Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[Rackham]

This is how I feel reading this thread

Nah. I don't see how anyone can be 'salty'... because there's no fight. There's no rivalry. It's just annihilation. I mean maybe just maybe under a certain set of conditions Vingegaard can challenge Pog in the Tour and VdP can challenge Pog in some monuments... but let's be real here, this guy is in his own little world.

Pog 2024 demolishes Pog 2023. The jump in his level.. has been extraordinary. His win in Lombardia yesterday made his performance last year look human. That's why we need to be careful throwing names like Vingegaard around in these convos now as well... because based on what we've seen this year there's absolutely no guarantee Vingegaard will ever challenge Pog again in France. Pog is that good.

FYI Vingegaard cannot complain either, not after that sh*t he pulled in Combloux. But... yeah, it's a brave new world of cycling now in which Pog is head & shoulders above everyone else - all year long.

 

[Casual cyclist]

I guess in this case it's more likely to be mechanical than chemical as there would be no need to spend long periods out of competition.

Exactly. Everything, and I mean everything about this Pog fellow's performances, especially this year, points to this very conclusion. Indeed, doing what looks like 500+ watts for long periods while looking relaxed, chatting with cameramen, goofily smiling, not sweating, i.e. behaving like someone who is doing 250W tops. And for the whole season with no breaks, to boot, as you noted. Biological engines simply do not work that way, whether chemically enhanced or not.

 

[AmRacer]

Exactly. Everything, and I mean everything about this Pog fellow's performances, especially this year, points to this very conclusion. Indeed, doing what looks like 500+ watts for long periods while looking relaxed, chatting with cameramen, goofily smiling, not sweating, i.e. behaving like someone who is doing 250W tops. And for the whole season with no breaks, to boot, as you noted. Biological engines simply do not work that way, whether chemically enhanced or not.

He had a long break after the Tour.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Nah. I don't see how anyone can be 'salty'... because there's no fight. There's no rivalry. It's just annihilation. I mean maybe just maybe under a certain set of conditions Vingegaard can challenge Pog in the Tour and VdP can challenge Pog in some monuments... but let's be real here, this guy is in his own little world.

Pog 2024 demolishes Pog 2023. The jump in his level.. has been extraordinary. His win in Lombardia yesterday made his performance last year look human. That's why we need to be careful throwing names like Vingegaard around in these convos now as well... because based on what we've seen this year there's absolutely no guarantee Vingegaard will ever challenge Pog again in France. Pog is that good.

FYI Vingegaard cannot complain either, not after that sh*t he pulled in Combloux. But... yeah, it's a brave new world of cycling now in which Pog is head & shoulders above everyone else - all year long.

At the Tour at least we knew that Vingo had subpar preparation so it would've been closer otherwise. But those recent races...absolute annihilation and yesterday was the scariest of all. After casually doing 6.8 w/kg on the climb Pogi has more in store and comfortably cruises at 400+ watts on flat/hilly terrain while Remco and co are dying behind. It is like only a crash can beat Teddy. Looking from perspective his WC attack was really risky and stupid - he would've crushed the rest with an attack 2 laps to go but it almost seems like he wanted a bigger challenge.

As for the next year I believe Visma-LAB will challenge Pog at the Tour. They were strong in preparation this year but very unlucky (with Vingo but also with Wout). It will be the clash of the mutants for ages, if they avoid crashes OFC. Pog, as the current Tour champion, will be #1 fave though. Other than Vingo at the Tour it's possible that none will be able to challenge Pog elsewhere (unless he decides for PR).

 

[Raest]

He had a long break after the Tour.

So did Evenpoel though. And yes one could argue that Pogacar did a better job of mainting form than Evenpoel but the problem is that Evenpoel's drop in form is the norm. The peak-form period, in any sport, lasts a short period of time and cannot achieved multiple times a year. And this is true for aerobic and anaerobic-based sports. To use an analogy from sprinting, Bolt wasn't running 9.6s throughout the track season.
The conventional wisdom was that a good spring (in cycling) would mean a bad Tour but possibly a better Vuelta or Worlds, a good Tour mediocre Worlds etc.
Pog has garbaged this conventional wisdom as he's been in ridiculous form since March pretty much. That's another novelty, that goes against most of what is known about training and preparation.

