Maybe my SF bay area perspective is a bit of a money bubble. Everyone around here has crazy bikes and equipment.
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Interesting alternate timeline you live in. He was the strongest in Turkey, but inexperience cost him the overall win and the queen stage win on the only mountain climb in the race. He rode away solo at 8 or so km from the finish, but was only able to take 15 seconds, while Grossschartner, Kudus and Conti were taking turns, slowly wearing him out. They then caught him, and dropped him to finish a WHOPPING 7 seconds ahead of him, and he became 4th.
"nothing close to a win for months"
lol, give me a break. The ONLY disappointing thing he did, was Romandië, where he actually still managed to finish 15th in the ITT, few seconds behind Tratnik & Thomas and ahead of Van Baarle, De Gendt, Martinez, Buchmann, Kruijswijk, Kangert, Bohli... While he had been in the break the entire day before.
But ok, it's clear what you're trying to do, but nobody's falling for it. Or maybe you're expecting HIM to be 100% from January till October? Having to show a complete linear form curve throughout the year?
If you follow Junior/U23 races, you would know that even half a year (in age) can be a big factor. One of the main excuses by the non-believers, was that he is from January, while a guy like Vacek is 8 months younger. First year juniors vs 2nd year juniors. Huge difference. First year U23 vs 2nd year U23. Huge difference. Two years ago, do you know where Pogacar finished in the Peace Race as a first year U23? He finished 41st at over 16 minutes from Lambrecht (winner). One year later, Pogacar kills the entire U23 field in Tour de l'Avenir.
As for the Lampaert quote, that was about his WAY of riding, his mindset.
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Nah we all expecting that super long range attack in a 280km race tomorrow cause that's completely normal progression
I think Turkey was more about lacking experience and going a bit too early. They cut the flater part on top of the climb, so it was a rather regular 12km climb at 9%, on that kind of gradient the speed is so low that drafting isn't a big factor.
Back to Remco, atm his performance is nothing that I'd call suspicious, he has a certain skillset and obvious strengths and weaknesses and was always crazy talented. He's not explosive and atm he's already world class in TTs and on longer solo rides on hilly and rolling terrain.
One could say that he is surrounded with guys who don't exactly scream clean cycling to say the least. It's mainly the infamous team doctors, the team owner and tge fact that the performances of a few of his teammates seem to be too good to be true.
Do you actually have an argument to make, or are you going to keep making drive-by BS posts like this? Everybody's expecting him to go from far, nobody knows how he'll react to it. Maybe it's time to give up that mod-badge.
If you ignore all arguments I make, I do indeed make no arguments.
Natural progression at any age wouldn't make performances believable when those performances are at levels in top riders at their peak.
I find it very likely he is indeed a huge talent and an early bloomer, but the assumption he's clean is almost solely based on hoping he's the perfect boyscout on a team that's otherwise generally scrutinized.
Arguments based on guesswork and what you deem "normal". Do you deem Pogacar's performances normal? Bernal? I'm still baffled by the fact that there are a growing number of people in the general forum, that are coming to terms that it is indeed Pogacar's ("only 16 months older") that is giving the star performances relative to his age, and not Remco, but somehow i'm not seeing any posts with the same arguments in a Pogacar clinic topic.
"Levels in top riders at their peak". This is simply not true. The fact of the matter is that Remco is simply a very peculiar case, not because of how strong he is, but because the type of rider he is. He is light and he has great stamina. Normally, small guys are explosive (Higuita, Lambrecht, Yates...) and not worldclass ITT'ers. This means in San Sebastian, he can't wait for the final, because he lacks punch and would be dropped by "top riders at their peak". So he has to go from far. They let two (then four) domestiques do the chasing who have been working all day and let him ride (big mistake). So, they come up short, because unlike other tempo guys, he doesn't collapse on the last climb (because he's lightweight). In the peloton, a few guys try to attack, but they stop the effort because other punchy guys immediately follow, and they don't want to bridge with another guy in the wheel. Let him ride that same final together with Valverde or Pogacar, and he will lose that race 9 out of 10. He won't be able to drop them on the flat, but they will drop him on the climb. He has a specific set of skills, which simply change the entire dynamics. If the other riders don't adapt, they will lose.
