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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

Page 144 - Get up to date with the latest news, scores & standings from the Cycling News Community.
OK, so you are defending absurdity then, that's fine.
I just don't see the absurdity.

1:21 gap seems like a lot, but if you look at the context there's an explanation for it, which I've already explained.

Roglic finished fifth, which on paper is a good result, but it's not F1 as they don't give points, in cycling it's the time that counts. He beat Caruso by barely 30 seconds, much less than a minute against the likes of Mas and Uran. Do you really think this is Roglic's level?

These are Roglic's standards:

Normally he would have been very close to Pog (either ahead or behind him) on that ITT. He just choked that day, but very badly.
 
So what did people expect? Pog had beaten Roglic in the hilly Slovenian ITT championship a few months earlier.
Yes, but they were close, and Roglic had looked stronger in the third week. People expected Roglic to win the TT, or at the very least, not lose a minute to Pogacar and lose the race.

Roglic was the bookmakers favorite for the stage. Pogacar only 4th

The result was a huge shock at the time.
 
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Yes, but they were close, and Roglic had looked stronger in the third week. People expected Roglic to win the TT, or at the very least, not lose a minute to Pogacar and lose the race.

Roglic was the bookmakers favorite for the stage. Pogacar only 4th

The result was a huge shock at the time.
Of course Rog was the big favourite of the bookies. A lot of people were expecting him to win the stage. This also shows how badly he did in the ITT. He only finished fifth. No one thought he would lose the yellow jersey, no one thought he would underperform so badly.
 
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I don't think by a lot, maybe a little. If Roglic brings his ITT standard he won't lose the yellow jersey.
Ok, so you are firmly in the camp that Poggo did not have an amazing nuclear time trial that day. I'm not going to change your mind about that, but I've had plenty of time to rethink this and I still believe he had a crazy breakout performance, announcing himself as a mutant.

Anywho. It was an intense tour. Everyone but Pogaman was exhausted, while he blew everyone out of the water. Rogo looks to have made the mistake of trying to hold Tog's pace and blew on the climb. But the Rogster would have had to put out his own alien performance to a stay close enough to Toggocop to win the GC.

Random hot/not takes ...

Pogs had a pretty crap aero position in the tour. But had reportedly been focusing on that TT for many, many months. Interesting.

Pogs was getting stronger the whole tour, while everyone else was apparently getting fatigued. That's interesting (and not the slightest bit weird!). Not sure why he didn't race the WC TT afterwards. He likely would have smoked it as well :p

Oh well, nothing to see at the 2020 Tour people. Pogs was totes believable. Which I guess means JoJo is as well
 
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Of course Pog was getting stronger during the Tour, I guess that's why he was dropped on the Col de la Loze.

Get real, man. That ITT course was perfect for Roglic. He beats the likes of Mas or Uran by 2-3 minutes, not 45 seconds. Or do you want to say that Mas aslo did an alien performance to stay that close to Rog?
 
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And you kids thought it was all about zone 2 and a dash of hot sauce.

"Smiling can be a valuable tool in cycling at any distance, whenever there is fatigue or discomfort," says Taylor, adding that anyone can benefit. "Whenever it gets hard, smiling can really help."

(https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...-it-could-make-you-a-better-cyclist-heres-how)

The Coal Miner's happy-go-lucky demeanour gives him an important marginal gain.
Sound weird but is at least something I read about before actually:


I'll give you another one - tongue position:

 
And you kids thought it was all about zone 2 and a dash of hot sauce.

"Smiling can be a valuable tool in cycling at any distance, whenever there is fatigue or discomfort," says Taylor, adding that anyone can benefit. "Whenever it gets hard, smiling can really help."

(https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/...-it-could-make-you-a-better-cyclist-heres-how)

The Coal Miner's happy-go-lucky demeanour gives him an important marginal gain.
Richie Porte was onto that already. 😉🤪

More honestly though, this is something that has been known a while.
 
Yup this! This is gonna suit the nerds who struggles with executive functioning, like planning etc. Since it's all scheduled for them they just follow it and do what they shall. They're working hard but are also taken care of like they were children. Because they were always like children with "special needs". If they had normal jobs they might not even have made it. Like this is what they can do and this is what they have to do.

So basically the peleton today are gonna fill up with autist-ish people prepared to have no life from early age and who has the grit to stick to it until they're adults. Those who can't stand it are gonna quit.

Mental health problems are gonna be rampant and they might've been even bigger if they didn't have cycling in their lives. Ironically.

