Tadej Pogacar and Mauro Giannetti

[SorelyBoy]

It's emotional blackmail. I'm only half kidding as well, i.e. think about it: Pog crushes Hautacam and people start to talk about him winning too much, then Politt goes full Polizei on the Ventoux stage and the peloton almost rebels. Pog afterwards says some people should shut up with their complaints and he starts riding around with a sourpuss expression, even throwing away wins almost flippantly.

I think there's a scenario here where Pog is a total narcissist tbh and doesn't just want to 'win', no, he wants adoration and people to act amazed at his exploits. Failure to do so (like complaining about how much he wins) = sulking Pog, ala Cristiano Ronaldo.

Either that or the Rozman story is deeper than we think and it's caused some ruckus in the peloton.

I definitely think there are simmering tensions at the top of the sport as regards Pogacar and UAE, a fair amount of fear and loathing. As regards what UAE are actually up to, it might only take one journalist to put it all together. Or for maybe some sponsors, worrying about what they're hearing and seeing and perhaps tired of their team not winning anything, to go to the UCI and threaten to pull out. It could all change with a quiet word to UAE to 'knock it off' or it might just all explode in everyone's faces. Sure, UAE might have the best lawyers and media management money can buy, but cycling is always just *this* far away from the latest scandal. It only takes one mistake, one person to blab and the whole house of cards could collapse.

 

[Venge 82]

Either that or the Rozman story is deeper than we think and it's caused some ruckus in the peloton.

I was exactly thinking the same thing. I mean the latter (Rozman). Not sure, but might backfire on Pog. As shared in another post, the network (Slovenian) is there.

 

[AlpRaid]

I also think the Carbon Monoxide thing is not over, just because they say it is.

some reports had it as not just a measurer of fitness, but a way to basically replicate the improvement provided by epo.

and there is no test. just teams saying they won't use it anymore. lol!

how do we know?

fact is, ever since they started using it, pog certainly looks like someone riding with that type of advantage over a peloton that is more prone to being affected by fatigue.

 

[daking123]

It’s a joy reading MOU’s twitter, something is definitely wrong.

 

[Extinction]

I thought Pogi was evasive and ridiculous (fake naivete) to the point of being awkward and embarassing (at least Lance was imperious) in this interview.

View: https://youtu.be/AXzpyShXvoM?si=Pmk-nL7GU61Cmyq2

 

[Cookster15]

In 2020 Pogacar was second youngest to ever win Le Tour at 21 years of age. Its reasonable to expect his level to be higher now at 26. He is probably very close to his peak. I notice the talk from Pogacar's camp has moved to claiming how long he can stay at his peak rather than further improve.

But I am not sensing simmering tensions in the sport or fear and loathing from rival teams about Pogacar - except maybe Visma who have been forced to eat humble pie two years in a row. Remco has been accepting of the gap.

When Pantani was caught after Madonna di Campiglio at the 99 Giro it was rumored people in the sport didn't like him threatening to win too much after he had won the Giro-Tour double the year prior. I am not sensing this about Pogacar in 2025?

 

[Red Rick]

I also think the Carbon Monoxide thing is not over, just because they say it is.

some reports had it as not just a measurer of fitness, but a way to basically replicate the improvement provided by epo.

and there is no test. just teams saying they won't use it anymore. lol!

how do we know?

fact is, ever since they started using it, pog certainly looks like someone riding with that type of advantage over a peloton that is more prone to being affected by fatigue.

I mean there's no reason to believe it went away unless they're doing night raids. As far as I know they're not testing for it, even thought it shouldn't be that hard to test I think cause it literally should be tested using the same stuff to give that stupid treatment.

 

[Extinction]

In 2020 Pogacar was second youngest to ever win Le Tour at 21 years of age. Its reasonable to expect his level to be higher now at 26. He is probably very close to his peak. I notice the talk from Pogacar's camp has moved to claiming how long he can stay at his peak rather than further improve.

But I am not sensing simmering tensions in the sport or fear and loathing from rival teams about Pogacar - except maybe Visma who have been forced to eat humble pie two years in a row. Remco has been accepting of the gap.

When Pantani was caught after Madonna di Campiglio at the 99 Giro it was rumored people in the sport didn't like him threatening to win too much after he had won the Giro-Tour double the year prior. I am not sensing this about Pogacar in 2025?

