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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

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Are you really comparing pre-EPO era with peak EPO era?
Let me ask you a question....what performance you think was more impressive? The performance today of Pogacar, or the performance of Vingegaard on Tourmalet stage Vuelta 2023?( i'm not gonna even talk about performances in the Tour). Tell me what you think without knowing some data.

Like i said, the level of this Giro was low, and Pogacar did some good performances consistent with what he did in the past years, but i don’t think we saw something outrageous in this Giro.

Everybody is in the "mix", but i didn't saw nothing ridiculous on this Giro, even in W/kg.
 
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Let me ask you a question....what performance you think was more impressive? The performance today of Pogacar, or the performance of Vingegaard on Tourmalet stage Vuelta 2023?( i'm not gonna even talk about performances in the Tour). Tell me what you think without knowing some data.

Like i said, the level of this Giro was low, and Pogacar did some good performances consistent with what he did in the past years, but i don’t think we saw something outrageous in this Giro.

Everybody is in the "mix", but i didn't saw nothing ridiculous on this Giro, even in W/kg.
Maybe the first ITT when he out climbed everyone?
Today, he started his attack late, fended off fans, had a chat with the last rider he passed, swirled through crowded road.
So no, it wasn't his best and therefore not ridiculous. Although I'm in doubt Poggi is at Jonas level.
At MSR, Mathieu's power must have been ridiculous when he bridged to Tadej.
 
Maybe the first ITT when he out climbed everyone?
Today, he started his attack late, fended off fans, had a chat with the last rider he passed, swirled through crowded road.
So no, it wasn't his best and therefore not ridiculous. Although I'm in doubt Poggi is at Jonas level.
At MSR, Mathieu's power must have been ridiculous when he bridged to Tadej.
You mention a few factors that have basically 0 effect.

That said, direct power comparisons, especially of wildly different stages, and especially of estimates, are a terrible predictor of ability. I remember the Tourmalet stage in the Vuelta. That was with a very big tailwind, and Tourmalet is a straight west-east climb.
 
Maybe the first ITT when he out climbed everyone?
Today, he started his attack late, fended off fans, had a chat with the last rider he passed, swirled through crowded road.
So no, it wasn't his best and therefore not ridiculous. Although I'm in doubt Poggi is at Jonas level.
My point was the fact, the competition is really low, resulting in big gaps, is making it seem the perfomances of Pogacar more outrageous than what they are in reality.

The perfomances of Pogacar were really good, but is on par with the perfomances he did in the last years. There's wasn't a improvement by him, and he did a lot of better perfomances in the past than what he did in this Giro.

Talking about the example of the stage Tourmalet 2023, Vingegaard did 6.13 w/kg on Tourmalet, and before he did 5.84 w/kg durin 44 min on Aubisque( almost beating the record) 5.8 w/kg during 31 min on Spandelles, and 6.1 w/kg during 51 min on Tourmalet(where altitude plays a role, not on Grappa). The favourites also spent 15.43 kj/kg/h 3 hours before the beggining of Tourmalet. Hight intensity.

Now today, Pogacar did 6.19 w/kg during 51 minutes, they spent 14 kj/kg/h during 3 hours and half before the beggining of the second ascent Monte grappa. The first ascent of Monte Grappa Pogacar was almost 6 minutes slow than in the first ascent. The fatigue wasn't high.


Now, compare the two stages and tell me what was more impressive. What happened on Tourmalet was less impressive visually, because the GT riders were better than these weak GT riders in the Giro, so Pogacar looked more impressive due to the gaps. Even so, if we look at the data, things are different, even with Vingegaard and other GT riders in the vuelta, not at peak shape like in the Tour.
 
Maybe the first ITT when he out climbed everyone?
Today, he started his attack late, fended off fans, had a chat with the last rider he passed, swirled through crowded road.
So no, it wasn't his best and therefore not ridiculous. Although I'm in doubt Poggi is at Jonas level.
At MSR, Mathieu's power must have been ridiculous when he bridged to Tadej.
Now if we talk about Tour Flandres last year, yeah, right there i think Pogacar perfomance was outrageous.
 