Remco and MvdP outbursts, Jonas introversion. Pog treating it all like a game. Essentially they are all still kids. But they're obsessed with optimazing themselves.

Anything that makes us feel like they're robots is basically what I'm aiming at with my descriptions lol.

So it's not just the doping, it's the poeple on the the bikes too.

(I don't think it's a coincidence that people like Lantern Rouge can succed as a podcast and get hired by teams for tactics either. It's just another side of the same robotic coin :joycat: )
A timely article on mental health and cycling -
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitne...-boss-vaughters-who-considers-it-a-superpower
Apparently up to 1 in 7 cyclists are "neurodivergent", including Jonathan Vaughters who has Aspergers. I wonder if it has become more common during the past years.
 
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A timely article on mental health and cycling -
https://www.cyclingweekly.com/fitne...-boss-vaughters-who-considers-it-a-superpower
Apparently up to 1 in 7 cyclists are "neurodivergent", including Jonathan Vaughters who has Aspergers. I wonder if it has become more common during the past years.
I've known about Vaughters diagnose for a long time.

“I would partly attribute a failed marriage to Asperger’s, but it’s also the reason why this team has flourished for 20 years, and why as a rider my greatest strength was long, solitary efforts. That fits into the characteristics of someone with Asperger’s.”

This is exactly my point. Not all autistics are like this (I'm different) but quite a few are :)

"I truly believe my Asperger’s is the reason this team has existed for 20 years, and I also believe that a lot of people in high-level leadership positions are also very much on the spectrum, and that helps me to understand them better."

I low key wonder about another controversial team manager ;)

Honestly I've also been thinking about UAE as a whole team. The lack of tactics feels like a lack in theory of mind tbh. It's like they can't seem to see the whole, nor have any ideas about team dynamics. Also seems to have quite a few autist-ish guys in the team lol.

It's funny that it took years of me liking a rider before I noticed they were neurodivergent, wheraas with Jonas I saw it instantly. :joycat:

The synchronicity between my finally spelling things out here and that article being published the same week. Too funny :joycat:
 
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Na, JV doesn't have Assburgers, the guy's just a narcisist who likes the smell of his own farts.
If you think autistics in general doesn't like their smell of their own farts you haven't met enough autistics 🤣 Inflated ego is common as a compensation for a lack of ego. Between themselves autistics are more diverse than the rest of the population. Compensation is part of why. I've not seen a lot of JV, but what I have seen jives well with what you describe. Inflated ego for sure.

Edit: just watching him. Even just his movement/mannerisms is enough to see it 🤣
 
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In hindsight I think too much is made of the Planche de Belles Filles ITT.

I think Roglic had barely done ITTs all year and in a 3rd week ITT with a lot of fatigue in the legs he cramped up being in ITT position to keep the gap small which led to blowing the *** up on the climb. And it's not like Roglic crushed the similar Vuelta ITT, which he just barely won against a much weaker field.

That being said, the split given here is not as I rembmer it. I seem to remember Pogacar making up the exact GC difference in the T3 before the climb started? But maybe I'm wrong.
 
I assume you didn't actually watch back then? Because then you would probably remember how surprising it was. Try to go back and read the reactions from back then. He blew everyones expectations out of the water. That's just how it was.
Well, mate. I don't doubt that it was a big surprise, I've already mentioned that almost nobody thought Roglic would lose the yellow jersey. Including myself. My point is that Roglic was capable of a much better ITT than he did on that day. His two domestiques, who have worked for him for three weeks, and the 35+ year old Porte had no business finishing ahead of him.
 
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I'm saying PogoPo is alien. You disagree. That's cool
8l2l9u.jpg
 
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Well, mate. I don't doubt that it was a big surprise, I've already mentioned that almost nobody thought Roglic would lose the yellow jersey. Including myself. My point is that Roglic was capable of a much better ITT than he did on that day. His two domestiques, who have worked for him for three weeks, and the 35+ year old Porte had no business finishing ahead of him.
I have an issue with your claim that Pogacar performed as expected. I don't have an issue with the claim that Roglic underperformed. He did. Probably in part because he mentally cracked because of Pogacars shockingly good performance, which surprised everyone because no one expected it.
 
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I have an issue with your claim that Pogacar performed as expected. I don't have an issue with the claim that Roglic underperformed. He did. Probably in part because he mentally cracked because of Pogacars shockingly good performance, which surprised everyone because no one expected it.
I think it is very fair to state that Pojo's performance was way above expectations.