was happening.

And then, people were already talking about this slight swerve in the sprint. During the sprint, she had kind of jinked over to the left, shift of gear, and then moved back into towards the center of the road. So Brand was barely held up, if at all, and she was at least half a bike length behind Schreiber. So, yeah, it was worth discussion. This sprint deviation, as we call it. But it was not considered egregious enough for disqualification, or relegation, sorry. But that's what happened. And Lucinda Brand, very, well, she was icy, I think.