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He may be a killer on the bike, or he just feels responsible to deliver wins. Both can also be true. But to question his own stated reason here presupposes that he isn't honest with his motives, and he told a pretty lie on top of that. Instead of just stating: I didn't want Navarez to win, and it helped Molano, so I did it.
Of course it's always possible people are lying, but I think that's not a fair epistemic strategy to understand utterances of interlocutors. Surely as a rule of thumb, you can say: you also have to take into account that they talk to the media, but it does not follow from that- at all- that it is also true, that statements to the press are per definition untrustworthy.
Edit: More precisely: to question his own stated reason, ofc in the first step only presupposes the possibility of him lying. But to assert that he has a hidden motive based on that mere possibility is not sound.
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About same time as his teammate crashed. How many mechanicals has he had? It seems to be one at least in every stage... At least he hasn't crashed, but man, have a talk with the mechanics 'cause something aint right.
If he plans his efforts to be fairly fresh for the Tour he won't be looking for any friends. Also; he's not currently racing against the expected Tour combatants.
Big heavy riders can be tough on components
Some questions are more or less loaded and are not to be answered in public without regard for how it's perceived. In so far as that is a lie, the blame for it is as much on the questioner. Like if you ask a rider if he is clean.
I think riders usually answer honestly when asked honest questions.
In any case, I don't think Pogi lied here. Not listing all your motivations is not a lie, as long as those you list are also honest.
Like when Alberto gifted stages to Schleck to be nice?
He didnt receive much good graces for that.
He found himself in more disadvantages and less favorable positions the longer his career continued. He should have probably made the most of it instead.
he is lying all the time in those post stage interviews. Like when he said that they wanted to give the jersey to Plapp, for example, while they did the exact opposite. But in this case, my comment wasn't meant to be taken too seriously. No idea if he has any personal problem with Narvaez.
Pogacar doesn't want to gift stages, nor does he need many allies in the bunch. The entire peloton is going to race against him for the most part (except when they decide to race for 2nd). But Pog does seem to go out of his way to be friendly off the bike towards pretty much everyone not on VLAB, including flattering other riders for their strength in post-race interviews even after having dispatched them with apparent ease.
Pog's competition is Merckx, not Bardet or whoever. There are records for monument wins, GT stage wins, etc. that he has to target to be comparable to Merckx/Hinault etc, and he's not going to get there by giving away stages when they're within his grasp. As far as why he did 10 seconds of leadout today, it was probably truly for Molano and somewhat just for the excitement. I don't think he has anything against Narvaez in particular because of stage 1. It's not like ensuring Narvaez lost today is going to teach Narvaez or Ineos a lesson; I can't see Ineos helping out Pog regardless of today and Narvaez is going to keep on doing his stage hunting thing no matter what. Pog factors into the finale of most of the stages and if Narvaez keeps showing this strength they'll continue to butt heads. It's not a sign that Pog has a vendetta.
Jonathan Vaughter's perspective of "he should be letting us win some" is just the attitude of a grumpy narcissist. The pro peloton is full of oversized egos and I think Pog is doing the world a service by taking them all down a peg. I somewhat respect Geraint for his post TT interview where he basically said he's fine with just doing the best he can and letting Pog ride his own race. Not relying on external validation is probably why he's still able to be passionate about cycling (enough to keep training and racing hard) so late in life.
Pog's competition is Merckx, not Bardet or whoever. There are records for monument wins, GT stage wins, etc. that he has to target to be comparable to Merckx/Hinault etc, and he's not going to get there by giving away stages when they're within his grasp. As far as why he did 10 seconds of leadout today, it was probably truly for Molano and somewhat just for the excitement. I don't think he has anything against Narvaez in particular because of stage 1. It's not like ensuring Narvaez lost today is going to teach Narvaez or Ineos a lesson; I can't see Ineos helping out Pog regardless of today and Narvaez is going to keep on doing his stage hunting thing no matter what. Pog factors into the finale of most of the stages and if Narvaez keeps showing this strength they'll continue to butt heads. It's not a sign that Pog has a vendetta.
