saudi tour stage 1 2023

Saudi Tour 2023 Stage 1

photo credits @ Saudi Tour 

Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla) took a convincing victory in the opening stage of the Saudi Tour today, beating Dušan Rajović (Bahrain Victorious) and Max Walscheid (Cofidis) to the line at the end of the 180 kilometer stage in Khaybar, after  coming out on top from a small lead group following a late crash that split the peloton.

The Dutch rider came off the back of a two-man Jayco lead-out after Zdenek Stybar and Luka Mezgec pulled him to the front in the final kilometer, usurping DSM’s place at the front, before easing to a clear win, his eighth for the Australian team.

RACE HIGHLIGHTS 

After 3 kilometers of racing, six riders powered away: Hansen (UXT), Goikoetxea (EUS), Van Der Bekken (BWB), Iacchi (COR), Mohd Zariff (TSG) and Takeyama (JCL). Their advantage grew rapidly over a rather quiet pack: 2’50’’ after 10kms, 4’10’’ after 20. The first Intermediate average sprint (km 62) was claimed by Hansen while the gap reached a maximum 5’20’’. Under the influence of Team Jayco AlUla of Dylan Groenewegen, the pack moved closer to the escapees.

HANSEN, LAST SURVIVOR    

Just before the second intermediate active sprint, Peio Goikoetxea pulled away in his quest for the most active rider’s blue jersey. Just after making it first to the line, the Spaniard was caught by his mail rival Hansen. At the bonus sprint (km 135), Hansen outsprinted his opponent to conquer the blue jersey. The Dane would eventually be the last man standing as Goikoetxea stopped his efforts due to cramps. With 25kms to go, Markus Hansen could still enjoy a 2’ lead but his solo adventure stopped just under 15kms from the finish.  

BUNCHED SPRINT AS EXPECTED  

Despite timid attempts and a crash, the pack remained bunched all the way to the final straight in Khaybar. Perfectly led out by his blue and white train including the precious likes of Luka Mezgec, Dylan Groenewegen comfortably conquered his first win of the season. The Dutchman who had already won two stages in Saudi Arabia last year beat Dusan Rajovic (TBV) and Max Walscheid (COF) to the line.  

RED JERSEY FOR GROENEWEGEN  

The five-time Tour de France stage winner naturally takes command of the general classification and will be wearing the leader’s Red Jersey for tomorrow’s second stage that heads to Shalal Sijlyat Rocks. He also leads the points classification while Marcus Hansen will be wearing the best young rider’s white jersey.

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Saudi Tour 2023

All you need to know about the Saudi Tour, with race results, rider updates and general information

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Where : Saudi Arabia

When : 30 January - 3 February 2023

Distance : 830km

Rank : Asia Tour

The Saudi Tour is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's foray into hosting a professional bike race, following the likes of the UAE and Oman. This is its third edition, and the second that is centred around AlUla, which is close to UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

“The general desire is to highlight all the sites of the AlUla region designated by UNESCO," route director Jean-Marc Marino said.

Phil Bahaus (Bahrain-Victorious) won the opening edition in 2020, before Lotto-Soudal's Maxim van Gils won last year. Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco AlUla) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny) won sprints on the way to Van Gils' overall win. 

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Saudi Tour route

Stage one is a largely flat affair, from AlUla International Airport to Khaybar. The 180.5km stage is set up to finish in a sprint, with two intermediate sprints and a bonus second sprint en-route to the finish.

Stage two, north of AlUla, heads from the Winter PArk to Shalal Sijlyat Rocks; at 184km long, this again is one for the fast men,

Stage three will offer the puncheurs something to race for, as they ride from Al Manshiyah Train Station to Abu Rakah. The new course features a 1.5km slope at an average of 8.5% followed by a flat kilometer to finish, different to the similar finish where Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain-Victorious) won last year.

The penultimate day, stage four, will again be a punchy finish, as the riders race 163.4km from Maraya to Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid. The final consists of a 2.8km long ascent at 12% with a section at 22% preceding the final 7km, on a plateau offering a lunar landscape.

Stage five, from AlUla Old Town to Maraya features gravel, a first for the Saudi Tour, through the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra. The 7.5km long section could prove decisive. 

Stage details

Stage 1: AlUla International Airport - Khaybar (180.5km)

Stage 2: Winter Park – Shalal Sijlyat Rocks, (184 km)

Stage 3:Al Manshiyah Train Station - Abu Rakah (159.2 km)

Stage 4: Maraya - Skyviews of Harrat Uwayrid (163.4km)

Stage 5: AlUla Old Town - Maraya (142.9 km)

Recent winners

2020: Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain-McLaren)

2022: Maxim van Gils (Lotto-Soudal)

Watch the Saudi Tour

It is expected Eurosport and GCN Race Pass will broadcast the 2023 Saudi Tour.

You'll find the TV guide here when details become available.

Official race links

Saudi Tour official website

Saudi Tour official Twitter feed

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Adam is Cycling Weekly ’s news editor – his greatest love is road racing but as long as he is cycling on tarmac, he's happy. Before joining Cycling Weekly he spent two years writing for Procycling, where he interviewed riders and wrote about racing. He's usually out and about on the roads of Bristol and its surrounds. Before cycling took over his professional life, he covered ecclesiastical matters at the world’s largest Anglican newspaper and politics at Business Insider. Don't ask how that is related to cycling.