Also, i was responding to a post that was completely disingenuous. Your response was nothing short of a driveby troll. You completely ignored what both i or the post i was responding to, was saying. And it wasn't the first time you've been doing that. You can't make the argument that "but but but, in the past, i have made some arguments!". That doesn't count.
The reason Bernal and Pogacar don't have huge Clinic threads is nobody defends them at all costs. That's basically the reason Sky threads and Armstrong threads were so big.
That. Makes. No. Sense.
They don't have huge clinic threads. They have NO clinic threads. How would you defend those riders from doping accusations, when there are no doping accusations to begin with, since they are not allowed in the regular forum and they have no thread in the Clinic?
Case in point. Nobody bothered to. Bernal is basically the most ordinary SkIneos TdF winner, yet I doubt you'd find a huge amount of posters buying into him being clean.
As for Pogacar, I can only speak for myself but I just couldn't be bothered. Similarly doubt many would proclaim him as a 2nd coming of cycling Jesus
lol ok.
So, nobody thinks they're clean, but nobody bothers to start a doping topic. After winning the TDF at 22 or podium in Vuelta at 20 and 3 MTF wins.
Smell ya later.
Pog did get mentioned in the 2019 alien awards thread
There is quite a difference between the position of assuming he’s clean and the position of not assuming him to dirty.
Haven’t seen anyone claim he’s a Boy Scout either. Plenty of other reasons have been offered.
I'm not entirely sure Pogacar did anything pre Vuelta to really be questioned. Sure he won California, but as much as I enjoy that race, I don't consider winning it meaning a whole lot. Remember Sagan won the overall of California.
Pog is mostly cause he's super young, and he developed super fast in his first pro year. It's a matter of whether his development also flattens out a little earlier or not.
The progression of Pogacar before Avenir 2018 to the Vuelta 2019 has to be the "best" ever (for a really young rider, note that i used progression and not transformation). So there are plenty of reasons to doubt.
Post not poster.
Almost no one here (in the Clinic) thinks Pogacar is clean.. Or at least I think not. I would not use him as an example of a rider who is likely clean(ish).
I'm prone to use hyperbole in some of my posts, like most here, but this is what I actually believe. I don't think Evenepoel was close to an actual win in those months following his San Juan ITT, although I suppose the Turkey MTF is debatable. IMO Grossschartner was in control there. I saw it live. Close to a second place, though? Sure. But never close to actually winning, let alone close to distancing proven champions, as if it was nothing.
The level in Turkey was very low. Lowest in years by a fair amount. I take that into account re: Evenepoel's more recent level. I don't necessarily think he performed at a higher level there than he did in San Juan or the UAE Tour.
I didn't think a linear progression was to be expected, either, of course, but some of his more recent performances were much more impressive than what could reasonably be expected. It wasn't just that he exceeded expectations based on his results up until Romandie.
Since l'Avenir his progression has been comparable to Bernal's, though. It probably looks more ridiculous because Bernal crashed hard in his first Tour and didn't get to peak for La Vuelta in his first Sky/INEOS year. But an on form Valverde could barely hold Bernal's wheel in Catalunya already... A more impressive performance than Pogacar's first WT stage win, IMO
But yeah, Pogacar's main issue is his level before his Tour de l'Avenir win. (Although Bernal is clearly on an elite program, too, IMO)
The larger question is why some riders get "threads" and others don't. By rights there should be a 200 page thread on Bernal, given the size of the Sky/Ineos, Wiggins and Froome threads. And yet...crickets.
Evenepoel is, for whatever reason, a polarizing rider, maybe because he seems to defy the conventional wisdom as far as his style of riding.
Evenepoel is, for whatever reason, a polarizing rider, maybe because he seems to defy the conventional wisdom as far as his style of riding.
That's not true at all since there's nationalities represented from many different countries from all over the world that are not part of, nor ever been part of the UK.It's because this forum hates British riders
People get threads in the clinic for all sorts of reasons, some being legit and some being part of a forum members baseless agenda against a rider, but disguised well enough to evade being deleted by mods. With the latter reason being the main driver behind forum policy that requires some sort of proof or evidence that backs up any doping insinuations or allegations. The most difficult thing about enforcing that policy is our ability as a moderation staff to disceminate what can be considered proof/evidence and how do we corroborate that proof/evidence? We do our best to keep the clinic as a discussion forum that includes deserving subjects and not an axe grinding session aimed at British, US, or any other countries riders without cause.