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Keep in mind greedy mouse really did go for it in the second time trial. And just about made it. He was really trying to win as many stages as he could
He would certainly have won more than 6 stages if he wanted the maximum. At least he is not giving away stage 17 to Steinhauser after dsm's hard work.

As for the ITTs, in my opinion, those two stages were the only ones where he was at the limit during the whole Giro. I guess because of the training and data check since Vingegaard has a clear advantage on ITT.
 
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He would certainly have won more than 6 stages if he wanted the maximum. At least he is not giving away stage 17 to Steinhauser after dsm's hard work.

As for the ITTs, in my opinion, those two stages were the only ones where he was at the limit during the whole Giro. I guess because of the training and data check since Vingegaard has a clear advantage on ITT.
Depends on the type of TT. The flat TT of the Tour i don't believe Vingegaard has advantage against Pogacar, plus the TT setup of Emirates is really good.
 
Depends on the type of TT. The flat TT of the Tour i don't believe Vingegaard has advantage against Pogacar, plus the TT setup of Emirates is really good.
Vingegaard also gave him a solid beating on the flat-ish section during last year's Tour ITT

vingpog.jpg


10 minute GT wins are a bad sign for cycling no matter who shows up.
Vingegaard beat him by more than 7 minutes in the Tour last year.
 
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Let me ask you a question....what performance you think was more impressive? The performance today of Pogacar, or the performance of Vingegaard on Tourmalet stage Vuelta 2023?( i'm not gonna even talk about performances in the Tour). Tell me what you think without knowing some data.

Like i said, the level of this Giro was low, and Pogacar did some good performances consistent with what he did in the past years, but i don’t think we saw something outrageous in this Giro.

Everybody is in the "mix", but i didn't saw nothing ridiculous on this Giro, even in W/kg.

I don't care what the numbers said, Vingegaard's performance on Tourmalet sucked marbles compared to what we saw today.
 
He would certainly have won more than 6 stages if he wanted the maximum. At least he is not giving away stage 17 to Steinhauser after dsm's hard work.

As for the ITTs, in my opinion, those two stages were the only ones where he was at the limit during the whole Giro. I guess because of the training and data check since Vingegaard has a clear advantage on ITT.
I'm pretty sure you are correct about the ITTs. There may have been stretches of climbs where he was pushing himself hard for a period, but not emptying the tank.
 

Rou

Mar 20, 2024
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My point was the fact, the competition is really low, resulting in big gaps, is making it seem the perfomances of Pogacar more outrageous than what they are in reality.

The perfomances of Pogacar were really good, but is on par with the perfomances he did in the last years. There's wasn't a improvement by him, and he did a lot of better perfomances in the past than what he did in this Giro.

Talking about the example of the stage Tourmalet 2023, Vingegaard did 6.13 w/kg on Tourmalet, and before he did 5.84 w/kg durin 44 min on Aubisque( almost beating the record) 5.8 w/kg during 31 min on Spandelles, and 6.1 w/kg during 51 min on Tourmalet(where altitude plays a role, not on Grappa). The favourites also spent 15.43 kj/kg/h 3 hours before the beggining of Tourmalet. Hight intensity.

Now today, Pogacar did 6.19 w/kg during 51 minutes, they spent 14 kj/kg/h during 3 hours and half before the beggining of the second ascent Monte grappa. The first ascent of Monte Grappa Pogacar was almost 6 minutes slow than in the first ascent. The fatigue wasn't high.


