Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[pastronef]

hope Pog goes to Spain and completes the Grand Tour hat trick in one season , it would really drive home how little the sport cares about doping

at least i don't have to watch half of Sky's team out climb all the other GC contenders mountain after mountain

you have to watch UAE team amd Pog outclimb ppl

 

[noob]

The more you listen to Lance the more you realise he was just a heaping vehicle of sociopathic ambition which Ferarri and Bruyneel carefully pointed in the right direction and pressed 'go'. Without these guys behind him he would be dropping pensioners in weekend triathlons, torturing wild animals and picking up coins off the side of the road for a living. The man is a moron. The Liz Truss of cycling.

If Ferrari and Brunyel was the one pointing him carefully in a direction what does it say about those two? Who can carefully steer a sociopath?

 

[repoman]

hope Pog goes to Spain and completes the Grand Tour hat trick in one season , it would really drive home how little the sport cares about doping

at least i don't have to watch half of Sky's team out climb all the other GC contenders mountain after mountain

UAE literally did that

 

[Can Racing Fan]

you have to watch UAE team amd Pog outclimb ppl

not even close to how Sky would have 1 or 2 guys pacing or with Froome ALL the way to the top of mountain , not to mention taking a track guy (Thomas) and magically turning him into a mountain goat

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

gotta realize this is Pog's 2nd GT in 3 months. And he is putting historical best climbing performances in.

Giro/Tour double used to be deemed impossible lol.

 

[Red Rick]

gotta realize this is Pog's 2nd GT in 3 months. And he is putting historical best climbing performances in.

Giro/Tour double used to be deemed impossible lol.

Because nobody great did it at their peak. Ive been saying this for years.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Giro is irrelevant

 

[repoman]

not even close to how Sky would have 1 or 2 guys pacing or with Froome ALL the way to the top of mountain , not to mention taking a track guy (Thomas) and magically turning him into a mountain goat

Depth of talent for UAE and Visma is way deeper than Sky at their peak.

 

[zlev11]

Because nobody great did it at their peak. Ive been saying this for years.

The numbers speak for themselves. The Giro is irrelevant

what about Contador in 2011? he was not even close at that Tour.

 

[pastronef]

not even close to how Sky would have 1 or 2 guys pacing or with Froome ALL the way to the top of mountain , not to mention taking a track guy (Thomas) and magically turning him into a mountain goat

magically. mountain goat ahah!
took G years riding and riding, 2 top15 TDF, Algarve, Paris-Nice and then in 2018 he beat Dumoulin at the TDF.

Pog, Vingo, LAnda, Remco, and all the top 15 of this TDF would dispatch every Sky rider. minutes

 

[Mac9]

gotta realize this is Pog's 2nd GT in 3 months. And he is putting historical best climbing performances in.

Giro/Tour double used to be deemed impossible lol.

Throw in a bout of Covid in between as well.

 

[Red Rick]

what about Contador in 2011? he was not even close at that Tour.

Hardest Giro this century, and crashed very hard in stage 1 leading to him only hitting a good level in week 3 while also having a random collapse.

Way I see it he was 1 crash and 1 bad day away from winning it.

If he had tried it in 2009 he would have easily done it

 

[Mayo from Mayo]

just watched the new LanceCast, it's clear they're all just butthurt because an American was on the receiving end today. i dunno if they would've reacted so strongly

Armstrong started this faux concern for Pogacar's reputation after stage 17. He's butt hurt that P's dominance is not getting the same level of scrutiny/questioning/criticism that he perceives he got. And as we all should know he probably got less,

 

[ashhutch1997]

Fairplay this has become unwatchable.

 

[Monoxidator]

Lance definitely had charisma as well, he had a huge personality, it just wasn’t a very pleasant one. He still has that steely eyed look and a face full of anger.

Pogacar is probably the most charismatic rider since then but in a much more playful innocent way. The fact that Lance was exhorting Pogacar to stop attacking to try and make it more believable and curry favour with other riders, media and fans, yet Pog just said sod that and produced another thermo nuclear attack, just show the different sides to their personality.

Lance was cold, cunning and calculated and he used the cancer as a shield. I don’t think Pogacar has that level of devious in him but he has the might of an oil state behind him. He is now too big to bring down as he could well be the only rider to transcend the sport since Lance.

Non Americans don’t have much potential to transcend the sport, because despite the sacking that American media has taken the last 20 years, it is still the most powerful shaper of the cultural zeitgeist. It's a big reason Lance transcended cycling and no one has done it since.

Sorry for the American exceptionalism, but Pogi will never be as popular with non cycling fans. He's not Tiger Woods, he's not Lance. Federer and Nadal never broke through either, despite their dominance.

UAE has an American on the squad (MacNulty), the most talented American since Lemond, but he's got no chance either. Just not good looking enough, no charisma. He lost to Sean Quinn in the US championships. No star power.

 

[zlev11]

Hardest Giro this century, and crashed very hard in stage 1 leading to him only hitting a good level in week 3 while also having a random collapse.