SD Worx-Protime rider completes clean sweep to win three-day WorldTour race

By Tom Davidson Published 27 May 24

Gravel is becoming increasingly popular, all over the world. Not everyone is happy about that. Sam Jones discusses what riders can do to smooth relationships with landowners

By Sam Jones Published 27 May 24

Meet the riders who experienced the deserts of Saudi Arabia more than anyone else

By Adam Becket Published 25 February 23

Sam Bennett, Biniam Girmay, Dylan Groenewgen, Fabio Jakobsen and Arnaud De Lie have all won, and Mark Cavendish hasn't even kicked off his year yet

By Adam Becket Published 8 February 23

Italian Consonni outsprinted Dylan Groenewegen to land an impressive victory for Cofidis

By Tom Thewlis Published 3 February 23

The Portuguese rider, new to Movistar this year, played the game right to take victory and probably the general classification

By Adam Becket Published 2 February 23

Jayco AlUla were one of the chief architects of the split, but its Dutch sprinter could not deliver on his team's work

By Adam Becket Published 31 January 23

Milan was able to hold off a rampaging Dylan Groenewegen to grab the win for Bahrain Victorious

By Tom Thewlis Published 31 January 23

Jayco AlUla rider pays his sponsors back with a stage one win

By Adam Becket Published 30 January 23

The Dutch sprinter will mix leadout duties with aiming for his own results at Astana-Qazaqstan

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• Season Calendar 2023

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6th edition 30 January 2023 - 3 February 2023

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AlUla Tour Route, Stages and Results 2023

2023 Saudi Tour Stage 1 Preview

Alula Airport > Khaybar 181.2km

The sprint stages in this part of the world are all the same, they’re either incredibly boring or the wind blows and they’re a lot of fun. Fingers crossed it’s the latter.

Cloudy sun and pleasant temperatures. The wind comes from the south-west and will reach 25km/h.

Given the direction of the wind, it’s crosswind for most of the day. The wind is meant to strengthen throughout the day, but remember, it doesn’t take much to split things in the desert.

Dylan Groenewegen  – this is a big race for Jayco, it’s the homes race for their new sponsor, AlUla. The team look to have built everything around winning sprint stages, they have Štybar, Reinders and Mezgec to help lead out Groenewegen. This looks very strong, but we’ll have to see what happens in the wind, Groenewegen doesn’t always cope that well in an echelon.

Jonathan Milan  – I was seriously impressed with him at the end of last year. He’s a massive unit and can produce mega watts in the sprints. He should have Pasqualon and Rajović to help in the closing kilometres, and I doubt he’ll have problems in the wind considering the size of him.

Pascal Ackermann  – last year wasn’t his best, but he still won two races. The German arrives at this race without a recognised sprint train but expect to see Gibbons and Oliveira trying to help him out. He’s got the speed to win, but he needs a good position in the final kilometre.

Casper van Uden  – the Dutch sprinter has just made the move to the full DSM team, and he’s bloody quick. His sprint train haven’t raced together yet, but I think it looks very impressive. They have Edmondson, Degenkolb and Eekhoff to help guide van Uden into position, that’s a great sprint train if you ask me.

Max Walscheid  – started 2022 in great fashion but a training crash derailed a lot of his season. It didn’t keep him off the bike for too long, but he struggled to recapture his best form. He’ll be hoping for wind, and Cofidis bring a strong sprint train to help him, if he’s the one who gets the nod. They have Noppe, Allegaert and Consonni, that’s the best Cofidis lead out I’ve seen for a long time.

Cees Bol  – he was brought to Astana as part of the Cavendish deal, but he’ll also get plenty of chances to ride for himself throughout the year. Remember, this is a guy who’s won a stage of Paris-Nice and was 2 nd  in a Tour de France sprint stage. I find he’s underrated as a sprinter, but not by me. He doesn’t have much help in this race, he’ll be hoping the wind blows, he’s brilliant in an echelon.

Prediction Time

Sorry to be boring, but  Dylan Groenewegen  should be winning this one.

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PREVIEW | Saudi Tour 2023 stage 1 - Groenewegen and Ackermann headline opening day for the sprinters

Throughout five days the peloton will race in Saudi Arabia, for the Saudi Tour . Stage 1 of the race will be a good match for the sprinters and it is expected to see a battle between the likes of Dylan Groenewegen , Pascal Ackermann , Cees Bol and many other fast men.

The opening stage of the race will start in AlUla, a name now well known within pro cycling as they are the new title sponsor of Australian Team Jayco AlUla. It's a flat stage that is close to a complete straight line, set to finish in Khayber where the final kilometers have some small gradients which could make things a bit tougher for the fast men.

PREVIEW | Saudi Tour 2023 - Middle East receives sprinter-filled peloton for windy and explosive week of racing

Prediction Time

*** Dylan Groenewegen ** Pascal Ackermann, Simone Consonni * Max Kanter , Jonathan Milan , Cees Bol

Pick : Dylan Groenewegen

Profiles & Route Saudi Tour 2023

Final startlist saudi tour with groenewegen, buitrago, ackermann, bol and grossschartner, read more about:, place comments.

