Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Cookster15]

That's not the point. Gianetti should have been banned for life from cycling a decade ago. Piepoli, Ricco, Cobo and Menchov were all caught in a team he was managing. He's the core of the fraud in current cycling. Stéphane Heulot said in 2008 "Doping is so ingrained in certain managers, like GIanetti, that they can't conceive of cycling any other way," It was well known.

Look over there? And yet Visma destroyed Gianetti's best laid plans the last two years. Its obviously an arms race. But a race requires more than one participant. Visma's conductors are just not as infamous yet still managed to conjure up the greatest time trial in history at the Combloux TT last year.

 

[GuntherL1]

Look over there? And yet Visma destroyed Gianetti's best laid plans the last two years. Its obviously an arms race. But a race requires more than one participant. Visma's conductors are just not as infamous yet still managed to conjure up the greatest time trial in history at the Combloux TT last year.

This is the Pogacar topic. I never claimed Vingegaard is clean. If you want to talk about Vingegaard/Visma, go to that topic.

 

[Cookster15]

This is the Pogacar topic. I never claimed Vingegaard is clean. If you want to talk about Vingegaard/Visma, go to that topic.

Yet strangely we never see you there. Its the lack of balance which undermines your reasoning.

 

[madthebad]

This is the Pogacar topic. I never claimed Vingegaard is clean. If you want to talk about Vingegaard/Visma, go to that topic.

I don't understand how you can talk about Pogacar being doped without mentioning his biggest rival. If one guy was riding on still water and then the other one was on the juice, of course the other guy will get the juice as well next time they meet until it becomes a battle of who has the stronger juice. You cannot exclude the other guy from the conversation, especially when one of them lost his phone and his doorbell wasnt working before a drug test.

 

[GuntherL1]

I don't understand how you can talk about Pogacar being doped without mentioning his biggest rival. If one guy was riding on still water and then the other one was on the juice, of course the other guy will get the juice as well next time they meet until it becomes a battle of who has the stronger juice. You cannot exclude the other guy from the conversation, especially when one of them lost his phone and his doorbell wasnt working before a drug test.

[[content deleted]]The reason why I focus on these two people, is because I'm of the opinion that Gianetti should have been banned for life and that Pogacars dominance is the most extreme we have ever seen.
That doesn't mean I think Vingegaard is clean, his ITT in last years TdF wasn't highly suspicious or that his recent comeback shouldn't raise eyebrows. I just don't focus on it because I think there is more extreme fraud occurring, namely Pogacar.

​

 

[GuntherL1]

Yet strangely we never see you there. Its the lack of balance which undermines your reasoning.

So apparently, I have the moral duty to post in other topics and do it in a balanced way to avoid undermining my reasoning?
Yeah... I'll pass.
However, you have the right to now show up in this topic.

 

[Forever The Best]

It's all okay, cycling cleaned up after Festina, Pantani, Armstrong/USPS, Operacion Puerto, Saunier Duval/Gerolsteiner, Contador, Sky.

 

[HurtHumper]

From laternerouge;

It is possibly the UAE superstar’s greatest climbing performance of all time and maybe the best in the 21st century, considering the moderate altitude and stage difficulty. Pogačar did 6.85 ᵉW/Kg for 27:50 min, which is above the All-Time Top 30 trend-line. For sea level normalised, it is 7.16 ᵉW/Kg. Pogačar beat Lance Armstrong’s 2001 and Tony Rominger, Miguel Indurain and Zenon Jaskula’s 1993 times by around two minutes. When comparing to other top performances this century, Pogačar on Pla d’Adet was slightly more impressive than Contador’s 2009 Verbier and Basso’s 2006 Monte Bondone efforts. The biggest knock on Basso’s Monte Bondone performance was that it was after a flat stage, whilst Contador’s Verbier performance when adjusted for altitude and the higher intensity of the Tour de France 2024, falls slightly below this Pla d’Adet.

 

[Nomad]

I think Riis definitely had less dope in his body than Pogacar has.

Wow! Are you serious about that?

Riis was an EPO monster back in the Wild West days of the 90s where riders could use EPO with impunity jacking their Hcts to dangerously high levels.

Riis with Gweiss-Ballan's systematic doping program (Ferrari at the helm) went from a baseline Hct of 41.1 to 56.3 --- a massive 37% increase!

Gewiss–Ballan - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

For those who are old enough to have watched the Wild West of the 90s, Riis was like a man possessed when he won the 96 Tour. Plus he was a big guy - built more like a sprinter than a GC contender. And definitely a high-responder.

 

[anti -e-bike]

Compared to Vingebot he's Dave Chapelle.

both are totally fake
programmed puppets for the circus

 

[snipeheem]

Wow! Are you serious about that?