Way I see it he was 1 crash and 1 bad day away from winning it.

If he had tried it in 2009 he would have easily done it

yeah very good point about how hard that Giro was. this years route was super easy, it was almost like a warmup race for Tadej.

 

[Tim Cahill]

If Ferrari and Brunyel was the one pointing him carefully in a direction what does it say about those two? Who can carefully steer a sociopath?

Ferrari is an amoral savant, no interest in medical ethics but a genius all the same, I wouldn't be surprised if they were still calling him for advice today. He did appear on the roadside as a spectator in an autumn classic last season but the broadcasters didn't notice or make mention of it.

 

[zlev11]

Armstrong started this faux concern for Pogacar's reputation after stage 17. He's butt hurt that P's dominance is not getting the same level of scrutiny/questioning/criticism that he perceives he got. And as we all should know he probably got less,

say what you want about Lance but he knows what he's watching. if anyone knows what it takes to go 4 minutes faster than EPO dopers it would be him. he played that game with the best trainer in the sport and never even came close to going this fast. it's very possible he's annoyed by it but it's more likely for the clicks.

 

[ashhutch1997]

jose mourinho strikes again

https://twitter.com/x/status/1814047092769219033

View: https://x.com/mou55981652/status/1814047092769219033

Is it worth pointing out Jonas Vingegaard put over SEVEN minutes into Pogacar....

 

[SorelyBoy]

This carbon monoxide thing that rattled Pogacar when he was asked looks like it might have legs. The French media are going with it, and experts are saying the technique replicates the effects of taking EPO. And while it may not (yet) be illegal it is possibly incredibly dangerous and highly ethically questionable. It might not be the entire story of what they’re up to, but it’s probably a key part of it. Where there’s smoke there’s fire.

 

[repoman]

Is it worth pointing out Jonas Vingegaard put over SEVEN minutes into Pogacar....

Everyone put time into Pogacar from that stage. Pog cracked. They forgot his blood bag.
Vingegaard didn't decide to go full go kart and fly past the break to win the stage just because he could.

 

[Cookster15]

Is it worth pointing out Jonas Vingegaard put over SEVEN minutes into Pogacar....

We need to remember that was largely because Pogacar cracked. This year Vingegaard hasn't cracked yet looks like he will lose the Tour by a similar margin.

About Contador 2011, agree with @Red Rick . That edition Giro was super hard with way more climbing than this year. Contador also attacked everywhere. In the Tour Contador cracked twice. But was still 3rd in the stage 20 TT.

 

[Floatstick]

say what you want about Lance but he knows what he's watching. if anyone knows what it takes to go 4 minutes faster than EPO dopers it would be him. he played that game with the best trainer in the sport and never even came close to going this fast. it's very possible he's annoyed by it but it's more likely for the clicks.

I don't see the "he is just annoyed" angle. What LA is advising is how to AVOID motivating people to come after you for doping.

Even though he obviously knows how this works he isn't and I doubt ever will openly accuse a rider. Partly because he wants his media career to keep growing but also because he knows it won't change anything. If you think it would, run it by Landis.

 

[FrontHeadlock]

just watched the new LanceCast, it's clear they're all just butthurt because an American was on the receiving end today. i dunno if they would've reacted so strongly if it was someone else.

Well, he's hinted at this before.

In fact, he did this after Stage 11, where he noted that teams who planned for that hilly breakaway stage all year would be pissed that Pog needlessly turned it into a GC stage. Yes, Jonas beat him to the line, but Jonas never would have attacked on that stage in the first place.

Again, LA is taking the "Barzini" approach from the Godfather -- make sure the other five families can feed at the trough so that everyone is happy. Pog is a wheel length away from having a 5+ minute lead and FIVE stages with 2 winnable stages to go. Meanwhile, I guarantee you that no Visma fan is bothered by the fact that Jonas won only a single stage last year.

Granted people like different things, but outside of the pure sprint stages, which are kinda boring, it feels like entire damn Tour (and UCI calendar) is just all Tadej all the time constantly. As a tennis fan, it feels like how I've had to suffer through like 16 years of seeing Djokovic in every late round all the time. It's tiring and I watch a lot less tennis now because of it.

 

[Tim Cahill]

Rumours being spread by a few random twitter accounts about Novak, Almeida and Pogacar having taken a shadowy trip to Thailand in the winter for undisclosed doping reasons. Being dubbed 'The Thailand files'.

This is the kind of conspiratorial chat cycling messageboards used to live for, who could forget Digger/Hog and their deep dive into Froome's mysterious trip to Italy on a motorbike before La Vuelta in 2011.

 

[noob]

We need to remember that was largely because Pogacar cracked. This year Vingegaard hasn't cracked yet looks like he will lose the Tour by a similar margin.

About Contador 2011, agree with @Red Rick . That edition Giro was super hard with way more climbing than this year. Contador also attacked everywhere. In the Tour Contador cracked twice. But was still 3rd in the stage 20 TT.

Jonas didn't crack, he was just too late out of icu. The effect is similar though.