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Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

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Still not sure what to make of all this (season '24).
Sure, somtimes there are exceptional talents, simply one class above anybody else ("anybody"still all talented, professional athletes)
Usain Bolt, Armand Duplantis, Jonathan Edwards, Tiger Woods....

But then there is this massive jump in W/kg, most obvious at this year's TdF. Not only Pogacar, but many riders.
So yes, it seems there is some "new stuff", but still difficult to believe that Pogacar is the only one on it. Or is he on something "extra on top"?
 
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I mean they're always gonna be tweaking things. And I do actually believe they also improve some non doping things, like better time trial preparation, no LBL crash, nutrition in relation to not bonking like Loze again.

But to make a quantum leap improvement you really gotta take something you already know that works and just ramp it up to the maximum.
There are tweaking things and TWEAKING things. I mean, you're gonna tell me (whoever this may be) that we improved nutrition, got the race feeding right, didn't crash, worked more on TTing, lost 2 kili and voila', now we have reached "perfection", insofar as this has any meaning until next year. Remember it was the best version of Pogacar, but also the best numbers Vingegaard put up too. Did the crash cause all of the time Vingegaard lost by this year? It was like Tadej had been messing with everyone until this year and then turned on the afterburners and left them all in the dust. Just when they thought they had a chance, he burried them.
 
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There are tweaking things and TWEAKING things. I mean, you're gonna tell me (whoever this may be) that we improved nutrition, got the race feeding right, didn't crash, worked more on TTing, lost 2 kili and voila', now we have reached "perfection", insofar as this has any meaning until next year. Remember it was the best version of Pogacar, but also the best numbers Vingegaard put up too. Did the crash cause all of the time Vingegaard lost by this year? It was like Tadej had been messing with everyone until this year and then turned on the afterburners and left them all in the dust. Just when they thought they had a chance, he burried them.
The large trend is just dope number go up up and up and that's why Vingegaard does his career best numbers on Plateau de Beille. At the same time I still think he would have done better in the Tour without his Itzulia crash because crashes like that aren't good for your performance.

It should give an idea how much is slight tweaks and how much is just upping the dose.
 
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With everything that happened this year, it's very easy to forget what Visma did in 2023. What they achieved with vingegard and kuss was absurd, they were so much stronger than the top GC riders in the world that they could let their domestique win a grand tour.

The time trial to combloux was at the time the most obviously rocket fueled performance I had ever seen. They took the p*ss out of Pogacar in that tour, and they took the p*ss out of us fans the whole year.

Gianetti, maxtin, Pogacar probably realized that they could go even further with their programe, even more ridiculous than Visma in 2023, and as long as Pogacar is attacking , people will eat it up and not question.

Visma with Roglic/Vingegard and UAE with Pogacar have been playing the same game against each other since the return to racing in 2020, with a nice little preview at the 2019 vuelta. It snowballs each year.


I hope soon that the elastic snaps.
 
I really don't know. I know it can't be just because of doping.
You can absolutely not know it. You're here only promoting the UAE:s pr narrative of somesort of super metabolism that apperead after he joined the team. And it even got so much better all the sudden this year. If you take 10k pro athletes, there's not going to be one invidual with hugely superior lactate clearance or what ever marginal ganes kind of narrative they're trying to sell, to give us a believable explanation.
 
Not so sure about that, in the UK for example the popularity of the sport has been declining for a few years now. Especially in the ametur racing, numbers are worryingly low especially in the youth races, compared to 10 years ago. I know the cost of living has a lot to do with it of course.
Judging by social media comments, people are already getting fed up with his dominance and predictability.

The numbers of racing in the UK has more to do with the cost of it. Road racing has been dying for a while due to cost of policing it and trying to get volunteers for it. We as a club have tried for a while and it's a pain. Even TT's are slowly dying. The levies etc are just mad.
 
If you take 10k pro athletes, there's not going to be one invidual with hugely superior lactate clearance or what ever

Why not?

If we look at bodybuilding, where they can use all the drugs they want, it's easy to find guys that were vastly superior to the rest. Ronnie Coleman, Phil Heath... they weren't using anything different from everybody else and they were still much better for several years. Even to this day they're considered much better.

Whatever Pogacar/UAE are doing is not that different from Visma. Pogacar just responds better to whatever they are doing.
 
You can absolutely not know it. You're here only promoting the UAE:s pr narrative of somesort of super metabolism that apperead after he joined the team. And it even got so much better all the sudden this year. If you take 10k pro athletes, there's not going to be one invidual with hugely superior lactate clearance or what ever marginal ganes kind of narrative they're trying to sell, to give us a believable explanation.
I don't think Pogacar has a clear better program than everyone else and you are trying to sell he is getting a free pass to full dope when others aren't allowed too and that explains this gigantic gap.
 
Why not?

If we look at bodybuilding, where they can use all the drugs they want, it's easy to find guys that were vastly superior to the rest. Ronnie Coleman, Phil Heath... they weren't using anything different from everybody else and they were still much better for several years. Even to this day they're considered much better.

Whatever Pogacar/UAE are doing is not that different from Visma. Pogacar just responds better to whatever they are doing.
Spot on. Had to be a portuguese woman to make this wonderful post.
 
Look at Usain Bolt. All the other 20 fastest 100m runners of his era were all busted at some point. Bolt always skated clean. Like you can't be serious.
Some are just more natural gifted than others. How is that new. Why I didnt win the Tour. Pogacar is the best talent/ natural gifted since Merckx and even above him, the guy won TDF at age 20. Just enjoy the show.
 
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