Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Salvarani]

Looking at PCS I think it's fair to say that Pogacar didn't stand out at all in a pretty untalented year of juniors. Loads of nobodies have won l'Avenir...

He was younger than them and he beat them with over a minute, with one of the weakest teams.

 

[E_F_]

He was younger than them

2nd place Arensman is literally younger than him.

 

[Salvarani]

2nd place Arensmann is literally younger than him.

Who has also done great as a pro and rode for one of the strongest teams.... looking at the GC you will realize it was a very strong edition, which even more showcases the talent of the rider winning.

 

[Barkintheeye]

One thing where pundits and analysts actually could try to do some qualitative analysis is on Pogacar's development between 2023 and this year.

In 2023 some of his major results were:
GDL #1: Solo attack 32K from finish, av speed 40,2 km/h 52 seconds before #2/3 vs 39,8 km/h in 2022 at a sprint
WC #3: outsprinted by WVA, MVDP on solo attack
TDF #2: 7'29" behind Vingegaard and 3'30" in front of A Yates
Fleche Wallonne #1
Amstel Gold Race #1
RVV #1: 16 secs before MVDP at an av speed of 40,1 km/h more or less the same as MVDP win this year
E3 Saxo: #3
MSR #4: 15 sec behind MVDP
Paris-Nice #1: 53 sec before Gaudu and 1' 39" before Vingegaard

In general a very successful season and world class performance by a solidly established 24 years old pro road rider already competing more than 5 years against serious opposition (since 2018). Now what to expect for 2024? New coach and a significantly stronger UAE team. Early career development could easily be some +5% capacity improvement per year, or may be even more. How does Pog 2024 stack up against Pog 2023?

Strade Bianche #1: fastest (40,3 kph) and most altimetres (3700) longest race (215K) since inception from a solo attack 81K out winning by 2'44"
MSR #3: Shut down on Poggio by MVDP otherwise a likely win
Volta a Catalunya #1: 3'41" in front of Landa
LBL #1: 1'31" in front of Bardet in a fast edition (40,9 kph) yet slightly slower than 2022 (41,4 kph) and 2023 (41,2 kph)
Giro #1: 9'56" in front of Martinez at the fastest edition ever (41,9 kph)
Tour #1: 6'17" in front of Vingegaard at the second fastest edition ever (41,8 kph)

Some power estimates suggests that Pog's improvements are in the possible range of "normal" and stemming from i.a. smarter training (motor pacing, Tabatha-intervals etc), better nutrition and some unspecified technical improvements (30 mm tyres?).

1. What yearly increase is reasonable to expect from a well-established seasoned world tour rider at the absolute top level?
[Possibly some 2-3% should be achievable and if everything would align perfectly maybe even as high as 5%?]

2. What is Pog's estimated increase in 2024 compared to 2023?
[My guess is well over 10%]

The massive improvement compared to the already strong performance in 2023 is the ONE thing that really sticks out. If adding Pog's exceptional recovery and really no signs of fatigue (despite UAE's decision to pull him out of the Olympics) it paints a familiar picture we haven't seen since Armstrong and Landis.

 

[Monoxidator]

All legends have a highly suspicious development because we can't really acknowledge their ceilling when they are 16-19 years old. What is the point of this conversation? Is he doping? Of course he is, just like everybody. The only question should be, is he using motor doping (and others don't)? This is the only reason I can find to this discrepancy of level. I don't think he uses so my only explanation is his genetics are way better than everybody else.

Fans of dopers always excuse their fanboyism by saying "They all are doping" but it's just not true. It's such a sick and evil mentality to throw accusations at other riders just in the cause of excusing your favorites.

A more accurate way of putting it would be that the first clean rider is probably someone that finished 15+ minutes down on Pogacar in the tour.

 

[Peyroteo94]

Fans of dopers always excuse their fanboyism by saying "They all are doping" but it's just not true. It's such a sick and evil mentality to throw accusations at other riders just in the cause of excusing your favorites.

A more accurate way of putting it would be that the first clean rider is probably someone that finished 15+ minutes down on Pogacar in the tour.

This made me laugh. You have no clue... you could say Pogi has better doping methods but claiming João Almeida, Landa, Yates, etc are clean is just naive.
Maybe in Merckx time, there were clean riders since most of them were amateurs but Merckx tested positive 3 times. Doping is like checking tyre pressure, everyone does on a daily routine.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

1. What yearly increase is reasonable to expect from a well-established seasoned world tour rider at the absolute top level?
[Possibly some 2-3% should be achievable and if everything would align perfectly maybe even as high as 5%?]