Look at how this topic got started. "Hey guys, are we suspicious of this guy or what do you think? Because i would sure like to be". Triggered because he won the Worlds Juniors last year. By ANY standards, what a kid like Brenner has done this year, is by far more remarkable. Evenepoel was a 2nd year junior, born in January. Brenner is a 1st year junior, born in oktober. That means that 's nearly 2 full years in development between the two, relative to their agebracket. Which is an age difference like night and day at that age. Consider Brenner's 1st year to Evenepoel's 1st year, while being 9 months younger WITHIN that first year, racking up a lot more wins than Evenepoel.
These clinic topics are a farce, not because there shouldn't be talk about doping, asking questions about certain achievements. But because it is all 100% perception, 0% factual. And because people only debate the riders they don't like for whatever reason, they will twist facts to suit their agenda. Case in point the fabrications about how Evenepoel started winning "out of nowhere" this year. He was 4th in Turkey, and could have won there with more experience. Then he showed some sparkles at the UAE tour before crashing out (finishing 15th in a MTF few seconds behind Dumoulin), then Hammer Norway, to go on to do a solo in Hammer Limburg. He won BBT where the main opposition was Campenaerts and Wellens. Then he was 3rd in the NC ITT, behind Lampaert & van Aert. Then (after coming back from his 1st ever altitude camp and losing some weight) he won a stage in AIRace. Then he won CSS and the ECC ITT and silver at the WCC ITT. It's been a steady progression throughout the year, not something that happened overnight. People may find that progression too suspicious by any means, fair enough, but then they get something in their head, and start twisting facts, to fit what they have fabricated in their head. In this scenario, that he only started performing when the poster thinks he likely started doping.
There is no topic on Bernal. No topic on Pogacar. No topic on Brenner. Each of which have performed at least as remarkably relative to their development, if not more, than Evenepoel, but none of them got a thread. While it isn't my intention to point and accuse, it is proof that this forum isn't about "anti-doping", but about fickle people needing to vent and search for whatever they need to convince themselfs that rider A is a bad guy, while rider B (equally suspicious) doesn't interest them all of a sudden. There is no proof here, there is no investigative research or theorizing, it's all quite simply baseless slander, outrage that a certain guy is (according to them) cleary cheating, while the same outrage is completely absent for another rider with similar or better results. Cognitive dissonance at its finest. Then they tell themselves they need to be "vigil" because the sport has a bad rep. But strangely enough they only need to be "vigil" for rider A, and rider B doesn't interest them as much even if he's an even bigger question mark. Because then all of a sudden, the truth, being vigil "in the benefit of the sport", or "keeping people on their toes" isn't that important anymore. To quote Red Rick: "If we can't be suspicious of outliers then we might as well stop pretending we care." But clearly only when the outlier corresponds to certain criteria (paraphrasing "Pogacar doesn't interest me because people don't act like he's the Messiah"). So people care (about the sport) when it concerns some (alledged) cheaters, but not all. And when mods start joining in with what i just described and contribute with undiluted troll posts, it's getting a bit much tbf. Some more fine logic on display: "people don't care about those other riders and don't make topics about them, because nobody defends them all the time." Well, where the hell would you defend them, when they don't even have a clinic topic to begin with? And it also turns out to be a complete lie, as you yourself have witnessed first hand last week when the no-doping-talk policy was exceptionally ignored in the Pogacar thread on the regular forum. One guy was outspoken about how suspicious Pogacar's achievements were, and he got slapped left and right by numerous other posters.
Anyway, forgive me for having a laugh at all these fine people who are "concerned" about the sport when it suits them.
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I know this post is a year old but its still funny to see, after all these years, obviously flawed comparisons to real life and general lack of logic being used to forward the - "doping in cycling- nah" position.
"Always the 6 foot 13 year old". So you are referencing something that by your own admission happens regularly around the world.
Meanwhile here we are talking not about an average kid that you might find one of in every village. Its the best junior in the entire world. And possibly one of the top juniors in history.
So its not your average 6 foot 13 year old.
Its a 1 in a gazillion 7 foot 13 year old.
You want to then say the 7 foot teen is natural or not, be my guest. But be honest about what you are actually talking about.
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