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UNDER_ARTICLE

Wed 29 May 2024

Thu 30 May 2024

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Al Manshiyah Train Station > Al Manshiyah Train Station

01/30/2024 - stage 1 - 149,5 km - on line, van uden: a star is born.

After a spectacular opening ceremony staged at the Maraya Concert Hall yesterday evening, the 126 riders of the 2024 edition of the AlUla Tour all gathered together by the AlManshiyah Train station for the official start of the race: a 149kms loop around AlUla with no major difficulty. Under a bright sunshine, it only took one kilometre for five men to pull away from the peloton:...

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Colombian cycling star Miguel Ángel López banned until July 2027 for use of Menotropin

Four-year anti-doping sanction imposed following lengthy suspension based on findings from 2022 Giro d’Italia

The UCI have announced that Colombian cycling star Miguel Ángel López has received a four-year ban for doping.

In a long-running case, López, 30, has been found guilty of an anti-doping rule violation for “use and possession of a prohibited substance, Menotropin,” the UCI press release said, during the 2022 Giro d’Italia.

The statement added, “In accordance with the World Anti-Doping Code and the UCI Anti-Doping Rules, the period of suspension started on 25 July 2023 and will remain in force until 24 July 2027”.

López, who last raced with the Medellin-EPM squad until he was provisionally suspended midway through 2023, has repeatedly insisted on his innocence.

The anti-doping frontier: How the biological passport has changed pro cycling - part 2 Miguel Angel López kidnapped and robbed in Colombia Public prosecutor calls for Operation Ilex anti-doping probe to be partly shelved

The UCI statement confirmed that the proceedings against López began as a result of evidence obtained by the Spanish Guardia Civil and the country’s anti-doping organisation, CELAD, during the course of an extensive police investigation into a drugs ring codenamed Operación Ilex that began in 2021.  This evidence was in turn handled by the Independent Testing Agency (ITA).

Menotropin is a banned substance used in the treatment of fertility disturbances.

Operacion Ilex is still ongoing in the Spanish courts, centring on the alleged activities of a university professor, Dr Marcos Maynar and a doping ring that supplied both banned and legal substances to multiple athletes. 

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Maynar was arrested on May 11th, one day after López’s surprise withdrawal from the Giro d’Italia due to a leg injury and was initially charged with a crime against public health, drug trafficking and money laundering.

Dr Maynar has repeatedly insisted he is not guilty of any offences and has denied giving banned substances to Lopez.

López himself was briefly suspended by his last WorldTour team, Astana Qazaqstan, over the allegations before being definitively let go by the squad in December 2022. He was also once briefly questioned by Spanish police when flying in from Colombia.

Well-known for his fiery character, which saw him part ways with Movistar after he abandoned the 2021 Vuelta a Espana on the last stage in a dispute over team support, López talents as a climber helped bring him considerable success.

Having triumphed in the Tour de L’Avenir in 2014, the  Colombian won the toughest stage of the 2020 Tour de France over the Col de Loze, at the Lagos de Covadonga in the 2021 Vuelta as well as taking outright victories in the Tour de Suisse and Volta a Catalunya.

In 2023, prior to his definitive suspension, he racked up no less than 28 wins, almost all in National or 1.2/2.2 races, and including eight out of nine stages in the Vuelta a Colombia. His biggest victory came in the now regrettably defunct Vuelta a San Juan, ranked 2.HC.

López can now appeal against the anti-doping sentence at CAS, the Court of Arbitration for Sport, for a period of up to one month.

Lopez himself already filed a case with the Court of Arbitration for Sport against Astana for wrongful dismissal and last month, there were unconfirmed reports that he had won the case and the Kazakh team would have to pay Lopez his back salary. Meanwhile, the cases arising from Ilex, in which Lopez is not facing any charges, are still yet to be heard in full in the Spanish courts.

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Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews , he has also written for The Independent ,  The Guardian ,  ProCycling , The Express and Reuters .

How to watch the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné

'I’ve no intention of sitting up and losing time' – David Gaudu targets dream Tour de France podium spot

Circuit Franco-Belge: Biniam Girmay powers to victory atop Col du Horlitin

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Countdown to the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné: Excitement Mounts in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule

T he 76th Critérium du Dauphiné starts this Sunday, June 2, with a 174.8-kilometer road race that starts and ends in Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule–and we can’t wait! This 8-day mini- Tour de France offers everything we love about its larger, more prestigious cousin, including several of the Tour’s top contenders, stages that offer something for every kind of rider, and even a yellow leader’s jersey that matches the Tour de France maillot jaune .

Like many European bike races, the Critérium du Dauphiné (we just call it “the Dauphiné”) was originally created to promote a local newspaper, the Dauphiné Libéré, a provincial newspaper that covers the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-central France—the area that the race calls its home. In fact, the race was actually called the “Dauphiné Libéré” until 2010, at which point it was taken over by the Amaury Sport Organisation (A.S.O.), the organizers of the Tour de France .