 

[Krzysztof_O]

Pog has garbaged this conventional wisdom as he's been in ridiculous form since March pretty much. That's another novelty, that goes against most of what is known about training and preparation.

TBH Pog has been in ridiculous form since the Tour (but had a long break after it). As for the first part of the year...his form was ridiculous by his competitors standards but pretty average but his 2024 standards.

 

[shadowrider]

He is the best at everything. Doping, Talent, Panache, Charisma, Show and that's why he is the GOAT. Wasn't Merckx caught 3 times on a positive anti doping test? And he is still recognized by some people as the best ever.

In that period, almost all topriders were caught (mostly amfetamines). Just one toprider was not caught (or did not use doping ?) : Roger De Vlaeminck. The result was that the sanctions were ridiculously low. But today, nobody no one gets caught anymore. And certainly not the top ones.

 

[Ripper]

Reading this thread and posts at the moment, lets be real 80% of it is just people beeing salty and mad cause Pogacar beats everyone by a landslide and is so much better than everyone thats it, at least thats what I get from most of this this vs that nonsense going on not all though. Rarely productive post of substance or objectivity at least.

But why would people be salty? I certainly don't feel salty.

I do see signs that suggests something strange is afoot. Not only the winning margins being what they are, but biomechanics and physiological responses that defy "normal".

Quite frankly, I don't like dirty sport. So when it's patently obvious, it catches attention for those who are open to see it.

As for method (s), a few have been hypothesized. There's the motor concept ... something incredibly hard to believe would actually happen, but would certainly explain a lot of things that are being observed. I have no expertise in motors, it would seem on one hand impossible and on the other who knows. As for medications and drugs, we tend to only find out about the latest methods after the fact. Gene EPO has been in research mode for considerable period and it is challenging to believe this would be at play, although it certainly could explain the full season nuclear dominance. When it comes to biological methodologies, I am more inclined to suspect some form s**t mix of blood doping and TUE abuse.

 

[Extinction]

Because the Clinic was made to spread knowledge and discuss respectfully about PED's, trying to find some answers to alien performances and how are they riding so fast (in this case Pogacar). But now, it's just a competition to see who screams louder "Doper", at least in this thread. Why are you questioning the reason I am here? Why are you not asking the same to those 2 or 3 haters who don't add nothing to this thread? (no talk about new PEDs, Pogacar's physiological ability and he improved so fast). Every race they are here saying "Doper, rides for dirty Matxin/Gianneti" I have every right to be here, this is not the Pogacar's Depreciation Thread but it seems sometimes.
Edit: you are here since 2010. Can you not see the difference between users like The Hitch and those who write here? The difference in knowledge, new information, medical content, etc?

It's not about screaming who is more doped, but the economic (UAE) and historical factors (Gianetti-Matxin) as to why such dominance is intolerable. Of course, it has been this way for decades, but destroying the sport for personal vindication, because you have the financial resources and clout, is apalling.

 

[Ripper]

It's not about screaming who is more doped, but the economic and historical factors (Gianetti-Matxin) as to why such dominance is intolerable.

Very true.

To quote some other posters, pogger is also the GOAT at riding for a corrupt team

 

[Tricycle Rider]

Dracula Gianetti

Dracula, or if he had some balding blonde hair maybe Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, how perfect for this Halloween Season!

 

[peterfin]

Reading this thread and posts at the moment, lets be real 80% of it is just people beeing salty and mad cause Pogacar beats everyone by a landslide and is so much better than everyone thats it, at least thats what I get from most of this this vs that nonsense going on not all though. Rarely productive post of substance or objectivity at least.