Right on Pantani, it was time to pavé the way for Lance, but who can Pogi pave the way for other than a Chinese superstar. But I don't see one on the horizon.

 

[Cookster15]

I mean there's no reason to believe it went away unless they're doing night raids. As far as I know they're not testing for it, even thought it shouldn't be that hard to test I think cause it literally should be tested using the same stuff to give that stupid treatment.

Thinking out loud, CO use would show up in blood profiles tracked by the biological passport wouldn't it? The out clause might be glow time so they would have to test within a certain time frame after CO was huffed - hence your reference to night raids. And I also think the CO method was tried by others wasn't it (Visma) ? If so, Pogacar's advantage isn't explained by CO inhalation.

 

[daking123]

I thought Pogi was evasive and ridiculous (fake naivete) to the point of being awkward and embarassing (at least Lance was imperious) in this interview.

View: https://youtu.be/AXzpyShXvoM?si=Pmk-nL7GU61Cmyq2

What a charming character /s honestly, I can’t tell the difference between his personality and Vingegaard’s. They’re both equally boring.

 

[Red Rick]

Thinking out loud, CO use would show up in blood profiles tracked by the biological passport wouldn't it? The out clause might be glow time so they would have to test within a certain time frame after CO was huffed - hence your reference to night raids. And I also think the CO method was tried by others wasn't it (Visma) ? If so, Pogacar's advantage isn't explained by CO inhalation.

Yeah the commonly cited pathway just has it induce hypoxia which should in turn boost Epo and then red blood cell production. So by that pathway alone, it is banned by the WADA code.

There's a lot of these things that aren't explicitly banned so then the discussion around "this is new is it banned yet?" is just really weird. What's most logical to me is that it's hard to catch someone red handed with this due to reasons, and if you have the best lawyers money can afford then the blood pasport isn't gonna stop you.

 

[SorelyBoy]

I thought Pogi was evasive and ridiculous (fake naivete) to the point of being awkward and embarassing (at least Lance was imperious) in this interview.

View: https://youtu.be/AXzpyShXvoM?si=Pmk-nL7GU61Cmyq2

Agreed. His face was frozen like a sphinx when he realised what the question was. Very uneasy. You could almost hear the wheels in his brain trying to remember what the lawyers told him to say. Interestingly he didn’t deny knowing the parties involved.

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

Yeah the commonly cited pathway just has it induce hypoxia which should in turn boost Epo and then red blood cell production. So by that pathway alone, it is banned by the WADA code.

There's a lot of these things that aren't explicitly banned so then the discussion around "this is new is it banned yet?" is just really weird. What's most logical to me is that it's hard to catch someone red handed with this due to reasons, and if you have the best lawyers money can afford then the blood pasport isn't gonna stop you.

CO use could be detected by elevated levels of carboxyhemoglobin, but the half life is short (about 5 hours under normal conditions), can be lowered by using concentrated oxygen (No idea by how much it would reduce the "treatment" efficiency), and it's naturally present at varying levels depending of the individual and external factors (wait till the athlete caught claims to be a heavy smoker or to have slept next to a malfunctioning water heater ). Seems like a potential headache to detect.

 

[AlpRaid]

Thinking out loud, CO use would show up in blood profiles tracked by the biological passport wouldn't it? The out clause might be glow time so they would have to test within a certain time frame after CO was huffed - hence your reference to night raids. And I also think the CO method was tried by others wasn't it (Visma) ? If so, Pogacar's advantage isn't explained by CO inhalation.

Maybe Visma was first. UAE starting 2024.

I mean after all the two aliens could probably put 20 minutes into everyone else if they wanted to.

It’s the lack of fatigue day in day out over a three week grand tour. Last year Pog did two in a row like that. Every day looking easy. Every single day looking fresh as a daisy as if he’s on a training ride. That’s what reminds me most of early EPO. It wasn’t just that certain riders started to over-perform on an individual day. It was that the true test of a three week tour was mitigated, because recovery was no longer being tested as much so a rider that normally would have a bad day or fall apart in the third week of a grand tour suddenly had no off days.

 

[Red Rick]

0 chance CO rebreathers is the most magical new sauce. It's pretty basic stuff, it's just another form of bio passport manipulation.

