http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/rogers-quits-tour-de-suisse-to-head-to-altitude
This stuck me as a very strange article and headline. If accurate, it seems quite odd that a rider who is in the middle of a stage race at a decent level of altitude would quit and go train (presumably not racing miles) at "altitude".
Not the first passage I've read about riders prepping for the Tour by going to altitude, a training methodology that is quite controversial in terms of actual results in most of the scientific literature I've read.
My take? It's simply a euphemism for "packing RBC's and/or doping" before the Tour, and it's so widely understood what's actually happening that they kind of forget how almost comical it can sound as an announcement. I think we're all so inoculated to the sport, jargon and timing that we don't even bat an eyelid when someone announces something like this.
Help me out and tell me I'm wrong. Tell me how it makes training sense to leave a stage race in Switzerland to get altitude training in prep for the Tour. Is it better to taper off at this point depending on your training plan and load up to this point? Is there any way this makes sense?
This is not really a dig on Rogers--everyone's headed for altitude after the Dauphine or TdSuisse, but leaving during the race to do it? Strikes me as blatant avoidance of certain kinds of controls. How am I wrong here?
This stuck me as a very strange article and headline. If accurate, it seems quite odd that a rider who is in the middle of a stage race at a decent level of altitude would quit and go train (presumably not racing miles) at "altitude".
Not the first passage I've read about riders prepping for the Tour by going to altitude, a training methodology that is quite controversial in terms of actual results in most of the scientific literature I've read.
My take? It's simply a euphemism for "packing RBC's and/or doping" before the Tour, and it's so widely understood what's actually happening that they kind of forget how almost comical it can sound as an announcement. I think we're all so inoculated to the sport, jargon and timing that we don't even bat an eyelid when someone announces something like this.
Help me out and tell me I'm wrong. Tell me how it makes training sense to leave a stage race in Switzerland to get altitude training in prep for the Tour. Is it better to taper off at this point depending on your training plan and load up to this point? Is there any way this makes sense?
This is not really a dig on Rogers--everyone's headed for altitude after the Dauphine or TdSuisse, but leaving during the race to do it? Strikes me as blatant avoidance of certain kinds of controls. How am I wrong here?