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The Advertiser
40 minutes ago
- The Advertiser
Enfin! A French stage winner in the Tour de France
Valentin Paret-Peintre has kept his cool in a furnace of pressure and heat, delivering a thunderous victory atop the legendary Mont Ventoux to give France its first win in this year's Tour de France during a breathtaking Stage 16. The Soudal-Quick Step rider edged out Ireland's Ben Healy in a heart-pounding sprint finale on the Giant of Provence, while Tadej Pogacar remained unshakable in yellow, fending off Jonas Vingegaard on the brutal 21.5 km ascent averaging 7.5 per cent. Defending champion Pogacar clawed two more seconds from his Danish rival in a final surge to extend his overall lead to 4 mins 15 secs. Germany's Florian Lipowitz held firm in third at 9:03, pulling further ahead of fourth-placed Briton Oscar Onley, who lags another 2:01 behind. Ben O'Connor, in 12th, 30:08 behind Pogacar, is the only Australian in the top 25 GC riders. He was also the best-placed Aussie in the stage, finishing 32nd, 6.07 adrift of Paret-Peintre The day belonged to the 29-year-old from the French-Swiss border town of Annemasse, whose lack of belief turned into defiance and then glory. "I honestly didn't believe it," he said. "I thought Pogacar would go for victory today. But when we built a real gap, I told myself, you can't let a win on Mont Ventoux slip through your fingers." After the Tour's second rest day, stage 16 took the riders 171.5 km from Montpellier in the south of France on a long flat course until they reached the brutal climb up Ventoux. Mathieu van der Poel, who had been third in the points classification, withdrew before Tuesday's stage with pneumonia. Seven riders surged ahead from an early breakaway, carving out a healthy 6:30 buffer as they reached the base of the climb. The air grew thinner, the crowds louder and the landscape more lunar. Spanish climber Enric Mas looked like the chosen one, attacking solo with 14.2 km to the summit. Behind him, Paret-Peintre, Healy, and Colombia's Santiago Buitrago gave chase. As they passed Chalet Reynard - where pine forest yields to desolate, white-stone slopes - it became a survival march. Mas and Buitrago fought valiantly but were dropped by the Franco-Irish duo, only to courageously claw their way back before being left behind again with 400 metres to go when Healy launched his sprint. But Paret-Peintre, with ice in his veins and fire in his legs, clung to his wheel. In the final, agonising metres, he surged past, claiming not just a stage win, but also a place in French cycling folklore. He was only the fifth Frenchman to conquer the Ventoux. Buitrago was third. Behind the breakaway Vingegaard had attacked a handful of times, but could not shake off Pogacar. He was further irked after crossing the finish line when, the Dane said, "Some photographer just ran straight in front of me. I don't know what he was doing. I went down. People in the finish area should use their eyes a bit more." Valentin Paret-Peintre has kept his cool in a furnace of pressure and heat, delivering a thunderous victory atop the legendary Mont Ventoux to give France its first win in this year's Tour de France during a breathtaking Stage 16. The Soudal-Quick Step rider edged out Ireland's Ben Healy in a heart-pounding sprint finale on the Giant of Provence, while Tadej Pogacar remained unshakable in yellow, fending off Jonas Vingegaard on the brutal 21.5 km ascent averaging 7.5 per cent. Defending champion Pogacar clawed two more seconds from his Danish rival in a final surge to extend his overall lead to 4 mins 15 secs. Germany's Florian Lipowitz held firm in third at 9:03, pulling further ahead of fourth-placed Briton Oscar Onley, who lags another 2:01 behind. Ben O'Connor, in 12th, 30:08 behind Pogacar, is the only Australian in the top 25 GC riders. He was also the best-placed Aussie in the stage, finishing 32nd, 6.07 adrift of Paret-Peintre The day belonged to the 29-year-old from the French-Swiss border town of Annemasse, whose lack of belief turned into defiance and then glory. "I honestly didn't believe it," he said. "I thought Pogacar would go for victory today. But when we built a real gap, I told myself, you can't let a win on Mont Ventoux slip through your fingers." After the Tour's second rest day, stage 16 took the riders 171.5 km from Montpellier