2. What is Pog's estimated increase in 2024 compared to 2023?
[My guess is well over 10%]

The massive improvement compared to the already strong performance in 2023 is the ONE thing that really sticks out. If adding Pog's exceptional recovery and really no signs of fatigue (despite UAE's decision to pull him out of the Olympics) it paints a familiar picture we haven't seen since Armstrong and Landis.

This is true, but also not just of Pogacar even though his jumps to be one of the largest. It might be a little smaller than the looks (not talking significantly here) maybe because last season didn't go as planned after the already brutally strong dismantling of VdP at the Ronde. He crashes, manages to blow himself up again at the Tour also, according to himself, not having the greatest of Forms. Maybe there was progress we didn't get to see. Add to that the new coach, if he's really much better that should also account for something.
But nonetheless the jump is to extreme to be explained naturally. But that's the case for many riders. The jump in overall performance, and in performance spikes by the best riders, according to watts2win e.g. is absolutely *** staggering. Like they went into a specific time capsule to train with normal time going slower. But this isn't Dragon Ball but professional sports, so I guess that possibility is out of the window.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Fans of dopers always excuse their fanboyism by saying "They all are doping" but it's just not true. It's such a sick and evil mentality to throw accusations at other riders just in the cause of excusing your favorites.

A more accurate way of putting it would be that the first clean rider is probably someone that finished 15+ minutes down on Pogacar in the tour.

That would be 4th place Almeida from the same team, followed by Mikel Landa of Evenepoels team.
Both have shown incredible improvement as well, as well as being like 20 minutes faster than Buitrago in 10th place.
And the data shows that 9th Place G needed a performance higher than peak Froom to do so.
It's not a search for an excuse to point out that a lot of riders must be doping, it's the same arguments that hold for Pogacar, just that he happenes to be the one who comes out on top, and has shown the highes peak of performance know so far in cycling history.

 

[Stablo]

Two things:
(1) which sports would that be and who are we talking about? LIke knowing their ceilings especially. How would you even do that?
(2) so your assumption seems to be whoever is very very good in an early age should be seen as a generational talent, and some who are generational talents don't make it, while other not so generational talents outperform them .

Not what I was writing or trying to use as an example. Im was talking abt the talents in other big sports, but maybe its because the talents are more scouted and found out earlier in the truly big money sports. I mentioned some example names on my post a few days back and yes they were truly standing out of the competition/masses from(early) teenage years. They didnt start super dominating and obilirating very talented competition only after joining a very shady team or program.

But well maybe cycling is an anomaly in the sporting world, cause the case of Poggie is not the first time this kind of bs is happening🙏🏼

Just to mention some names: James, Jordan, Messi, Ronaldo, Cheptegei, Kipketer, McDavid, Gebreselassie, Bolt and many many others. None of them made a super leap in performance compared to the other juniors/their peers after joining pro ranks. The level of how much they were better than the other "lesser" talents had always been there. But like I said cycling seems to be different in that case. In the right team and if you get the right "circumstances" around you, crushing everyone else seems to be possible,
even if you had never done that before. This applies on Vingegaard and many others too.

Like I said before, this season from Poggie has just been such a huge outlier(like never before) and I couldnt stay silent anymore and just blindlessly enjoy the "ride" 🤮😤 Armstrong, Froomie and some others also pissed me of, but not this much. I also think its very bad for the sport I love.

Edit. Anyway all this goes beyond the point I have been trying to make and it is that Poggie, UAE, Gianetti&Co pushed the program to unseen levels this year and its sickening.

 

[Monoxidator]

This made me laugh. You have no clue... you could say Pogi has better doping methods but claiming João Almeida, Landa, Yates, etc are clean is just naive.
Maybe in Merckx time, there were clean riders since most of them were amateurs but Merckx tested positive 3 times. Doping is like checking tyre pressure, everyone does on a daily routine.

I'm not claiming that Landa and Yates are clean, I don't know the time gaps by memory ... did they finish more than 15 minutes behind Pog? I would say likely all the UAE and VLab riders are dirty, Landa certainly is, and Remco too. Derek Gee's been discussed ad nauseam. Maybe the gap is 30+ minutes I don't know. But 30 minutes is bigger than 15 so 15+ is accurate cheers.

 

[Psycat]

Regardless being compared to Eddie etc is not a sign of being innocent of doping, in fact id argue it's very much an indicator that someone is doping considering he did. In addition to being caught several times he certainly used stuff that's classified now.

 

[Salvarani]

Fans of dopers always excuse their fanboyism by saying "They all are doping" but it's just not true. It's such a sick and evil mentality to throw accusations at other riders just in the cause of excusing your favorites.