The race highlights one of the most beautiful regions in France, an area that includes the Alps, Mont Ventoux, and the Massif Central. This gives the organizers lots of options when it comes to building a challenging course, and they often create stages that mirror those in the upcoming Tour de France. This is one of the main reasons why it’s a popular dress rehearsal for General Classification riders hoping to be at their best for the French grand tour.

And it’s not uncommon for riders to win the Critérium du Dauphiné and then the Tour de France six weeks later. Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard-Hansen did it last year with Jumbo-Visma. Team Sky made winning both races a habit in the 2010s, with Britons Chris Froome winning both events in 2013, 2015, and 2016, and Geraint Thomas winning the Dauphiné-Tour combo in 2018.

It’s also a race that has traditionally favored Americans. Five riders from the United States have won the prestigious event in its 75-year history, and we wouldn’t be surprised if America makes it six by the time the race wraps up on the Plateau des Glières next Sunday.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné, one of the most exciting and important week-long stage races of the season:

[table-of-contents] stripped

The 2024 Route

This year’s Dauphiné covers 1203.8 km (746 mi) spread over eight stages. The race begins Sunday with Stage 1, a jagged road stage around Saint-Pourçain-sur-Sioule that–despite three categorized climbs early in the stage–should end with a field sprint.

But Monday’s Stage 2, a 142-kilometer road stage that begins in Gannat, definitely won’t. That stage contains four categorized climbs, including two Category 2 ascents on the way to an uphill finish on the Col de la Loge. This could be an early day for the Dauphiné’s General Classification contenders to try and take the yellow leader’s jersey. If they don’t, the stage will certainly go to a breakaway filled with puncheurs .

Stage 3 continues this year’s punchy trend with a hilly route filled with five categorized climbs. The 181.2-kilometer stage begins in Celles-sur-Durolle and ends with an uphill finish on the Category 3 climb to Les Estables, a 3.8km climb with an average gradient of 5.2 percent.

Wednesday brings Stage 4, a 34.4-kilometer individual time trial from Saint-Germain-Laval to Neulise. This should cause the first real shuffling of the General Classification of the race, with men like Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step) among the favorites to win the stage and take the yellow jersey.

Thursday’s Stage 5 is the longest stage of the Dauphiné, a 200.2-kilometer ride from Amplepuis to Saint-Priest. Even with four categorized climbs spread throughout the stage. This should be the last chance for the sprinters–unless a breakaway ruins their plans.

And then come the mountains, starting with Friday’s Stage 6, a 173.2-kilometer stage that starts in Hauterives and ends with a summit finish on the hors categorie (“Beyond Category”) Collet d’Allevard, an 11.1km climb with an average gradient of 8.1-percent.

Starting in Albertville, Stage 7 is even harder, with four Category 1 ascents and then a summit finish on the hors categorie climb to the Samoëns 1600 ski resort–all crammed into just 145.5 km. The climb to Samoëns 1600 is a beast: 10 km long, the climb averages 9.3 percent–and even that’s a bit misleading thanks to the opening kilometer’s 3.3 percent average gradient. With over 4,200m of elevation gain, this is the hardest stage in this year’s Dauphiné.

But just in case the race hasn’t been decided yet, Stage 8 ends the week with a bang. Beginning in the town of Thônes–near the base of the Category 1 Col de la Forclaz de Montmin–the 152.5km stage takes the riders over three categorized climbs before yet another summit finish, this time on the Category 1 Plateau des Glières. This is another short, intense stage that should provide an exciting conclusion to the 2024 Critérium du Dauphiné.

How to Watch Critérium du Dauphiné in the U.S.

NBC’s Peacock ($5.99/month or $59.99/year) streams all events organized by A.S.O., which means you can watch the Dauphiné in June and then the Tour de France in July. If you’re looking for ad-free coverage, you’ll need a subscription to Peacock Premium Plus , which runs $11.99 per month or $119.99 for the year.

The Peacock app is available on Roku, Apple devices, Android and AndroidTV devices, Google platforms, Chromecast, Xbox consoles, PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles, VIZIO SmartCast TVs, and LG Smart TVs. You can also watch online via the Peacock website.

How to Watch Critérium du Dauphiné in Canada

If you’re in Canada, FloBikes ($29.99/month CDN) is the best way to watch the Critérium du Dauphiné with all eight stages available live and on-demand on FloBikes.com , the FloSports IOS app, and the FloSports app for Amazon FireTV, Roku, and Apple TV.

If you have cable and prefer conventional television viewing, each stage of the Dauphiné will be shown on CNBC. This year, the network looks set to show replays, as–according to NBC’s website–Stage 1 is scheduled to air at 1:00 p.m. EDT, a few hours after the stage is expected to end.

How to Watch Critérium du Dauphiné in Europe

The Critérium du Dauphiné will be broadcast in the United Kingdom and around Europe on Discovery+ , which carries Eurosport ’s live coverage. The Basic plan is priced at £3.99 per month or £39.99 annually in the UK (7-day free trial included), and it can be integrated into your Amazon Prime Video account.