in the south of France on a long flat course until they reached the brutal climb up Ventoux. Mathieu van der Poel, who had been third in the points classification, withdrew before Tuesday's stage with pneumonia. Seven riders surged ahead from an early breakaway, carving out a healthy 6:30 buffer as they reached the base of the climb. The air grew thinner, the crowds louder and the landscape more lunar. Spanish climber Enric Mas looked like the chosen one, attacking solo with 14.2 km to the summit. Behind him, Paret-Peintre, Healy, and Colombia's Santiago Buitrago gave chase. As they passed Chalet Reynard - where pine forest yields to desolate, white-stone slopes - it became a survival march. Mas and Buitrago fought valiantly but were dropped by the Franco-Irish duo, only to courageously claw their way back before being left behind again with 400 metres to go when Healy launched his sprint. But Paret-Peintre, with ice in his veins and fire in his legs, clung to his wheel. In the final, agonising metres, he surged past, claiming not just a stage win, but also a place in French cycling folklore. He was only the fifth Frenchman to conquer the Ventoux. Buitrago was third. Behind the breakaway Vingegaard had attacked a handful of times, but could not shake off Pogacar. He was further irked after crossing the finish line when, the Dane said, "Some photographer just ran straight in front of me. I don't know what he was doing. I went down. People in the finish area should use their eyes a bit more." Valentin Paret-Peintre has kept his cool in a furnace of pressure and heat, delivering a thunderous victory atop the legendary Mont Ventoux to give France its first win in this year's Tour de France during a breathtaking Stage 16. The Soudal-Quick Step rider edged out Ireland's Ben Healy in a heart-pounding sprint finale on the Giant of Provence, while Tadej Pogacar remained unshakable in yellow, fending off Jonas Vingegaard on the brutal 21.5 km ascent averaging 7.5 per cent. Defending champion Pogacar clawed two more seconds from his Danish rival in a final surge to extend his overall lead to 4 mins 15 secs. Germany's Florian Lipowitz held firm in third at 9:03, pulling further ahead of fourth-placed Briton Oscar Onley, who lags another 2:01 behind. Ben O'Connor, in 12th, 30:08 behind Pogacar, is the only Australian in the top 25 GC riders. He was also the best-placed Aussie in the stage, finishing 32nd, 6.07 adrift of Paret-Peintre The day belonged to the 29-year-old from the French-Swiss border town of Annemasse, whose lack of belief turned into defiance and then glory. "I honestly didn't believe it," he said. "I thought Pogacar would go for victory today. But when we built a real gap, I told myself, you can't let a win on Mont Ventoux slip through your fingers." After the Tour's second rest day, stage 16 took the riders 171.5 km from Montpellier in the south of France on a long flat course until they reached the brutal climb up Ventoux. Mathieu van der Poel, who had been third in the points classification, withdrew before Tuesday's stage with pneumonia. Seven riders surged ahead from an early breakaway, carving out a healthy 6:30 buffer as they reached the base of the climb. The air grew thinner, the crowds louder and the landscape more lunar. Spanish climber Enric Mas looked like the chosen one, attacking solo with 14.2 km to the summit. Behind him, Paret-Peintre, Healy, and Colombia's Santiago Buitrago gave chase. As they passed Chalet Reynard - where pine forest yields to desolate, white-stone slopes - it became a survival march. Mas and Buitrago fought valiantly but were dropped by the Franco-Irish duo, only to courageously claw their way back before being left behind again with 400 metres to go when Healy launched his sprint. But Paret-Peintre, with ice in his veins and fire in his legs, clung to his wheel. In the final, agonising metres, he surged past, claiming not just a stage win, but also a place in French cycling folklore. He was only the fifth Frenchman to conquer the Ventoux. Buitrago was third. Behind the breakaway Vingegaard had attacked a handful of times, but could not shake off Pogacar. He was further irked after crossing the finish line when, the Dane said, "Some photographer just ran straight in front of me. I don't know what he was doing. I went down. People in the finish area should use their eyes a bit more."