A more accurate way of putting it would be that the first clean rider is probably someone that finished 15+ minutes down on Pogacar in the tour.

Lol, how do you decide who is doping or not? Or can decide a breaking point? The rider who finished +15 minutes down might be on heavy stuff as well, just to be able to finish +15 minutes down from the guy on the same stuff.

I would say a majority of the pro peloton is on something. Like most who are doing elite and professional sport are probably on something. They are all using or trying different methods to get an advantage over competitors to improve their performance. Either by using illegal and banned stuff or new stuff that nobody knows or is prohibited yet. It is very much a grey area in that regard. Everyone says it is not healthy to be a pro or elite.

But to go hard at just one rider or any athlete is the most corny thing you can do imo.

 

[Stablo]

I'm not claiming that Landa and Yates are clean, I don't know the time gaps by memory ... did they finish more than 15 minutes behind Pog? I would say likely all the UAE and VLab riders are dirty, Landa certainly is, and Remco too. Derek Gee's been discussed ad nauseam. Maybe the gap is 30+ minutes I don't know. But 30 minutes is bigger than 15 so 15+ is accurate cheers.

This all might well be true. My opinion just is that Poggie&Co has something new or better program wise than the others. Just like Lance and some others had in their days. The difference in talents, genetics and training are not that big, as the difference in performances, we have been seeing the whole ridicilous season from Teddy. It should be the quite opposite. On level playing field he wouldnt be beating this current field like he has now been doing. The performance levels are de facto ridicilously high and he makes the competition look like amateurs all season long. Not normal so so far from it.

If we dont talk about the absurd power numbers, then its the complete lack of exhaustion and fatigue compared to the other star riders, who are obviously huge talents too.

 

[Saint Unix]

It's important to note that doping in the 60s and 70s has very little in common with oxygen vector doping, and so Eddy's doping crimes are not the same as your favourite post-90s doper's doping crimes. EPO can turn random pack fodder into race horses. No amount of 60s and 70s gear could ever make the guys who either sucked out loud at the tail end of the pro peloton or languished in the backwaters of the lower divisions for years on end suddenly become serial winners like Riis, Chiappucci, Ugrumov, Hamburger, et al, nor were those substances able to drag fata*ses like Indurain up climbs faster than anyone ever before him. Winning elite races took elite talent, drugs or no drugs, until EPO.

 

[Nick2413]

The talent argument is impossible. Pog was successful enough at a young age there’s no doubt he has great genetics, but impossible to say whose genetics are the best. And doping starts earlier and earlier these days, any teenager could be on a program by 17-18. As far as being a worldbeater I’d much rather it be him than someone with no results until early-mid 20s, but the truly most “talented” could well be a no-name who for whatever reason never got on a good program or responded poorly.

 

[repoman]

This thread is really attracting Pogacar fanboys

 

[repoman]

Is anyone else sort of weirded out by Pogacars actual physical appearance? In that he does not look like an elite athlete/cyclist. His legs lack the muscle tone that you see on basically every other rider and in general he looks sort of 'skinny fat.' Lacking in that sort of sinewy high% lean muscle mass/high vascularity body type that basically every pro-cyclist has.

Something I've always found a bit odd.

 

[Low is rhe new high]

This thread is really attracting Pogacar fanboys

It’s still 7 w/kg for 40 min. Pogacar is the goat among the already exposed o , whatever the talent he had at 17. The fanboys has to live with that.

 

[Monoxidator]

Is anyone else sort of weirded out by Pogacars actual physical appearance? In that he does not look like an elite athlete/cyclist. His legs lack the muscle tone that you see on basically every other rider and in general he looks sort of 'skinny fat.' Lacking in that sort of sinewy high% lean muscle mass body type that basically every pro-cyclist has.

Something I've always found a bit odd.

I believe I've seen research that says absolute athletic performance degrades below a certain body fat % and injury risk is increased. Obviously there's variability here for different genetics etc. I think for cyclists who have to climb mountains this degradation is offset by the increased w/kg ratio of being ultra lean.

The theory I've seen is that when you're too low body fat % then your body won't let you go as deep into your reserves as when you're in a more normal range. This may be trainable though.

It does bother me when people with physiques like Indurain are called "Fatass" though .. by no means was he a fatass. I think cyclists have a very unhealthy correlation between weight and so-called "fatness" and they aren't remotely similar. Abrahamson (who may well be a dirty doper himself for all we know) gained 20 kg famously and his performance improved dramatically ... but obviously he didn't gain 20kg of fat ... most all of that is muscle and increased height. I think he said he grew like 8 cm once he stopped starving himself.