For data-driven assessments check the 'power data estimates for the climbing stages' thread. Feel free to add substance to that discussion. I am all ears for somebody who can explain his performances within physical limits.

 

[SorelyBoy]

All this nonsense is as unsustainable as it’s unbelievable. People, who want to believe in fairytales, will of course say there’s no proof of anything untoward. But the performances themselves, in comparison with the best of the rest (world class athletes one and all), are proof enough of something being very wrong here. Especially when one considers both the sheer consistency, the apparent lack of physical attrition even at the end of ridiculously long solo efforts, and when crushing true generational talents like Evenepoel. Morally of course, it is repugnant, but more than that it is killing the sport. There is someone playing God Mode and without any real competition, and people will become disillusioned and uninterested. To quote a famous movie, ‘First there’s the oohing and the aahing, then the running and the screaming.’ When that happens, the sponsors and tv channels will offer less lucrative terms, if not disappear altogether. And cycling, professional cycling, will be facing an existential crisis. As it is, some people are at least starting, inevitably, to pay attention:
‘Tadej Pogacar has delivered an alternative reality for the true believers’ | Jonathan Liew
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...lity-for-the-true-believers?CMP=share_btn_url

 

[Casual cyclist]

He had a long break after the Tour.

Oh, that. Let's see. There were no big enough races between the Tour and Lombardia. For some political reasons, they decided to skip the Vuelta (possibly, to leave that GT treble as "future goal") and the Olympics (we are not buying that "Urska" explanation, are we?). That break also allowed Pog to say that he felt "destroyed" after the Tour (yeah, right). But honestly, do you believe that he would be unable to win the Vuelta by an arbitrary amount if he went there and raced the same way -- and using the same means -- he did in the Tour or during the last two weeks? Me too.

 

[Rackham]

At the Tour at least we knew that Vingo had subpar preparation so it would've been closer otherwise. But those recent races...absolute annihilation and yesterday was the scariest of all. After casually doing 6.8 w/kg on the climb Pogi has more in store and comfortably cruises at 400+ watts on flat/hilly terrain while Remco and co are dying behind. It is like only a crash can beat Teddy. Looking from perspective his WC attack was really risky and stupid - he would've crushed the rest with an attack 2 laps to go but it almost seems like he wanted a bigger challenge.

As for the next year I believe Visma-LAB will challenge Pog at the Tour. They were strong in preparation this year but very unlucky (with Vingo but also with Wout). It will be the clash of the mutants for ages, if they avoid crashes OFC. Pog, as the current Tour champion, will be #1 fave though. Other than Vingo at the Tour it's possible that none will be able to challenge Pog elsewhere (unless he decides for PR).

I'm only posting in this thread because of yesterday tbh. What I saw was quite straightforward: Pog had his usual approach to Lombardia. Aka he peaked again yesterday after Emilia. But whereas last year he was beatable in Emilia a week before Lombardia, this year that 'slightly lesser' version of Pog in Emilia was still at such a level he could demolish everyone. And then... he demolished everyone even more yesterday when he once again had his Lombardia peak.

It's like there's a graph now on which Pog crushes everyone when he's in okay shape building up towards a main objective.. and then embarrassingly crushes everyone when he's peaking. And he peaks multiple times a year.

It's otherworldly.

 

[Divergence]

He literally could've just followed the wheels. He went out of his way to beat Pellizari, given he won 6 stages, he lacked a bit of class that day.

Such BS. You win everything you can.

 

[AmRacer]

Oh, that. Let's see. There were no big enough races between the Tour and Lombardia. For some political reasons, they decided to skip the Vuelta (possibly, to leave that GT treble as "future goal") and the Olympics (we are not buying that "Urska" explanation, are we?). That break also allowed Pog to say that he felt "destroyed" after the Tour (yeah, right). But honestly, do you believe that he would be unable to win the Vuelta by an arbitrary amount if he went there and raced the same way -- and using the same means -- he did in the Tour or during the last two weeks? Me too.

He didn't want take any risk losing Worlds.