What Happened Last Year

As it did the year before (sorta), the 2023 Critérium du Dauphiné served as a bit of a crystal ball heading into the Tour de France, with Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma dominating the race from start to finish. In all, the Dutch super-team won four stages, with France’s Christophe Laporte winning Stages 1 and 3 (and the green jersey as the winner of the Points Classification) and Vingegaard winning Stages 5 and 7 on his way to winning the race overall. The Dane won his second consecutive Tour de France six weeks later.

Great Britain’s Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) finished second–he went on to finish third at the Tour de France–and Australia’s Ben O’Connor (AG2R Citroën Team) finished third. Spain’s Carlos Rodriguez won the white jersey as the Dauphiné’s Best Young Rider, and Italy’s Giulio Ciccone (Trek-Segafredo) won the polka dot jersey as the Dauphiné’s King of the Mountains.

Riders to Watch

Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe)

Roglič won the Critérium du Dauphiné in 2022 and is once again using the French WorldTour stage race as a dress rehearsal for the Tour de France. The Slovenian was one of the victims of the horrible crash in April’s Itzulia Basque Country –the same crash that took down Vingegaard, who won’t be participating in this year’s Dauphiné due to his injuries (he’s at a training camp instead).

Roglič abandoned the Basque race immediately–despite being the race leader at the time–but he was among the less injured of the riders who went down. So, while he was forced to skip the Ardennes Classics, he remained largely on track for the Tour.

The Dauphiné will be his last stop before heading to the Grand Depart in Florence, and his performance here will go a long way toward determining whether or not he has a realistic chance of winning his first Tour de France. And his BORA-hansgrohe team is stacked, with basically all the riders we expect to support the Slovenian at the Tour joining him at the start, including Australia’s Jai Hindley, who won a stage and spent a day in the yellow jersey in last year’s Tour de France–and won the 2022 Giro d’Italia .

Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step)

Evenepoel was another victim of the Basque crash that took down Vingegaard and Roglič–the Belgian broke his right clavicle and scapula. That wiped out the rest of his spring program, but now he’s healed and back on his bike–and reports say that his training is going well. Like most competitors, the Dauphiné will be the Belgian’s last test before the Tour. He’s likely targeting the time trial–he’s the reigning world champion in the discipline–but we’re more eager to see how he fares against the other contenders on the summit finishes at the end of Stages 6, 7, and 8. We’re also curious to see how his team–which has traditionally been built more for one-day classics–handles itself against proven stage race squads like BORA, Visma, and INEOS.

Carlos Rodríguez (INEOS Grenadiers)

Rodríguez finished ninth overall and won the white jersey as the Best Young Rider in last year’s Dauphiné, an impressive ride that perhaps should have been more hyped (blame jumbo-Visma’s dominance for that). But his performance turned out to be a sneak preview of what the Spaniard would do at the Tour, where he finished fifth overall and won a stage in the mountains.

Just 23 years old, Rodríguez has continued to improve throughout the spring: he finished second at Itzulia Basque Country and then won the Tour de Romandie, his first WorldTour stage race victory. Assuming he’s saving his best for the Tour, we’re expecting another top-10–possibly top-5–finish at the Dauphiné, which would make him a true podium contender in July.

Sepp Kuss (Visma–Lease a Bike)

With Vingegaard uncertain about riding the Tour de France following his crash, Kuss might end up being Visma’s GC captain, a stunning turn of events for a rider who spent much of last season as a support rider–at least until he took a surprise win at the Vuelta a España in September.

The American has had a quiet season so far, racing just a handful of times and spending the majority of his time at training camps. In fact, the Dauphiné will be the first time raced since the Itzulia Basque Country in early April. His performance will give us at least a hint as to whether or not he has the legs to be a true podium contender at the Tour.

Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates)

Ayuso joins Rodríguez at the forefront of a new generation of young, Spanish grand tour contenders. Just 21 years old, he already has two top-5 finishes at the Vuelta a España , including a third-place finish in 2022. Like Rodríguez, he seems to get better with every race he enters–he took second at Tirreno-Adriatico and fifth at the Tour of Romandie. And like Rodríguez, the Spaniard also won his first WorldTour stage this spring–the Tour of the Basque Country. And while he’s heading to the Tour to support Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar , we’re expecting him to be racing for himself at the Dauphiné–which could be bad news for the race’s other contenders.

Matteo Jorgenson (Visma–Lease a Bike)

If an American does win this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, don’t be surprised if it’s Jorgenson, a 24-year-old who was born in Walnut Creek, California but grew up in Boise, Idaho. After spending the first few seasons of his WorldTour career with Movistar, Jorgenson transferred to Visma-Lease a Bike this past off-season and has since taken a major step forward, winning his first WorldTour stage race–Paris-Nice-and his first major one-day Classic–Dwars door Vlaanderen.

His last event was the Amstel Gold Race in mid-April, and he’s spent the past six weeks training for the Tour de France. And with Kuss likely biding his time for the Tour de France, there’s a good chance that he’ll be given the chance to try and win the Dauphiné before taking on more of a supporting role at the Tour. Visma has only scratched the surface of Jorgenson's potential, and this could be the race in which he takes another big step forward in his development as a rider.