Perth Now
an hour ago
- Perth Now
Enfin! A French stage winner in the Tour de France
Valentin Paret-Peintre has kept his cool in a furnace of pressure and heat, delivering a thunderous victory atop the legendary Mont Ventoux to give France its first win in this year's Tour de France during a breathtaking Stage 16. The Soudal-Quick Step rider edged out Ireland's Ben Healy in a heart-pounding sprint finale on the Giant of Provence, while Tadej Pogacar remained unshakable in yellow, fending off Jonas Vingegaard on the brutal 21.5 km ascent averaging 7.5 per cent. Defending champion Pogacar clawed two more seconds from his Danish rival in a final surge to extend his overall lead to 4 mins 15 secs. Germany's Florian Lipowitz held firm in third at 9:03, pulling further ahead of fourth-placed Briton Oscar Onley, who lags another 2:01 behind. Ben O'Connor, in 12th, 30:08 behind Pogacar, is the only Australian in the top 25 GC riders. He was also the best-placed Aussie in the stage, finishing 32nd, 6.07 adrift of Paret-Peintre The day belonged to the 29-year-old from the French-Swiss border town of Annemasse, whose lack of belief turned into defiance and then glory. "I honestly didn't believe it," he said. "I thought Pogacar would go for victory today. But when we built a real gap, I told myself, you can't let a win on Mont Ventoux slip through your fingers." After the Tour's second rest day, stage 16 took the riders 171.5 km from Montpellier in the south of France on a long flat course until they reached the brutal climb up Ventoux. Mathieu van der Poel, who had been third in the points classification, withdrew before Tuesday's stage with pneumonia. Seven riders surged ahead from an early breakaway, carving out a healthy 6:30 buffer as they reached the base of the climb. The air grew thinner, the crowds louder and the landscape more lunar. Spanish climber Enric Mas looked like the chosen one, attacking solo with 14.2 km to the summit. Behind him, Paret-Peintre, Healy, and Colombia's Santiago Buitrago gave chase. As they passed Chalet Reynard - where pine forest yields to desolate, white-stone slopes - it became a survival march. Mas and Buitrago fought valiantly but were dropped by the Franco-Irish duo, only to courageously claw their way back before being left behind again with 400 metres to go when Healy launched his sprint. But Paret-Peintre, with ice in his veins and fire in his legs, clung to his wheel. In the final, agonising metres, he surged past, claiming not just a stage win, but also a place in French cycling folklore. He was only the fifth Frenchman to conquer the Ventoux. Buitrago was third. Behind the breakaway Vingegaard had attacked a handful of times, but could not shake off Pogacar. He was further irked after crossing the finish line when, the Dane said, "Some photographer just ran straight in front of me. I don't know what he was doing. I went down. People in the finish area should use their eyes a bit more."
News.com.au
8 hours ago
- News.com.au
People online duped for thinking AI influencer Mia Zelu is real as deepfake accounts skyrocket across social media
Influencer Mia Zelu's done it all. Courtside among the biggest names at Wimbledon? Yep. A Coldplay concert experience of a lifetime? Completed it. Sipping coffee in picturesque Italian streets? Piece of cake. Her Instagram page is filled with big bucket list stuff. Except it's not real. Not the typical social media personality, Zelu is actually an AI influencer, meaning she's just a generated picture on a screen. Nothing more. But she looks so real that most of her 167k Instagram followers wouldn't even know she doesn't actually exist. Don't tell those who keep up with her 'sister' Ana Zelu, who's fooled even more people with 267k followers who interact with her either unknowing or uncaring of the truth behind her account. With their photorealistic posts and human-like captions, the fake sisters are just a few of the increasing number of AI accounts that are fooling people into thinking they're real, despite (some of) their bios stating they aren't. Tech expert and editor of Trevor Long says the reason these accounts are having the same effect on people as real influencers is because AI has understood what people are drawn to and can feed into the same patterns without skipping a beat. For a technological tool designed to help people, having it understand what people want isn't a bad thing. The danger is not knowing what's real and what's not. 'Most of us don't know the influencer on the other side of [an] Instagram account that is real, so knowing that someone is real or artificial intelligence actually doesn't change much of the perception of content,' Mr Long told 'However, if that content is sculpted and created in such a way that it is truly targeted and you don't have the morals of a real human being deciding whether or not they will sit in that spot, take that photo, try that thing, go to that event, we start to really push the boundaries of where this influential culture might go.' Getty Images' Asia-Pacific head of creative Kate Roruke said they've conducted research that found that although 65 per cent of people could spot an AI photo, more than 95 per cent also mistook real images for AI. 'People are used to seeing curated, almost perfect images from human influencers, achieved through extensive editing, filters and professional photography. Zelu, being entirely AI-generated, naturally embodies this idealised flawless skin, perfect lighting and picture-perfect poses,' she said. But concerns then about the extreme uses of the tech then also create a problem, like deep fake pornographic material which has pushed the moral and ethical boundaries of AI. Numerous celebrities like Taylor Swift and face of the NRLW Jaime Chapman have already become victims. The value of knowing if something is real has never been more important in an age when a tool not everyone yet understands is already out of control. Mr Long says it is incumbent on the big tech companies like Meta and TikTok to be able to give users validation on what is real and what isn't, and give precedence to the real people using their platforms. 'We talk so much about the algorithm. It should be the case that real people are prioritised so that we know that we can listen to and decide whether or not we trust that person, otherwise we're probably putting our trust in an AI fake individual,' he said. While easier said than done, companies like YouTube have taken steps towards creating better clarity and priority to real content, last week announcing they were demonetising accounts and channels that generate purely AI generated content. 'There's some fun AI videos out there. It might be a kangaroo doing a vlog or silly things like that,' Mr Long said.
