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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

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This is silly like the discussions several years ago. Specialized is sponsoring two of the major contenders; do you think they'd take that kind of risk? It'd ruin their brand if all success was attributed to Granpa's e-bike technology. Better to have a busted, doped rider win on their product and drop the rider.
No; they are somewhere between better than other riders/teams and the Outer Limits. Motor doping isn't likely.
"there was smoke around Pogacar during the 2021 Tour where other (anonymous) riders said his bike was making weird sounds." is hack-writer click-bait. The weird sound would be someone like Remco or Tadej made accelerating in 3 cogs higher than the riders being dropped.

yeah what's in it for Specialized (which neither Vinegegaard or Pogacar ride btw, but follow me here) other than winning races and getting tons of exposure to sell even more $14,000 bikes to dentists? some people are so naive. money is everything, motor doping is extremely likely.
 
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where are the journalists? where's Walsh?
the only one is Antoine Vayer, all influencer on X are hypocrites, never anyone who talks about doping, mihai, LR, B.N. , ammatty
where did that guy called @Uefe go??

Pogacar is the biggest scandal since Armstrong and no one talks

Oufeh. he deleted his account more than one year ago. with SkIneos being very average, he and a few others had no more reason to shout on twitter.
 
I don't know if this is extreme low level trolling or what kind of idiocy? But Remco literally started cycling competitively when he was 17. At that age, Pog had aleady won the Giro della Lunigiana.
Pogacar was one week short of his 18th birthday when he won Lunigiana. Evenepoel was already 18 at the time because he's born in January. They were both second year juniors. It has no relevance to what I wrote earlier. I have no idea whether you're trying to make a point, but you're not doing a good job.
 
It's the sudden change that bothers me. Pogacar was good, but not exceptional in his first four years. He signs for UAE and BOOM. Explain this to me.
Why Ayuso can't make the huge leap Pogacar made? I don't know. He was very good but what do you expected Pogacar to accomplish before joining UAE (before the age of 20)? Were you expecting a Tour de France winner at the age of 19 years old? Please tell me. Other thing I would like to ask you. Do you believe Remco would have a similar palmares if he joined UAE instead of quickstep?
Pogacar is an all time great, probably the best rider I ever seen but I'm not fool, I know he is a convicted doper.
 
Why Ayuso can't make the huge leap Pogacar made? I don't know. He was very good but what do you expected Pogacar to accomplish before joining UAE (before the age of 20)? Were you expecting a Tour de France winner at the age of 19 years old? Please tell me. Other thing I would like to ask you. Do you believe Remco would have a similar palmares if he joined UAE instead of quickstep?
Pogacar is an all time great, probably the best rider I ever seen but I'm not fool, I know he is a convicted doper.
He's hasn't been convicted at all. What are trying to say?
Let me summarize once again: the other UAE riders are not suspicious to me.
However... when a good rider joins the team of the dirtiest cyclist and sports director in history, surrounded by dirty assistants and he suddenly becomes one of the best riders in history, it becomes very interesting. Especially when this rider who was never an exceptional ITT rider, beats the worlds elite in the TdF 2020 or nearly equals Armstrongs time on Luz Ardiden two minutes ahead of everybody else in 2021, including the EPO generation.
 
And Remco immediately started winning
Yes, he was very impressive in the way he kept destroying those a bit younger than him. But I guess since he started cycling later it wasn't a bad idea for him to race in the juniors at the age of 18.

And the 2000 age group was extremely weak, with almost no one worth mentioning apart from Arensman, who is from December 1999. But in 2018 he's competed in men's and u23 races, so he hasn't met Remco.

But no question as Remco went straight from junior races, skipped u23 altogether, won gold medal at the European ITT Championships, silver at the World Championships, won San Sebastian. That's a massive jump. Respect to QuickStep docs
 
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Pogacar is the biggest scandal since Armstrong and no one talks
Wait, I thought that was Vingegaard, jeez you guys I can hardly keep up. The only consistency I can see is that whenever one of the bigshots has a big win or does something impressive he is immediately front and center in the clinic, unless his name is Van der Poel. Is it the consensus of the clinic that he alone is cleans? The son of a former top pro who himself was busted for doping? Vingo goes for a 40K escapade and the clinic is open for business, Pogi doubles it and everyone loses their ***. Van der Poel goes from 80K out including a 30-10-30 second 20 K long drag race with another clinic regular and it's crickets around here, he doesn't even budge off the second page. I don't get it, can anybody explain it to me. Like I just started watching cycling this year?
 
He's hasn't been convicted at all. What are trying to say?
Let me summarize once again: the other UAE riders are not suspicious to me.
However... when a good rider joins the team of the dirtiest cyclist and sports director in history, surrounded by dirty assistants and he suddenly becomes one of the best riders in history, it becomes very interesting. Especially when this rider who was never an exceptional ITT rider, beats the worlds elite in the TdF 2020 or nearly equals Armstrongs time on Luz Ardiden two minutes ahead of everybody else in 2021, including the EPO generation.
I agree with you but C'mon man, the final TT was a mountain TT in stage 20 (recovery plays an huge role). And one thing I can tell you, Pogacar always had a great engine, you can see Tour de l'Avenir. It was a matter of time and better conditions (equipment, wind tunnel, etc) to make him a very good time trialist. For me, the main flag is definetly how good he is in literally everything. He is toying with the field in strade bianche, he wins gt's, he can win reduced sprints, he is probably the best puncher in the world too on climbs with more than 1 km. He would be the first rider since Gilbert to make the treble in Ardennes of he didn't crash. He dropped a peak MVP (probably will end his career as the biggest winner in Ronde) in his favourite race. I agree with you when it is suspicious however you have to admit he was not a random cyclist when he was young, he was really talented.
 