 

[Casual cyclist]

I'm absolutely sure these people exist. I shared a guardian article the other day by Jonathan Liew from after the WC. He basically argues that, yeah you can ask questions, you can even go down the rabbit hole of all the details on climbing times, watts per kilogram etc., but still come out of there an decide for yourself: yes, he is clean! It's the nicer reality to live in.

So if he can convince himself of that after he read enough details and arguments, who is gonna stop someone who is oblivious to any of this from believing he is clean?

Also: don't we live in the "cleanest" era of the sport, by positive tests standards? So how can he be doped?

That the jump in performance doesn't make sense, that the pure numbers don't make sense by standards once believed to be the limits of possible performance, that history teaches us some lessons and that EPO records are being broken. Only one thing, the records, will reach anyone who doesn't asks the question to begin with. But there are ready made answers for this: better nutrition, better training methods, better equipment. Doesn't matter that these are the same answers that were already given in Lances days (and probably before as well). What they achieve is that there is alsways an aesthetically and morally more pleasant narrative that is being supported by facts (there's some developement in all of these aspects always) and by being held up by the cheerleaders.

I think a view from the clinic is a very warped view of how Pogacar is perceived generally. Outside of cycling fan cycles I've hardly read any comments by anyone asking questions. And if it happened these questions were dismissed by others by the standard narrative (better science, better food, better tech).

It's also not very likely that the UCI will do anything about it any more, or the teams, because the lesson learned from last time was - and I am pretty convinced this is the case - that it's just not worth it. You can fight doping, maybe even effectively for a while, untill new products come in and the race starts anew. But you will only be punished for it as a buisness and as a sport, without any material reward what so ever.

So this might be the new normal for a long time, just like Sky was in it's dull and terrorizing, yet not as absurdly dominant, way.

Well, I actually went ahead and read that Guardian article by Jonathan. First, it looks like he said as much as he could afford to say, even liking the current "UAEed" version of procycling to WWE (if that's not a dead giveaway, what would be, in an "official" article at least?). So I would wager he does not believe that "talented clean rider" story for a second. His conclusion though is hyperpessimistic and postmodernistic (Heideggerian and well beyond) to the extreme. In a nutshell: there is no objective truth but only a personal choice what myth ("fiction") to live in. And to top it off, the objective truth searching direction represented on this forum, in particular, is labeled "profane and fearful" sending a message of sorts as to what flavor of postmodernist "fiction" is preferred by the system these days.

 

[Casual cyclist]

If it really was an electrical motor in his bike - it should be possible to find out.
Get some guys with good IR cameras on the climbs. Or to make a PhD project out of this, electrical or machanical engineering. Let some grad student optimize an IR camera for exactely that purpose.
Or at some point someone will simply get hands on on of the bikes. However he is doing that.

Good point. However, as I already noted, it appears this year they went from a good old small cylindrical shape brushless motor to a system distributed along the length of the lower half of the seat tube (the portion "hugging" the rear wheel of those Colnago bikes). So the heat dissipation looks to be better which, in particular, allowed them to deploy it at will not waiting to those cold rainy days that everyone knows "Poggi likes." Thus the IR radiation is bound to be not that intense as well. But it would still be detectable with good enough equipment, no doubt. Let us imagine a group of truth-seeking enthusiasts that designed a sensitive enough IR radiation detection system and obtained images of Pog's bike glowing at races. What next? It is possible to make a youtube video demonstrating these images. Let us assume it gets sufficiently many views so that it catches attention. Then it would simply get "debunked" on official channels and waved away as "photoshop" or anything else of this kind, for example. In the worst case, those official channels might invite a "renowned expert" who would "debunk" those images with even more authority. So, at the end of the day, it would be another theme of discussion on a forum like this one and might convince a few people currently "on the fence" between just big doses of chemical doping and motors.