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Whales Have an Alphabet

Until the 1960s, it was uncertain whether whales made any sounds at all..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today, ever since the discovery that whales produce songs, scientists have been trying to find a way to decipher their lyrics. After 60 years, they may have finally done it. My colleague, Carl Zimmer, explains.

It’s Friday, May 24.

I have to say, after many years of working with you on everything from the pandemic to —

— CRISPR DNA technology, that it turns out your interests are even more varied than I had thought, and they include whales.

They do indeed.

And why? What is it about the whale that captures your imagination?

I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who is not fascinated by whales. I mean, these are mammals like us, and they’re swimming around in the water. They have brains that are much bigger than ours. They can live maybe 200 years. These are incredible animals, and animals that we still don’t really understand.

Right. Well, it is this majestic creature that brings us together today, Carl, because you have been reporting on a big breakthrough in our understanding of how it is that whales communicate. But I think in order for that breakthrough to make sense, I think we’re going to have to start with what we have known up until now about how whales interact. So tell us about that.

Well, people knew that whales and dolphins traveled together in groups, but up until the 1960s, we didn’t really know that whales actually made any sounds at all. It was actually sort of an accident that we came across it. The American military was developing sophisticated microphones to put underwater. They wanted to listen for Russian submarines.

As one does. But there was an engineer in Bermuda, and he started hearing some weird stuff.

[WHALE SOUNDS]

And he wondered maybe if he was actually listening to whales.

What made him wonder if it was whales, of all things?

Well, this sound did not sound like something geological.

It didn’t sound like some underwater landslide or something like that. This sounded like a living animal making some kind of call. It has these incredible deep tones that rise up into these strange, almost falsetto type notes.

It was incredibly loud. And so it would have to be some really big animal. And so with humpback whales swimming around Bermuda, this engineer thought, well, maybe these are humpback whales.

And so he gets in touch with a husband and wife team of whale biologists, Roger and Katy Payne, and plays these recordings to them. And they’re pretty convinced that they’re hearing whales, too. And then they go on to go out and confirm that by putting microphones in the water, chasing after groups of whales and confirming, yes, indeed, that these sounds are coming from these humpback whales.

So once these scientists confirm in their minds that these are the sounds of a whale, what happens with this discovery?

Well, Roger and Katy Payne and their colleagues are astonished that this species of whale is swimming around singing all the time for hours on end. And it’s so inspirational to them that they actually help to produce a record that they release “The Song of the Humpback Whale” in 1970.

And so this is being sold in record stores, you know, along with Jimi Hendrix and Rolling Stones. And it is a huge hit.

Yeah, it sells like two million copies.

Well, at the time, it was a huge cultural event. This record, this became almost like an anthem of the environmental movement. And it led, for whales in particular, to a lot of protections for them because now people could appreciate that whales were a lot more marvelous and mysterious than they maybe had appreciated before.

And so you have legislation, like the Marine Mammal Act. The United States just agrees just to stop killing whales. It stops its whaling industry. And so you could argue that the discovery of these whale songs in Bermuda led to at least some species of whales escaping extinction.

Well, beyond the cultural impact of this discovery, which is quite meaningful, I wonder whether scientists and marine biologists are figuring out what these whale songs are actually communicating.

So the Paynes create a whole branch of science, the study of whale songs. It turns out that pretty much every species of whale that we know of sings in some way or another. And it turns out that within a species, different groups of whales in different parts of the world may sing with a different dialect. But the big question of what these whales are singing, what do these songs mean, that remains elusive into the 21st century. And things don’t really change until scientists decide to take a new look at the problem in a new way.

And what is that new way?

So in 2020, a group of whale biologists, including Roger Payne, come together with computer scientists from MIT. Instead of humpback whales, which were the whales where whale songs are first discovered, these scientists decide to study sperm whales in the Caribbean. And humpback whales and sperm whales have very, very different songs. So if you’re used to humpback whales with their crazy high and low singing voices —

Right, those best-selling sounds.

— those are rockin’ tunes of the humpback whales, that’s not what sperm whales do. Sperm whales have a totally different way of communicating with each other. And I actually have some recordings that were provided by the scientists who have been doing this research. And so we can take a listen to some of them.

Wow, It’s like a rhythmic clicking.

These are a group of sperm whales swimming together, communicating.

So whale biologists knew already that there was some structure to this sound. Those clicks that you hear, they come in little pulses. And each of those pulses is known as a coda. And whale biologists had given names to these different codas. So, for example, they call one coda, one plus one plus three —

— which is basically click, click, click, click, click, or four plus three, where you have four clicks in a row and a pause and then three clicks in a row.

Right. And the question would seem to be, is this decipherable communication, or is this just whale gibberish?

Well, this is where the computer scientists were able to come in and to help out. The whale biologists who were listening to the codas from the sperm whales in the Caribbean, they had identified about 21 types. And then that would seem to be about it.

But then, an MIT computer science graduate student named Prajusha Sharma was given the job of listening to them again.

And what does she hear?

In a way, it’s not so much what she heard, but what she saw.

Because when scientists record whale songs, you can look at it kind of like if you’re looking at an audio of a recording of your podcast, you will see the little squiggles of your voice.

