The

Oh, Hi guys and welcome to Life in the Peloton. I'm Mitch Stocker and I'll be flying solo this week on the intro. My sidekick Linal Verni is not here. He's still trying to get his way back from the Tour de France at this

moment after a pretty hectic three weeks there. But what I do have for you is a fantastic episode lined up.

What I've got coming up for you is Juan Mar Garate. He's from Spain. He's from the Basque Country.

He is one of my favorite directors, sports directors that is. I know I've spoken to Tom Sutherham about sports directing, but what I thought I'd do with Wama was just go that step further. Because I love what he does the way he directs. It's not just the logistics side of things, but he really gets inside the heads of the cyclists, the riders,

the guys in our team, well, especially me and I know Mike Woods, and I think everyone, he's got

a great feel about it. And I really wanted to ask him how he really does balance that, how he

gets in there, how he's able to keep that good relationship with us, but the professionalism

of his job. So, guys, sit back and enjoy this one.

This is a real favourite of mine.

You're going to have to excuse the audio.

I made a bit of a boo-boo with the recording on this.

I think it's still worth listening to, and I still think it's very good audio quality.

So, well, not very good.

It's still very listenable.

So without further ado, I bring you Wama Garate.

Juan Manuel Garate or as I like to call you, Juan Ma, as everyone likes to call you, Juan Ma is where that is more familiar.

You're my sports director at EF Education first, but more than that, I see you as a special sports director and you're the person I thought of when I wanted to interview a sports director.

First of all, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you very much. Yes.

You're from the Basque country in Spain, so that's his accent. He speaks perfect English in my eyes, but you're going to love that Basque accent.

You are putting too much pressure on me.

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