 

[ColonelKidneyBeans]

0 chance CO rebreathers is the most magical new sauce. It's pretty basic stuff, it's just another form of bio passport manipulation.

Yeah, they were already talks about this during the sky years iirc, no idea if they actually used it.

 

[noob]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AXzpyShXvoM


The extremely subtle shift in his eyes/face as they say "doping".

 

[thetdog666]

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AXzpyShXvoM


The extremely subtle shift in his eyes/face as they say "doping".

Tadej picks up alot of the slack about doping because he is in the yellow jersey. Let's be honest everyone is doing it. If tadej wasn't around everyone would be saying Jonas is doping.

Not sure if your remember Danilo Di Luca. Banned for life due to doping. Was a long time ago but he said 90% are doping in the giro. The other 10% don't care about the giro and are preparing for other races so arebt doping. I presume this is still the case.

 

[noob]

Tadej picks up alot of the slack about doping because he is in the yellow jersey. Let's be honest everyone is doing it. If tadej wasn't around everyone would be saying Jonas is doping.

Not sure if your remember Danilo Di Luca. Banned for life due to doping. Was a long time ago but he said 90% are doping in the giro. The other 10% don't care about the giro and are preparing for other races so arebt doping. I presume this is still the case.

Agreed

 

[Gianetti_Is_The_Goat]

Tadej picks up alot of the slack about doping because he is in the yellow jersey. Let's be honest everyone is doing it. If tadej wasn't around everyone would be saying Jonas is doping.

Not sure if your remember Danilo Di Luca. Banned for life due to doping. Was a long time ago but he said 90% are doping in the giro. The other 10% don't care about the giro and are preparing for other races so arebt doping. I presume this is still the case.

"I presume"

 

[bNator]

For good or bad he is not even close to Merckx.

Merckx was a doper

 

[SorelyBoy]

0 chance CO rebreathers is the most magical new sauce. It's pretty basic stuff, it's just another form of bio passport manipulation.

Again, no amount of doping or breathing CO or anything else that improves delivery and absorption of oxygen explains much of what Pogacar is doing. For example, the seated attacks that deliver huge accelerations on steep inclines - sometimes very steep inclines.

 

[Red Rick]

Again, no amount of doping or breathing CO or anything else that improves delivery and absorption of oxygen explains much of what Pogacar is doing. For example, the seated attacks that deliver huge accelerations on steep inclines - sometimes very steep inclines.

So much obsession with seated accelerations. Any of these guys can do 10W/kg seated, Pogacar is just naturally better at seated power than most and he's fresher than everyone.

And yes, there's probably a lot going on with peptides and intracellular doping as well. You basically have to upregulate intake of carbohydrates somehow because in scientific studies they basically find little evidence anything of going higher and higher being that great.

 

[DONCA]

Agreed. His face was frozen like a sphinx when he realised what the question was. Very uneasy. You could almost hear the wheels in his brain trying to remember what the lawyers told him to say. Interestingly he didn’t deny knowing the parties involved.

I had exactly the same thought.

You only have to look at his facial expression during the other questions and then his facial expression during the doping question.

He was frozen and just thought “***, now it's getting awkward, what do I have to say? what am I allowed to say?”

should i say again that i have no idea about carbon monoxide, even though i have taken it?

He contradicts himself in the very first sentence.
“I don't know anything about this case.” Then he says he has heard something about it. You can see how nervous he gets inside.
When asked if he knows Rozman well, he really starts to hesitate and think about what to say and then says he doesn't know him that well. Funnily enough, he grabs his nose right afterwards. Perhaps the best known sign in body language when a person is lying. Funnily enough, he also very often grabs his nose just before his seated attacks.

I wonder if it's no coincidence that Pog "gave" Ineos two stages after the case with Rozman became known.

 

[pelotonIQ]

When asked if he knows Rozman well, he really starts to hesitate and think about what to say and then says he doesn't know him that well. Funnily enough, he grabs his nose right afterwards. Perhaps the best known sign in body language when a person is lying. Funnily enough, he also very often grabs his nose just before his seated attacks.

I wonder if it's no coincidence that Pog "gave" Ineos two stages after the case with Rozman became known.

I don't see the logic you're trying to present. How is it connected to doping between Tadej and Rozman that Ineos got ''gifted'' two stages?