Let me explain the headline: During the Versus telecast of the Tour de France, former pro cyclist Robbie Ventura was assigned to interview Christian VandeVelde after the stages.

Out of breath, Ventura would run up to VandeVelde and blurt out, “Christian,” and quickly spit out a statement of some sort and then a question, both relatively basic in nature after sprinting to catch up with his assignment after the race.

So as a tribute to Ventura’s hustle at the Tour and the postrace quote grabbed by a pool reporter after Stage 5 of the Tour of Missouri, we present VandeVelde’s quote Friday from Jefferson City. (VandeVelde leads Columbia’s Michael Rogers by 18 seconds with two stages to go.)

“Today was a perfect combination for our team. Luckily, our team didn’t do one-tenth the work as yesterday, which means they are a little more fresh to help me defend the jersey tomorrow. There will be better morale on the team bus tonight. Nonetheless today was a hard race. No one is used to the humidity. It was noticeable as soon as we got off the bus at the start today. The heat and humidity were very sharp. In some ways today was a bonus. We thought we would be riding through rain. It hits you in the face and is never good to ride in. And finally from a team standpoint, it was a pretty good day. And we expect a few sparks tomorrow from a few teams.”

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