Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread

[Unchained]

It's weird that the Olympics are being discussed in context to Tadej, but stranger still the Olympics is being discussed and the games evolution because of rampant cheating is not.
There appears to be another generation gap and that thing that happens, people just choose to forget.
The Olympics used to pride itself on being completely amateur and professionals were banned.
The Olympic police would voice anger at Eastern bloc countries and Chinese for having state sponsored athletic programs that for all intents and purposes were professional athletes.
All this talk of prestige of gold medals has completely misses the mark. Name a sport in the Olympics, cycling, basketball, hockey, endless.. everything was better before the Olympics gave up, completely rolled over and allowed professionals to come in and destroy the spirit of the games.
Countries that had a chance in some sports still do, but to a lesser degree because pros have ruined everything, not made it more prestigious.
It's like gravel racing, it started with all kinds of fellowship vibe, grassroots, have fun, self supported, you get it, not professional.
Now some of the discussion surrounding gravel racing is that it lost it's soul.
The idea that Remco or Tadej could contest an Olympic medal against some kid from Turkey, Malaysia or Iran is certainly soulless.
What a national dilemma for countries who still are training, thinking along some old school Olympic soul, having car washes and bake sales to raise money so their athlete can go to the Olympics and Tadej shows up to destroy them.
Many, many, too many federations will rethink spending enormous time and money to send a rider to the Olympics after witnessing Kigali.
Majority of countries it's completely symbolic, no long shot is going to happen. Tiny countries can use UCI WT standings to calculate their chances at Olympic games.
Maybe Tadej will lay in his Olympic village room or luxury hotel and ask himself the ugly question about Olympic bike racing.. Why would these guys even show up? They know that they have no chance of winning but they still show up.
Guys showing up to Kigali with rim brakes and aluminium box section rims..that's terrible but at the Olympics when riders like that show up and Tadej and the others destroy them it's shameful.
Olympics should be amateur.

 

[hayneplane]

Cavendish is gutted. Track silver medal means nothing as well.

Knighthood revoked

To be fair for Cavendish missing an Olympic Gold Medal on the track when practically all his British contemporaries have won at least one is almost certainly the biggest achievable gap in his palmares as a sprinter.

For Pogacar for sure he would trade one monument for the Olympic title but not if he only had a couple of monument wins.

 

[proffate]

The amateurs of today are better than the pro's of less than a decade ago apparantly.

There have always been lots of non-physiological barriers to going pro. It's just that now with power meters and social media we can discover the people who stayed amateur for reasons other than a lack of vo2 capacity.

I mean I guess if you're obsessed enough with road cycling to come on this forum, it's hard to imagine someone choosing a different life than touring Europe's dingiest motels and throwing oneself down and off mountains, but I guess that Andrew Feather guy and my semi-local hero both found white collar professions more appealing.

 

[BubbaChuck]

its getting clearer that eras before were chumps,but lets wait for more data,lol.

 

[Oldman]

It's weird that the Olympics are being discussed in context to Tadej, but stranger still the Olympics is being discussed and the games evolution because of rampant cheating is not.
There appears to be another generation gap and that thing that happens, people just choose to forget.
The Olympics used to pride itself on being completely amateur and professionals were banned.
The Olympic police would voice anger at Eastern bloc countries and Chinese for having state sponsored athletic programs that for all intents and purposes were professional athletes.
All this talk of prestige of gold medals has completely misses the mark. Name a sport in the Olympics, cycling, basketball, hockey, endless.. everything was better before the Olympics gave up, completely rolled over and allowed professionals to come in and destroy the spirit of the games.
Countries that had a chance in some sports still do, but to a lesser degree because pros have ruined everything, not made it more prestigious.
It's like gravel racing, it started with all kinds of fellowship vibe, grassroots, have fun, self supported, you get it, not professional.
Now some of the discussion surrounding gravel racing is that it lost it's soul.
The idea that Remco or Tadej could contest an Olympic medal against some kid from Turkey, Malaysia or Iran is certainly soulless.
What a national dilemma for countries who still are training, thinking along some old school Olympic soul, having car washes and bake sales to raise money so their athlete can go to the Olympics and Tadej shows up to destroy them.
Many, many, too many federations will rethink spending enormous time and money to send a rider to the Olympics after witnessing Kigali.
Majority of countries it's completely symbolic, no long shot is going to happen. Tiny countries can use UCI WT standings to calculate their chances at Olympic games.
Maybe Tadej will lay in his Olympic village room or luxury hotel and ask himself the ugly question about Olympic bike racing.. Why would these guys even show up? They know that they have no chance of winning but they still show up.
Guys showing up to Kigali with rim brakes and aluminium box section rims..that's terrible but at the Olympics when riders like that show up and Tadej and the others destroy them it's shameful.
Olympics should be amateur.

Unfortunately the networks put up so much money the OOC has become addicted to the kickbacks and perks. They, in turn; allow every relatively meaningful incursion of professional sport into the Olympic tent. The net effect is a slurry of broadcast highlights and human(?) interest(?) stories to prolong eyes on the tube.