And so whale biologists would just look at that ticker of whale songs going across the screen and try to compare them. And Sharma said, I don’t like this. I just — this is not how I look at data. And so what she decided to do is she decided to kind of just visualize the data differently. And essentially, she just kind of flipped these images on their side and saw something totally new.

And what she saw was that sperm whales were singing a whole bunch of things that nobody had actually been hearing.

One thing that she discovered was that you could have a whale that was producing a coda over and over and over again, but it was actually playing with it. It was actually stretching out the coda,

[CLICKING] So to get a little bit longer and a little bit longer, a little bit longer.

And then get shorter and shorter and shorter again. They could play with their codas in a way that nobody knew before. And she also started to see that a whale might throw in an extra click at the end of a coda. So it would be repeating a coda over and over again and then boom, add an extra one right at the end. What they would call an ornamentation. So now, you have yet another signal that these whales are using.

And if we just look at what the sperm whales are capable of producing in terms of different codas, we go from just 21 types that they had found in the Caribbean before to 156. So what the scientists are saying is that what we might be looking at is what they call a sperm whale phonetic alphabet.

Yeah, that’s a pretty big deal because the only species that we know of for sure that has a phonetic alphabet —

— is us, exactly. So the reason that we can use language is because we can make a huge range of sounds by just doing little things with our mouths. A little change in our lips can change a bah to a dah. And so we are able to produce a set of phonetic sounds. And we put those sounds together to make words.

So now, we have sperm whales, which have at least 150 of these different versions of sounds that they make just by making little adjustments to the existing way that they make sounds. And so you can make a chart of their phonetic alphabet, just like you make a chart of the human phonetic alphabet.

So then, that raises the question, do they combine their phonetic alphabet into words? Do they combine their words into sentences? In other words, do sperm whales have a language of their own?

Right. Are they talking to each other, really talking to each other?

If we could really show that whales had language on par with humans, that would be like finding intelligent life on another planet.

We’ll be right back.

So, Carl, how should we think about this phonetic alphabet and whether sperm whales are actually using it to talk to each other?

The scientists on this project are really careful to say that these results do not definitively prove what these sperm whale sounds are. There are a handful of possibilities here in terms of what this study could mean. And one of them is that the whales really are using full-blown language.

What they might be talking about, we don’t know. I mean, perhaps they like to talk about their travels over hundreds and thousands of miles. Maybe they’re talking about, you know, the giant squid that they caught last night. Maybe they’re gossiping about each other.

And you have to remember, sperm whales are incredibly social animals. They have relationships that last for decades. And they live in groups that are in clans of thousands of whales. I mean, imagine the opportunities for gossip.

These are all at least imaginable now. But it’s also possible that they are communicating with each other, but in a way that isn’t language as we know it. You know, maybe these sounds that they’re producing don’t add up to sentences. There’s no verb there. There’s no noun. There’s no structure to it in terms of how we think of language.

But maybe they’re still conveying information to each other. Maybe they’re somehow giving out who they are and what group they belong to. But it’s not in the form of language that we think of.

Right. Maybe it’s more kind of caveman like as in whale to whale, look, there, food.

It’s possible. But, you know, other species have evolved in other directions. And so you have to put yourself in the place of a sperm whale. You know, so think about this. They are communicating in the water. And actually, like sending sounds through water is a completely different experience than through the air like we do.

So a sperm whale might be communicating to the whale right next to it a few yards away, but it might be communicating with whales miles away, hundreds of miles away. They’re in the dark a lot of the time, so they don’t even see the whales right next to them. So it’s just this constant sound that they’re making because they’re in this dark water.

So we might want to imagine that such a species would talk the way we do, but there are just so many reasons to expect that whatever they’re communicating might be just profoundly different, so different that it’s actually hard for us to imagine. And so we need to really, you know, let ourselves be open to lots of possibilities.

And one possibility that some scientists have raised is that maybe language is just the wrong model to think about. Maybe we need to think about music. You know, maybe this strange typewriter, clickety clack is actually not like a Morse code message, but is actually a real song. It’s a kind of music that doesn’t necessarily convey information the way conversation does, but it brings the whales together.

In humans, like, when we humans sing together in choruses, it can be a very emotional experience. It’s a socially bonding experience, but it’s not really like the specific words that we’re singing that bring us together when we’re singing. It’s sharing the music together.

But at a certain point, we stop singing in the chorus, and we start asking each other questions like, hey, what are you doing for dinner? How are you going to get home? There’s a lot of traffic on the BQE. So we are really drawn to the possibility that whales are communicating in that same kind of a mode.

We’re exchanging information. We’re seeking out each other’s well-being and emotional state. And we’re building something together.

And I think that happens because, I mean, language is so fundamental to us as human beings. I mean, it’s like every moment of our waking life depends on language. We are talking to ourselves if we’re not talking to other people.

In our sleep, we dream, and there are words in our dreams. And we’re just stewing in language. And so it’s really, really hard for us to understand how other species might have a really complex communication system with hundreds of different little units of sound that they can use and they can deploy. And to think anything other than, well, they must be talking about traffic on the BQE. Like —

— we’re very human-centric. And we have to resist that.