Riis was an EPO monster back in the Wild West days of the 90s where riders could use EPO with impunity jacking their Hcts to dangerously high levels.

Riis with Gweiss-Ballan's systematic doping program (Ferrari at the helm) went from a baseline Hct of 41.1 to 56.3 --- a massive 37% increase!

Gewiss–Ballan - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

For those who are old enough to have watched the Wild West of the 90s, Riis was like a man possessed when he won the 96 Tour. Plus he was a big guy - built more like a sprinter than a GC contender. And definitely a high-responder.

Riis was on another level give Pogi his stuff and he is pushing 8w/kg

 

[fbjim]

me seeing the pla d'adet climbing times

 

[Nomad]

Riis was on another level give Pogi his stuff and he is pushing 8w/kg

And what is that "stuff?" (I assume you're talking biological doping & not mechanical enhancement?)

If Riis had been in the ABP program, his 37% increased Hct over baseline would have immediately been red-flagged with an Off-score likely over 145 - which is 99.99 specificity (less than 1 in 10,000 chance of being undoped). And if he was subject to the upper limit Hct safety level of 50% - he would have been way above & a 2-week no competition suspension would have been enforced.

I'm just wondering with Pogi that if it's biological doping, i.e. O2-Vector doping, how is he getting around the sophisticated hematological module of the ABP?

 

[snipeheem]

And what is that "stuff?" (I assume you're talking biological doping & not mechanical enhancement?)

If Riis had been in the ABP program, his 37% increased Hct over baseline would have immediately been red-flagged with an Off-score likely over 145 - which is 99.99 specificity (less than 1 in 10,000 chance of being undoped). And if he was subject to the upper limit Hct safety level of 50% - he would have been way above & a 2 week no competition suspension would have been enforced.

I'm just wondering with Pogi that if it's biological doping, i.e. O2-Vector doping, he's suspected of - how is he getting around the sophisticated hematological module of the ABP?

Bro you are too smart for me haha i am talking about EPO and 60% hct

 

[snipeheem]

I believe that they are in grey area of doping something that u cannot found right now, but epo or blood bags? I dont believe, i think they are on something totally new

 

[Mr. 64%]

After the Aderlass-case, the MPCC suggested that it would be possible to infuse your blood bag close to race start, and then have it drawn out again post stage.

Maybe this is the key to peaking all season long while avoiding ABP detection?

 

[Nomad]

That's an interesting point. And that's exactly what Operation Aderlass was about. I can see the infusion part easily done before the race (in the team hotel or something like that). But the withdrawal aspect after the race/stage is the confusing part. What is the time frame between the completion of the race & the time when anti-doping shows up to get blood & urine samples? There would have to be sufficient time to withdrawal blood before the testers show up.

 

[gregrowlerson]

No one familiar with the sport can be gullible enough to believe this. And as you know, Vinge bettered Pog two years in a row, so it's not a one way street. The arms race is a joke.

So knowing is not the problem. Some people just get a huge boner out of domination, "excellence", whatever, is all. It was the same with the fanboi of Lance, Sky, etc, although different language was used to rationalize it in each case.

I could not disagree with this more.

This forum is basically a cult when compared to the wider fandom of road cycling. The majority of fans probably didn't believe that anything was going on by the late 90's, and they definitely refused to believe that anything was going on late into the Lance era, and there's no reason to think they'd be willing to believe that anything untoward is going on now. The cycling fans who retort "those 90's epo guys", or "that lance Armstrong was the biggest cheat ever", are the majority of cycling fans, and they aren't necessarily just July ones.

Sorry, you are correct when you state "knowing is not the problem". Because most fans know the history, or enough of it. But it's just simple human nature to want to believe in the goodness of humans, most are unwilling to look in the mirror and accept that there is light and darkness within us (and hence others) and that there is nothing wrong with that.

I recall attempting to suggest to another cycling fan that LA may have been doping (probably around 2005), simply on the basis of how close he was to Pantani's ADH time, but there was no discussion. The majority of people won't allow you to have that discussion. Partly this could be on the premise that people like the innocent until proven guilty thing, but mostly they just want to always see light before they see darkness, which is understandable.

 

[gregrowlerson]

It doesn't have anything to do with that. It has to do with what the media is promoting, which is that today riders are clean.

If tomorrow the media began to promote the Clinic narrative, all of those people would instantly change their tune.

What is the media going to do? Say that the riders are not clean? Don't be ridiculous.

And what media? Since when have any cycling television commentators said, "You know, I think this guy is doping", when they haven't actually tested positive? Simply cannot happen.

 

[Bolder]

What is the media going to do? Say that the riders are not clean? Don't be ridiculous.

And what media? Since when have any cycling television commentators said, "You know, I think this guy is doping", when they haven't actually tested positive? Simply cannot happen.