Jonathan Vaughter's perspective of "he should be letting us win some" is just the attitude of a grumpy narcissist. The pro peloton is full of oversized egos and I think Pog is doing the world a service by taking them all down a peg. I somewhat respect Geraint for his post TT interview where he basically said he's fine with just doing the best he can and letting Pog ride his own race. Not relying on external validation is probably why he's still able to be passionate about cycling (enough to keep training and racing hard) so late in life.
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Yeah, Pog is seemingly well-liked and respected within the peloton.
That he needs to gift stages or dim his light to appease others... thats just haters being haters. Almost like they want force that narrative to become true/a fact. It is just making some stuff up at the end of day to create controversy over nothing.
I didn't doubt that, I merely pointed out, that it's not logically sound to infer from this, that the answer to a certain question is automatically let's say overly pragmatic.
The doping question is one that they all have thought up, pre made, statements in their pockets. "Are you a leadout man now?" Isn't exactly a question that I think qualifies for the same category.
So basically you are saying, all question related to reasons for actions on a bike, are dishonest? Because he basically asked him tongue in cheek why he did it, not "was that revenge? was that punishement for stage 1? was that a statement to Navarez?" which would be more akin to the doping question, and also give way to the dialectics of media interviews you point out. Basically he could have deflected this question in numerous ways just to hide that he has a dark, punishing side.
Overall I think the kind of questions that result in an "automatic" bending of thruth are of the kind of the question he was asked.
Did he lie though? I remember him saying he'd have liked to give it to him, but that's not the way it played out. Doesn't mean he has to go out of his way to make it happen right? But maybe it's a lie, I am not saying I know it isn't, but I remember it slightly different.
I mean if there are examples of him regularly lying that do not already presuppose that he his lying, to make sense of their assertion, I'd actually be interested in seing them. Because than ofc it would be a reasonable assumption he's also lying now if he does it regularly. But my memory serves nothing other than what you mentioned, and that I remember diefferently
the way the english cycling media treats non-english speaking riders is hilarious sometimes. did team sky ever gift anyone anything?
As I wrote, I think Pogi was honest, I don't think he lied. And I don't think there's anything dark about retaliation. It's basic human nature. When you describe it as such, it does make it an unappealing answer.
But I also think that it's rare for a brief answer to be exhaustive. And rare to enumerate all considerations when you talk, or for that matter be fully conscious of them.
Team Sky would let breakaways that were unthreatening in GC go once they had the race lead under control, although they did not hand over jerseys, if they caught them it was either because someone attacked who was up there on GC or because other teams‘ pacing chased down breakaways.
Mea culpa, I overlooked that you stated that you didn't think he lied, I was already lost in my argument it seems.
Nevertheles if retaliation wasn't darkly connotated why would the question be loaded then? Relatioation in this case would be an act of punishement for crossing his ways. I don't see why punishing someone for winning fair and square cannot be seen as a dark action. I also think that's to specific to be human nature, which is hard enough to pin down anyway,
True, it still does not leave room though, to freely assert any non stated motivation to be true. That's all I'm trying to say. I wouldn't have objected to begin with, if there wasn't the assertion that it has to be the case that he wanted (also) to retaliate. That would mean he's hurt not only by loosing, but also by being beaten by a certain rider. Which is just to much speculation, given that there seems to be (to me, maybe I didn't pay attention) little foundation to claim that Pogacar should feel that way.
"lying" is too strong a word maybe, but to me it's seems like stuff he says to the media to present himself in a better way, not like the killer he is on the bike, who wants to win everything he can. He said it didn't work out because Ineos went fast - which maybe factually was correct, but the part they speeded up was always going to be fast. UAE didn't give the break enough of a gap before.
And I also seriously doubt that Mikkel Bjerg made the decision to chase down the break yesterday, for example. That's just not how it works, not even in a team as badly organized as UAE.
I don't think it's dark. Others may. It can be expected to be an undesirable public answer.
I don't think I freely asserted that. I do think it's a plausible partial motivation, but that is of course not based on his interview, but on how he races.
This is what I wrote:
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