Yes, he was very impressive in the way he kept destroying those a bit younger than him. But I guess since he started cycling later it wasn't a bad idea for him to race in the juniors at the age of 18.

And the 2000 age group was extremely weak, with almost no one worth mentioning apart from Arensman, who is from December 1999. But in 2018 he's competed in men's and u23 races, so he hasn't met Remco.

But no question as Remco went straight from junior races, skipped u23 altogether, won gold medal at the European ITT Championships, silver at the World Championships, won San Sebastian. That's a massive jump. Respect to QuickStep docs
No one worth mentioning from the 2000 generation? LoL. Carlos Rodriguez, Girmay, Van Wilder, Healy, Waerenskjold, Plapp, Ben Tulett, Vauquelin. Plenty of good riders.
He didn't 'jump' when he moved to Quickstep. He was already World, European and national champion RR and ITT. He won nearly everything as a junior? What jump did he make?
 
He won tour de l'avenir before joining UAE with the biggest gap to second place since Quintana and he was racing for Slovenia (almost raced alone). What are you talking about? Of course no one thought he would be this good but he was one of the most impressive young riders ever.
He already had a pre contract with UAE at that point. They just juiced him up early in his career so they could go 'look, he was always a huge talent'. Once up on a time he lost ITTs to Anthon Charmig and Jonas Gregaard.

I remember Kron saying in a podcast he used to beat Pogacar on the hills, but suddently Pogacar took a huge leap in level and began to destroy the youth ranks.
 
I agree with most of what you wrote (by the way, don't get me started on Gilbert 2011).
I don't believe cycling (world tour riders) has one clean rider. Doping is part of the sport (not just this sport). Every all time great was a doper. Merckx, Indurain, Lance, Contador, Froome, Hinault. Do you believe Merckx was clean?
None of them were clean, but I do believe there are plenty of 'clean riders' in this era even at the very top. I don't distrust Evenepoel, Van der Poel, Pidcock or Pedersen. Not even Roglic.
However, when riders start crushing climbing records from the EPO era, I get suspicious.
 
Wait, I thought that was Vingegaard, jeez you guys I can hardly keep up. The only consistency I can see is that whenever one of the bigshots has a big win or does something impressive he is immediately front and center in the clinic, unless his name is Van der Poel. Is it the consensus of the clinic that he alone is cleans? The son of a former top pro who himself was busted for doping? Vingo goes for a 40K escapade and the clinic is open for business, Pogi doubles it and everyone loses their ***. Van der Poel goes from 80K out including a 30-10-30 second 20 K long drag race with another clinic regular and it's crickets around here, he doesn't even budge off the second page. I don't get it, can anybody explain it to me. Like I just started watching cycling this year?
I have regularly commented on Van der Poel's extraterrestrial abilities. I had petered off on this because with his chronic back issues he had become fairly human. But that might be reversing since his WC win. Honestly though, my main take here is that the measuring stick keeps on being revamped. It had been Pout, Pisscock, and van der Monster that seemed ridonkulous. But then Jo Jo and Toddy showed up and made them look second rate
 
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Why Ayuso can't make the huge leap Pogacar made? I don't know. He was very good but what do you expected Pogacar to accomplish before joining UAE (before the age of 20)? Were you expecting a Tour de France winner at the age of 19 years old? Please tell me. Other thing I would like to ask you. Do you believe Remco would have a similar palmares if he joined UAE instead of quickstep?
Pogacar is an all time great, probably the best rider I ever seen but I'm not fool, I know he is a convicted doper.
To the bolded, I think Remco likely would have won the TdF by now if he had moved to UAE. Or perhaps completely imploded because of a clash of personalities. Who really knows with such hypotheticals. But QS' GT prep is pretty garbage :p
 
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Junior resulst are hugely convoluted by access to resources, even non clinical ones, so I wouldn't put an extreme amount of stock into that.

His performance as an adult is much more disturbing. In a supposed extremely specialized and professional peloton, he's having a laugh with basically everyone.
To the bolded, +1000. This is basically the biggest pis*take ... in an era where huge talents have focused on one major area, someone who is a generalist can beat them at their specialty. The regular comparison to yesteryear races where the degree of specialization was nowhere near the same simply lacks sound logic
 
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I agree with you but C'mon man, the final TT was a mountain TT in stage 20 (recovery plays an huge role). And one thing I can tell you, Pogacar always had a great engine, you can see Tour de l'Avenir. It was a matter of time and better conditions (equipment, wind tunnel, etc) to make him a very good time trialist. For me, the main flag is definetly how good he is in literally everything. He is toying with the field in strade bianche, he wins gt's, he can win reduced sprints, he is probably the best puncher in the world too on climbs with more than 1 km. He would be the first rider since Gilbert to make the treble in Ardennes of he didn't crash. He dropped a peak MVP (probably will end his career as the biggest winner in Ronde) in his favourite race. I agree with you when it is suspicious however you have to admit he was not a random cyclist when he was young, he was really talented.
To the first bolded section, I believe the first half of that TT was flat, and he was knocking it out of the park there as well, even compared to the TT specialists. Then on the climb, he nuked the folks who rode the flat portion easy so they could climb better. :p

To the second bolded section, 100% This is the part that makes me laugh the most. When someone is capable of what is supposedly not possible from a physiological overview, then you see trainers and such come out and try to explain it, but that is always a bit laughable and a fraught approach. Pharmstrong .... incredible efficiency. Contadupe .... incredible lactate clearing. I mean, no doubt these were strengths they possessed, but then much more eventually becomes apparent.
 
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