 

[Rechtschreibfehler]

Not what I was writing or trying to use as an example. Im was talking abt the talents in other big sports, but maybe its because the talents are more scouted and found out earlier in the truly big money sports. I mentioned some example names on my post a few days back and yes they were truly standing out of the competition/masses from(early) teenage years. They didnt start super dominating and obilirating very talented competition only after joining a very shady team or program.

But well maybe cycling is an anomaly in the sporting world, cause the case of Poggie is not the first time this kind of bs is happening🙏🏼

Just to mention some names: James, Jordan, Messi, Ronaldo, Cheptegei, Kipketer, McDavid, Gebreselassie, Bolt and many many others. None of them made a super leap in performance compared to the other juniors/their peers after joining pro ranks. The level of how much they were better than the other "lesser" talents had always been there. But like I said cycling seems to be different in that case. In the right team and if you get the right "circumstances" around you, crushing everyone else seems to be possible,
even if you had never done that before. This applies on Vingegaard and many others too.

But is that truly the case? In Football e.g. the number of youth prospect who make pro is very small indeed. So with the first step they make a step beyond most of their peerage of the youth system. Actually a lot of players who are far better at a certain age than ohters in football often don't go on to be dominant at all, or even pros. He'll we can't even predict with certainty that Jamal is going to be one of the greats. Gebreselassie eg. also showed the first result of note at 17 and was yout WC at 19. That's too late if l'Avenir doesn't count for Pogacar e.g. to serve as a part of the sample.
My issue is that you talked about prediction of all time greats when they are juniors, but your method seems to go the wrong way around. Of course in hindsight everything good or outstanding at young age will be interpreted as an indication of their later greatness. It overlooks, I assume, all the other very good competitors that showed signs of greatness when they were young, but didn't make it. Because if we talk predictions we need to go the info we have before they get great.

Like I said before, this season from Poggie has just been such a huge outlier(like never before) and I couldnt stay silent anymore and just blindlessly enjoy the "ride" 🤮😤 Armstrong, Froomie and some others also pissed me of, but not this much. I also think its very bad for the sport I love.

Edit. Anyway all this goes beyond the point I have been trying to make and it is that Poggie, UAE, Gianetti&Co pushed the program to unseen levels this year and its sickening.

I agree that Pogis season is another step up for what seemed possible. But the peaking all year thing was already done by Froome which everybody atm seems to forget about.
For me last years TT was the point where I thought: all right now everything is possible again it seems. And done by a rider with a less believable progression than Pogacar, who outdid himself by quite a margin this years Tour as well, and that after very severe injuries. Personally I can't get myself to be more annoyed by UAEs progression than Vismas total dominance as a team last season e.g., and I don't think the doping issue is adressed in the proper way when the focus is only on who's the most successful, because someone is gonna be most successful. The entire field has made a jump this season it seems, atleast it did at the Tour. To just focus on single riders seems to me akin to closing ones eyes to the general issue, that it definitely looks like the sport is back where it was (or always has been) before the "slow" era. I think only in Lances case that was somehow legitimate because he was much more than a usual doper, but got protection from UCI and there was an actually conspiracy benefiting him.

Btw. when it comes to being annoyed by Froome and Sky. The "Brits don't dope" thread existed in this forum. Check it out I remember it to be pretty hilarious stuff.

Brits don't dope?

You see this quite often being wheeled out implicitly in the media (Harmon etc), by fans, riders etc. 'Britain doesn't have a culture of doping, unlike Europe.' 'In Britain people play by the rules' 'I'd be crucified if I doped so I would never' And variations on this theme -...

forum.cyclingnews.com

 

[Psycat]

It's important to note that doping in the 60s and 70s has very little in common with oxygen vector doping, and so Eddy's doping crimes are not the same as your favourite post-90s doper's doping crimes. EPO can turn random pack fodder into race horses. No amount of 60s and 70s gear could ever make the guys who either sucked out loud at the tail end of the pro peloton or languished in the backwaters of the lower divisions for years on end suddenly become serial winners like Riis, Chiappucci, Ugrumov, Hamburger, et al, nor were those substances able to drag fata*ses like Indurain up climbs faster than anyone ever before him. Winning elite races took elite talent, drugs or no drugs, until EPO.

Might be true but he still doped, just with what was available to him back the. Stands to reason current "generational talent(s)" would do the same in order to dominate a much more competitive playing field to almost the same degree.

My point is simply that one can be both a great talent and a dope and the former does not excuse the latter. But of course there are always nuances, and I suppose that's the question. How much more dope does Teddy do than your average top 10gc dude(not on his team).

Granted id argue that ideally they should do zero, all of them.

