You're listening to El Classico, the cycling podcast at the 2023 Vuelta España from Barcelona

to Madrid.

OK, we are in Madrid.

That was the star-spangled banner, and you are indeed listening to El Classico.

My name is Daniel Freeban, the host of this episode, and I am in Madrid, precisely

mere meters from the iconic Wente de Sibelis or Sibelis fountain, where since the 1980s,

Real Madrid's footballers have traditionally celebrated titles by Plante Acquist upon

the lips of the Anatolian mother goddess Sibelis, and where today SEPCUS, dressed in red,

was embraced by his jumbo visma teammates at the end of their 10,048.7 km conquest of

cycling's three grand tours. Brian Neigards, you can probably hear the water, you can probably

hear the gushing Sibelis fountain behind me, if you strain, if you cock your ear, you can

maybe even hear the end, I think, of SEPCUS's victory speech. He's just gone upon the podium,

he's been going for some minutes, I must say, Brian. I don't know if you're following

it on television, and you can tell me what he's actually saying, because I can't hear

enough a lot. Yeah, I mean, the reason why I was a lengthy speech was that he actually did it

both in English first, and then in what I think was quite good, almost fluent Spanish.

Obviously, thanking his team, mentioning them all by name, thanking his staff, the sports

directors, et cetera, and thanking very specifically his family and his wife's family,

who had apparently been following the race, states by stage, on site, and then obviously also

mentioning his father watching from home, and did a big shout out, which gave a bit of a

applause, so there must be some durangans, some Colorado people on site today, and near the fountain,

where the podium was tonight. So yeah, one of the better, I would say, grand tour,

...