So what we end up having here is a genuine breakthrough in our understanding of how whales interact. And that seems worth celebrating in and of itself. But it really kind of doubles as a lesson in humility for us humans when it comes to appreciating the idea that there are lots of non-human ways in which language can exist.

That’s right. Humility is always a good idea when we’re thinking about other animals.

So what now happens in this realm of research? And how is it that these scientists, these marine biologists and these computer scientists are going to try to figure out what exactly this alphabet amounts to and how it’s being used?

So what’s going to happen now is a real sea change in gathering data from whales.

So to speak.

So these scientists are now deploying a new generation of undersea microphones. They’re using drones to follow these whales. And what they want to do is they want to be recording sounds from the ocean where these whales live 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so the hope is that instead of getting, say, a few 100 codas each year on recording, these scientists want to get several hundred million every year, maybe billions of codas every year.

And once you get that much data from whales, then you can start to do some really amazing stuff with artificial intelligence. So these scientists hope that they can use the same kind of artificial intelligence that is behind things like ChatGPT or these artificial intelligence systems that are able to take recordings of people talking and transcribing them into text. They want to use that on the whale communication.

They want to just grind through vast amounts of data, and maybe they will discover more phonetic letters in this alphabet. Who knows? Maybe they will actually find bigger structures, structures that could correspond to language.

If you go really far down this route of possibilities, the hope is that you would understand what sperm whales are saying to each other so well that you could actually create artificial sperm whale communication, and you could play it underwater. You could talk to the sperm whales. And they would talk back. They would react somehow in a way that you had predicted. If that happens, then maybe, indeed, sperm whales have something like language as we understand it.

And the only way we’re going to figure that out is if we figure out not just how they talk to themselves, but how we can perhaps talk to them, which, given everything we’ve been talking about here, Carl, is a little bit ironic because it’s pretty human-centric.

That’s right. This experiment could fail. It’s possible that sperm whales don’t do anything like language as we know it. Maybe they’re doing something that we can’t even imagine yet. But if sperm whales really are using codas in something like language, we are going to have to enter the conversation to really understand it.

Well, Carl, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Sorry. Can I say that again? My voice got really high all of a sudden.

A little bit like a whale’s. Ooh.

Yeah, exactly. Woot. Woot.

Thank yoooo. No. Thank you.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

We allege that Live Nation has illegally monopolized markets across the live concert industry in the United States for far too long. It is time to break it up.

On Thursday, the Justice Department sued the concert giant Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster, for violating federal antitrust laws and sought to break up the $23 billion conglomerate. During a news conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Live Nation’s monopolistic tactics had hurt the entire industry of live events.

The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices.

In a statement, Live Nation called the lawsuit baseless and vowed to fight it in court.

A reminder — tomorrow, we’ll be sharing the latest episode of our colleagues’ new show, “The Interview.” This week on “The Interview,” Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, about his plans to make the world’s largest streaming service even bigger.

I don’t agree with the premise that quantity and quality are somehow in conflict with each other. I think our content and our movie programming has been great, but it’s just not all for you.

Today’s episode was produced by Alex Stern, Stella Tan, Sydney Harper, and Nina Feldman. It was edited by MJ Davis, contains original music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano, and Sophia Lanman, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Project SETI for sharing their whale recordings.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.

• May 29, 2024   •   29:46 The Closing Arguments in the Trump Trial
• May 28, 2024   •   25:56 The Alitos and Their Flags
• May 24, 2024   •   25:18 Whales Have an Alphabet
• May 23, 2024   •   34:24 I.C.C. Prosecutor Requests Warrants for Israeli and Hamas Leaders
• May 22, 2024   •   23:20 Biden’s Open War on Hidden Fees
• May 21, 2024   •   24:14 The Crypto Comeback
• May 20, 2024   •   31:51 Was the 401(k) a Mistake?
• May 19, 2024   •   33:23 The Sunday Read: ‘Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?’
• May 17, 2024   •   51:10 The Campus Protesters Explain Themselves
• May 16, 2024   •   30:47 The Make-or-Break Testimony of Michael Cohen
• May 15, 2024   •   27:03 The Possible Collapse of the U.S. Home Insurance System
• May 14, 2024   •   35:20 Voters Want Change. In Our Poll, They See It in Trump.

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Carl Zimmer

Produced by Alex Stern ,  Stella Tan ,  Sydney Harper and Nina Feldman

Edited by MJ Davis Lin

Original music by Elisheba Ittoop ,  Dan Powell ,  Marion Lozano ,  Sophia Lanman and Pat McCusker

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher the lyrics.

But sperm whales don’t produce the eerie melodies sung by humpback whales, sounds that became a sensation in the 1960s. Instead, sperm whales rattle off clicks that sound like a cross between Morse code and a creaking door. Carl Zimmer, a science reporter, explains why it’s possible that the whales are communicating in a complex language.

On today’s episode

Carl Zimmer , a science reporter for The New York Times who also writes the Origins column .

Background reading

Scientists find an “alphabet” in whale songs.

These whales still use their vocal cords. But how?

There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.

We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page.

The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column . More about Carl Zimmer

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