 

[Floatstick]

My point is simply that one can be both a great talent and a dope and the former does not excuse the latter. But of course there are always nuances, and I suppose that's the question. How much more dope does Teddy do than your average top 10gc dude(not on his team).

I think winning GCs takes both of those as well as several other things.

"Great talent" is a pretty wide umbrella. I think a rider's mental state is a big part of it, his dedication to training and diet, how he responds to coaching and his director, bike handling, etc. Lots of things that doping can't really help.

I think also that beyond just doping methods (or "how much") is how a rider responds to the methods. It seems that some riders perform pretty well despite some of their physiological metrics being on the low side for a pro rider. VOmax, hematocrit level, and OBLA are ones I have seen mentioned the in the past. The theory I have read is that riders who do well despite not having world class numbers for these continue that follow that curve when PEDs are used to improve them.

In modern cycling the definition of "generational talent" has to include being a generational responder to doping.

 

[Stablo]

But is that truly the case? In Football e.g. the number of youth prospect who make pro is very small indeed. So with the first step they make a step beyond most of their peerage of the youth system. Actually a lot of players who are far better at a certain age than ohters in football often don't go on to be dominant at all, or even pros. He'll we can't even predict with certainty that Jamal is going to be one of the greats. Gebreselassie eg. also showed the first result of note at 17 and was yout WC at 19. That's too late if l'Avenir doesn't count for Pogacar e.g. to serve as a part of the sample.
My issue is that you talked about prediction of all time greats when they are juniors, but your method seems to go the wrong way around. Of course in hindsight everything good or outstanding at young age will be interpreted as an indication of their later greatness. It overlooks, I assume, all the other very good competitors that showed signs of greatness when they were young, but didn't make it. Because if we talk predictions we need to go the info we have before they get great.

I understand what you mean. On the other hand I was talking about the greats of other sports, which Poggie now clearly is in cycling(and imo with the help of some over the top medical assistance). Almost all the greats where still known from a young age, even if some prospects never made it, but on the highest level, talking about generational talents, I dont remember many who didnt actually make it to the highest level of the sport in question.

An example from ice hockey, not 1:1 comparable to cycling but anyway. McDavid was considered the next great one from early juniors, he was naturally drafted as number 1 pick when he became of age and now he has been arguably the best player on the world for years. The second pick that year was Jack Eichel also known from early juniors, a very good player, but his never going to be close to McDavids level. Sports world is full of same kind of examples. But in cycling it just seems to be different, like I have said. In this story McDavid is Evenepoel, hyped as the best talent in ages/a generation and Poggie is Eichel 😆😂 yet somehow in cycling the Eichel got so much better than McDavid that he cant even touch the level of Eichel anymore. Like he is all the sudden so far a head, with the development leap and curve that its very weird and funny.
(Last part of the example was half kidding but also half true, cause the difference really should not be this big in the advance of the "Eichel" of cycling😁😉)

Other part of your message I agree with.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

I understand what you mean. On the other hand I was talking about the greats of other sports, which Poggie now clearly is in cycling(and imo with some over the top medical assistance). Almost all the greats where still known from a young age, even if some prospects never made it, but on the highest level, talking about generational talents, I dont remember many who didnt actually make it to the highest level of the sport in question.

An example from ice hockey, not 1:1 comparable to cycling but anyway. McDavid was considered a the next great one from early juniors, he was naturally drafted as number 1 pick when he became of age and now he has been arguably the best player on the world for years. The second pick that year was Jack Eichel also known from early juniors, a very good player, but his never going to be close to McDavids level. Sports world is full of same kind of examples. But in cycling it just seems to be different, like I have said. In this story McDavid is Evenepoel, hyped as the best talent in ages/a generation and Poggie is Eichel 😆😂 yet somehow in cycling the Eichel got so much better than McDavid that he cant even touch the level of Eichel anymore. Like he is all the sudden so far a head, with the development leap and curve that its very weird and funny.
(Last part of the example was half kidding but also half true, cause the difference really should not be this big in the advance of the "Eichel" of cycling😁😉)

Other part of your message I agree with.

Pogacar won his 2nd Tour de France while still being 22 yo. He's the 2nd youngest TdF winner and the youngest ever double TdF winner. If you think his development is too late then feel free to question all champions in cycling history.

BTW: I absolutely realize that when cyclists join top teams they get a good training (and good doping) program. Not only Pogacar OFC.

 

[noob]

Just like clinic comments isn't allowed in the main forum how about not spamming the clinic with fandom rivalry? 🙄

This clinic enthusiast just been drowning in fanwars for 5+ pages. Like 🙃