Exactly. Either some independent news organization spends time and money on an investigation that pans out, someone leaks to the police or doping authorities, or a rider tests positive. Absent that, the "narrative" is simply a bike race.

 

[ppanther92]

Look over there? And yet Visma destroyed Gianetti's best laid plans the last two years. Its obviously an arms race. But a race requires more than one participant. Visma's conductors are just not as infamous yet still managed to conjure up the greatest time trial in history at the Combloux TT last year.

But the ketones…

 

[meat puppet]

I could not disagree with this more.

This forum is basically a cult when compared to the wider fandom of road cycling. The majority of fans probably didn't believe that anything was going on by the late 90's, and they definitely refused to believe that anything was going on late into the Lance era, and there's no reason to think they'd be willing to believe that anything untoward is going on now. The cycling fans who retort "those 90's epo guys", or "that lance Armstrong was the biggest cheat ever", are the majority of cycling fans, and they aren't necessarily just July ones.

Sorry, you are correct when you state "knowing is not the problem". Because most fans know the history, or enough of it. But it's just simple human nature to want to believe in the goodness of humans, most are unwilling to look in the mirror and accept that there is light and darkness within us (and hence others) and that there is nothing wrong with that.

I recall attempting to suggest to another cycling fan that LA may have been doping (probably around 2005), simply on the basis of how close he was to Pantani's ADH time, but there was no discussion. The majority of people won't allow you to have that discussion. Partly this could be on the premise that people like the innocent until proven guilty thing, but mostly they just want to always see light before they see darkness, which is understandable.

My remarks on knowing yet getting off on dominance were made in the context of this forum, which in my mind was obvious ("familiar with the sport" also includes history of the dark arts) but perhaps should have been emphasized more.

Digging the archives one could find many examples of such cases, but to me Gilbert's RVV win is among the best ones. His solo reduced the peloton to dust, cycling to winching, and yet it was somehow awesome in a non-sarcastic way.

In a wider perspective I guess it all boils down to whether (and how) an individual viewer can simultaneously hold onto the views that 1) in the past performances were indeed shady and yet 2) the contemporaries can nevertheless equal or in some cases exceed them. Or of one digs a couple layers further, whether races have a strong historical context at all.

As you say, different populations will square the circle via different mental operations, including what you referred to as wanting to believe (and thereby filling the gaps one way) and what someone else referred to as groupthink (having gaps prefilled, or filled more or less forcibly if one deviates).

 

[Mayomaniac]

The more money is involved, the less incentive there is to catch dopers.
The big money teams being protected by the UCI because they don't want to scare away their cashcows, that's totally plausible.

 

[saganftw]

The more money is involved, the less incentive there is to catch dopers.
The big money teams being protected by the UCI because they don't want to scare away their cashcows, that's totally plausible.

thats what they learned from festina and armstrong years, UCI - perhaps to their own shock or amusement - learnt that public actually doesnt care about doping at all, in fact catching armstrong and making cycling clean was a mistake

...so they pivoted to what other big sports do, dont bust biggest stars of the sport, keep appearances going, the value keeps growing - if im not mistaken the biggest star in past few years banned for doping might actually be Fernando Tatis, in NBA deandre ayton, i dont remember an NHL player being banned ever and NFL slaps a couple of games for mediocre players...i dont follow soccer much but i cant imagine its different there

its a clear recipe for success

 

[markene2]

The more money is involved, the less incentive there is to catch dopers.
The big money teams being protected by the UCI because they don't want to scare away their cashcows, that's totally plausible.

True, just remember the contador case was supposed to be covered up in exchange for cash according to testemonies, but the media got a hold of it first.

Ricco alleges that 44 other riders tested positive for CERA at the 2008 tour and it was covered up.

Ricco also added at the end of a interview 7 years ago which i find pretty telling since he was not asked about it:
“And can I add that I prefer chemical doping to motors? At least you have to have the courage to bet on yourself. With motors it’s another sport. I would never be able to use them. I’d feel like crap.”

Hamilton alleges the UCI covered up a positive test for Armstrong a tour de suisse.

Hamilton also says in a interview from 6-7 years back that he started hearing about moto doping back in 08-09, and heard from inside sources in the peloton that moto doping is in use by the biggest riders.

The former head of French Antidoping Jean Pierre Verdy also claims that 12 riders used moto doping in the 2015 tour.

I could go on and on.

Fastforward to now with high tech motodoping and a top of the line pharmasutical program blitzing all the climbing times by extreme amounts... of course its covered up, the sport would be dead.

So covering things up is pretty much buisness as usual

They should have cracked down on it in 2010 with Breschel and Cancelara, sent a strong message. Even when sky turned donkeys into tour winners. now its simply to late and ingrained in the sport, it cant be done without killing it.

Anywho, Pogacar and Vingegaard are bonkers, but its fun to watch Pogacar at least