Now, compare the two stages and tell me what was more impressive. What happened on Tourmalet was less impressive visually, because the GT riders were better than these weak GT riders in the Giro, so Pogacar looked more impressive due to the gaps. Even so, if we look at the data, things are different, even with Vingegaard and other GT riders in the vuelta, not at peak shape like in the Tour.
The Dane produced 6.09 ᵉW/Kg for 50:47. Pogačar pushed 6.19 ᵉW/Kg for 51:42 min and was 57 seconds faster than Quintana in the 2014 time-trial on the same segment. So Pog did more watts for a longer time on a stage deep in the third week. And this is coming from the Visma fanboy Naichaca who imagined a headwind for the Tourmalet stage. The 'great' Cian Uijtdebroeks lost only 38 secs to Jonas. So next time you try to compare efforts please select a better one for the Dane. Maybe Hautacam or Granon.
 
The circle jerk of fanboys over any particular doper is, however, perplexing.

Why? He is universally popular. Why Pogacar is popular should not be difficult to comprehend.

Contador was super popular. If you don't like cycling don't watch it. And the fact is Pogacar was convincingly beaten by Vingegaard at the last two TdF. So I don't understand your obsession with Pogacar - if I go to the Vingegaard thread I don't see you there during the Tour - why not?

I had this argument with @The Hitch over 10 years ago here. The point Hitch made then was enjoy the show. The riders and teams will tell us if anything unfair is going on.
 
View: https://x.com/WattsinCycling/status/1794413327461802419


Big discrepancy between them, normally they have similar results.

Different speeds, someone is wrong.
They have the same time but different distance measured.


The actual interesting part is that unlike on Foscagno, the UAE pace was really hard and quite significantly above what the lesser contenders could sustain all the way to the top, and even Pogacars W/kg were quite diminished during his 15 minutes attack compared to what he did on altitude on Foscagno.
 
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View: https://x.com/giroditalia/status/1794380353245008043


Take care of every detail, don't just think about winning. Think about communication, not like Armstrong and Riccò.
The more impressions you make on the media, the fewer enemies you will have.

View: https://x.com/WattsinCycling/status/1794402081383895103


we still wonder if he's clean? are you joking?
it doesn't matter if his opponents were Martinez and Thomas.
 
View: https://x.com/giroditalia/status/1794380353245008043


Take care of every detail, don't just think about winning. Think about communication, not like Armstrong and Riccò.
The more impressions you make on the media, the fewer enemies you will have.

View: https://x.com/WattsinCycling/status/1794402081383895103


we still wonder if he's clean? are you joking?
it doesn't matter if his opponents were Martinez and Thomas.
That takes not that much energy and Pogacar just trained himself to farm the easy content consistently.

He's jsut TikTok Armstrong.
 
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And it's not just one guy winning. While Pogi is dominant, so is Van der Poel. Likewise Vingegaard.

The more outrageous one of them is, the more leeway the rest have.
After this Giro we should be vigilant on others ;)

I think its an arms race. 2020 TdF stage 20 wasn't supposed to happen - that Tour was going exactly to JV's plan until that day. So Visma upped the ante. Now UAE / Pog are responding.

On my original comment, there can be murmurs in the peloton. Examples I recall were Vinokourov's 2007 TdF stage 13 TT win and Riccardo Ricco's 2008 (CERA fueled) performances. There was talk in the peloton before it became public.
 
After this Giro we should be vigilant on others ;)

I think its an arms race. 2020 TdF stage 20 wasn't supposed to happen - that Tour was going exactly to JV's plan until that day. So Visma upped the ante. Now UAE / Pog are responding.

On my original comment, there can be murmurs in the peloton. Examples I recall were Vinokourov's 2007 TdF stage 13 TT win and Riccardo Ricco's 2008 (CERA fueled) performances. There was talk in the peloton before it became public.
Those narratives to me are just magical bs with 0 plausibility. Retrofitted Marvel storylines.
 
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Those narratives to me are just magical bs with 0 plausibility. Retrofitted Marvel storylines.
That's your opinion RR. Since I backed up my opinion with two specific examples which I know happened - so they are not just plausible but fact. Can you flesh out your opinion?

Edit: I was certainly annoyed when Vingegaard upset Pogacar in the 2022 TdF, but someone else here suggested the arms race in this thread which was created after the Granon stage. Seems highly plausible to me.