 

[dr.eve]

Because the Clinic was made to spread knowledge and discuss respectfully about PED's, trying to find some answers to alien performances and how are they riding so fast (in this case Pogacar). But now, it's just a competition to see who screams louder "Doper", at least in this thread. Why are you questioning the reason I am here? Why are you not asking the same to those 2 or 3 haters who don't add nothing to this thread? (no talk about new PEDs, Pogacar's physiological ability and he improved so fast). Every race they are here saying "Doper, rides for dirty Matxin/Gianneti" I have every right to be here, this is not the Pogacar's Depreciation Thread but it seems sometimes.
Edit: you are here since 2010. Can you not see the difference between users like The Hitch and those who write here? The difference in knowledge, new information, medical content, etc?

Its my opinion that everyone has every right to question anything in cycling when one considers cycling history. And especially when someone commits himself to the likes of Matxin and Giannetti.

I do not know if Pogacar is doping, like all of us don't. But I am not convinced he's clean 100%. And for me the main reason is his team, Matxin and Giannetti, this will never change for me as long as he rides for those two. I do not understand why these two are even allowed to be there. And secondly I do not understand why a person like Giannetti gets a podium in media without any critical question, at least he gets that type of positive attention in the Dutch media.

That you don't like people here expressing their doubts, in whatever way, albeit some people do it in words no thought of so well. But is that really a problem? I am happy there is this community here where this is possible.

I have been reading this forum for years but never ever making an account or replying. Only now I have done so since I do think whatever is happening in cycling right now is worrysome, if, and its a very big if, pogacar is a doper, it will be bad for the sport to say the least. And every race since the giro I am more and more thinking this may be a possibility.

Apart from Matxin and Giannetti there is one thing I can not understand completely. The way Pogacar has been able to have peak performances in march, april, may, july, september and october. Sure bigger rest/training periods where there in June and August. But I have never ever seen pro cyclists succeed in having so many peak moments in a year, his little one off during the tour this year most likely was due to his confidence and not eating enough. Anyway, I always thought this to be physically impossible. Sure I considered it possible for someone to win all through the year... but with the amazing dominance like we have seen? With the freshness and composure displayed? I can not explain it. And please don't come with the childish GOAT terms... I want to see competition, I absolutely do not care about any type of GOAT.

But in the end, if he's clean and just that good it's not Pogacars fault and I can understand it's annoying that several cycling followers doubt him if he is clean. But hey, that also comes with being the absolute best in the display he puts out there...

 

[dr.eve]

I don't know if many here have read about the pre race (lombardia) interview with Pogacar where he talks about doping and why would you do it risking your health. I thought this was suprising to see considering what Giannetti did.

If Pogacar is so serious about no doping he would simply not ride for Giannetti, period. It is really that simple.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Such BS. You win everything you can.

Its called politics, history shows that's not the case, Lance Armstrong would regularly 'gift' the yellow jersey and stages away, often to French riders to get on side with the French media. UAE don't very often let brakes get away, overtime this will frustrate other teams, and they will suffer from their greed. Look what happend to Pantani in the 1999 Giro when he got greedy and took the piss out of his rivals or when Armstrong got greedy and made a comeback. History shows greedy riders get punished.

 

[E_F_]

Such BS. You win everything you can.

I would argue the way to do that (certainly if you're cheating) involves considering how much you can get away with.

 

[peterfin]

I would argue the way to do that (certainly if you're cheating) involves considering how much you can get away with.

UAE's win rate and dominance this year (by Pogacar of course but also in general) shows they have no fear at all of getting caught. They must know that all possible doping tests (biological or mechanical) will be negative and that the risk of being caught outside the system is negligible. This raises the question of involvement by regulators. It also means that they need to have full confidence and control over the 'club' within the team that 'knows'. I wonder who knows. If all the riders know it, that would be a risk. Maybe it's only a handful. I have no doubt that training, eating, material etc are top at this unlimited budget team and that this helps to get the best riders in the best position to score also.

 

[ashhutch1997]

Do you guys think that motor doping is actually being used? I just refuse to believe it.